The Threshold of Change

East Germany has condemned the midi as unsocialistic, but the women of Warsaw and Wroclaw have taken to it with a vengeance. In the shipyards of Gdansk and Szczecin, long hair pokes out from under the green hard hats of younger workers. All over Poland, Communist Party youth clubs reverberate to the latest rock sounds. To be sure, the scene in Cracow is vastly different from the one in California, and when a young Pole talks about turning on, he is probably referring to Radio Warsaw's Third Program, which features hits from the West. A quarter-century after a war in which every fifth Pole perished, Poland is on the verge of transition.

Politically, the generation of traditional and dedicated Communists who have clustered around Party First Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka, 65, may soon be giving way to young leaders epitomized by Stanislaw Kociolek, who at 37 is the youngest Vice Premier in Europe. Economically, the country, after three years of frustrating stagnation, is about to make its first departure toward more efficient industrial management. Culturally, Polish writers, dramatists and movie makers, who in the late 1950s knew a brief period of relatively untrammeled creativity, are hoping for greater artistic freedom.

Empty Symbol. Chastened by centuries of dealing with more powerful neighbors, the Poles have no intention of changing their relationship with the Soviet Union. There is no prospect of a euphoric Prague-style Springtime of Freedom that would unnerve Moscow. The Communist Party may be faulted and occasionally even ridiculed, but its paramountcy is not seriously questioned. On the private level, Poles enjoy the right of criticism, which they exercise with a relish, but they also realize that in politics boundaries do exist and that by Western standards they are rigidly confining. In spite of these limitations, a kind of controlled effervescence characterizes much of Poland. Reports TIME Correspondent Burton Pines, who spent about six weeks touring the country:

Warsaw is still dominated by the hideous 38-story Palace of Culture, Russia's gift to Poland, but its Stalinist style has become an empty symbol. Downtown Warsaw, with its shiny new glass-and-steel buildings and wide sidewalks, exudes freshness and openness. The women of the major cities are completely attuned to Western fashion; Warsaw's Moda Polska fashion house sends its designers to Paris and London showings. Despite the advent of the midi, the mini is still in vogue. Even Warsaw policewomen wear minis, serving as reminders that the Polish leg can be as well turned as any in Europe. Student cabarets, such as Cracow's Piwnica Pod Baranami stage political satires lampooning government bureaucracy and inefficiency.

Perhaps nowhere is the look and outlook of the country as youthful as in the Western Territories, the once German area east of the Oder and Neisse rivers that was awarded to Poland after World War II. Before the war, 7,600,000 Germans occupied those lands; now there are perhaps 100,000. The Bismarck Mausoleum still stands on a hill overlooking Szczecin Harbor (the German name was Stettin), but Germans removed the Iron Chancellor's body after the war. Today, the structure stands as an appropriately empty reminder of past Prussian power. Since the war, millions of Polish settlers have populated the Oder-Neisse territories, turning them into a bustling, productive region. Now 30% of Poland's industrial output and nearly half of its grain come from the new lands. "Take them from us and you cripple us," a Polish economist said. A poet from Zielona Gora put it more lyrically: "This was wild West, our Klondike, this was our melting pot."

Helpful Endorsement. Only two years ago, Poland was gripped by repression. In a challenge to Gomulka's leadership, Mieczyslaw Moczar, the former secret police chief and leader of the party's wartime partisan veterans, is believed to have provoked student demonstrations and then crushed them in a show of his power. Gomulka undercut Moczar by stealing his thunder: he cracked down on dissenters and intellectuals. Many artists and professors lost their jobs. Gomulka sanctioned a campaign against Polish Jews, who were denounced as Zionists disloyal to Poland, for their criticism of Warsaw's support of the Arabs in the 1967 war. As a consequence, an estimated 10,000 were forced to emigrate.

After he reconsolidated his position with the help of a public endorsement from Soviet Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev, Gomulka, who was himself once a victim of Stalinist terror, eased up. Some discharged intellectuals got their jobs back, and the anti-Semitic campaign subsided. Though censors still control Poland's press, the newspapers have resumed fairly frank discussions and make limited constructive criticism of government policy. The Lodz cinema studios recently turned out a new film that depicts Jews as brave and loyal Polish citizens. Poland's two experimental theaters, Jerzy Grotowoski's Theater Laboratorium and Henryk Tomaszewski's mime company, once again operate without much party interference.

Meatless Mondays. The party observes an uneasy cease-fire with the Roman Catholic Church, which commands the nominal spiritual allegiance of 95% of Poland's 32.4 million people. Even party members pop over to another town, where they are not known, to get married by a priest and have their children baptized. The party also handles gingerly the country's private farmers, who operate 3,500,000 separate holdings. After attempts at forced collectivization, which contributed to Poland's near revolt in 1956, the regime has allowed relatively free scope to the farmers. Many of them have become rich by Polish standards. "We could nationalize the private farms tomorrow," a ranking Agricultural Ministry official explained, "but then we would have no tomatoes and no flowers. These crops require more initiative to raise than the state farms can provide."

Polish planners realize that they must increase private incentive throughout the entire economy. Despite the glitter of the major cities, much of Poland reflects Socialism's noncaring dinginess. Mondays remain meatless. Long queues of shoppers extend from stores when supplies of scarce fruit and butter arrive. Salaries are low. The average worker earns only $75 per month, and though rents are low, housing space is cramped.

Political Fallout. A new economic plan, which goes into effect Jan. 1, aims at redirecting Poland's economic energies into more dynamic and profitable industries. Under the plan, factories are required to finance 80% of their own expansion from profits, so that only the ones producing high-quality and wanted goods will be able to grow. Polish workers, whose wages have had little connection with the quality of their performance, will now be given bonuses for extra achievement. At the same time, plant managers will be given a greater voice in setting production goals.

Unlike the Hungarian economic reform, the Polish plan has a major weakness in that it does not move far enough toward a market economy and gives central planners in Warsaw veto rights over production quotas. Some Western observers believe that Warsaw conservatives will stifle the plan in fear that the economy is moving out of their grasp. But most Poles remain hopeful. Some even believe that the plan could have important political consequences. "Certainly you cannot have economic reforms without some political reforms," says Mieczyslaw Rakowski, 44, editor in chief of the authoritative weekly Polityka. Rakowski, a candidate member of the Central Committee and a protege of Gomulka, believes that Poland is ready to enter into a stage of "limited democracy." He explains: "By limited democracy I mean more room for discussion within the Communist Party, perhaps even two Communist parties, each presenting its men for election. But I do not mean the development of a party system permitting anti-Communist candidates to run for office."

Rebirth of Spirit. Such concepts will undoubtedly remain only theoretical proposals so long as old Moscow-oriented conservatives, who still have deep anxiety about Western plots and the latent power of anti-Communist forces in Poland, have a decisive influence in policy. But the rising generation of Poles shares few of these phobias. Younger Poles, including even officials, are also far less concerned with doctrinaire ideology. "If you tried to win an argument by quoting Marx," a young Warsaw lady said, "you would be laughed out of the room."

Perhaps the most common characteristic among Poland's young is that they share a strong sense of national pride. They believe that Poland is a vital part of Western Europe in spite of the overwhelming presence of Russia to the east. They feel a stirring of national pride each day at noon when the state radio broadcasts a single prolonged trumpet blast. It commemorates the watchman who stood atop St. Mary's Church in Cracow and spotted the Tartars invading from the east. He sounded his horn in warning until felled by a Tartar arrow.

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