Risky Freedom

The good news at Poland's second largest daily, Trybuna Ludu (circ. 503,000), was announced in a curiously muted fashion. "Comrades," Editor in Chief Jozef Barecki told his staff recently, "we have been informed about the abolition of publication control in Trybuna Ludu. Censorship [is now] limited to military matters. This means greater responsibility for each of us. We appeal to you for particular carefulness in your work." No longer will every page of Trybuna Ludu--the official organ of the Polish Communist Party--require the stamp and initials of a censor before going to press.

This change reflects an unannounced decision by party leaders to abolish censorship gradually throughout the Polish press within ten to 15 years. The only other publication presently affected is Polityka (circ. 300,000), a weekly regarded as one of Poland's most sophisticated journals. Though the regime of Edward Gierek has been relatively benign toward the press since coming to power in 1970, Warsaw obviously is in no mood to go very far in liberating journalists--or even to give the impression that it might do so. That could stiffen resistance among conservatives at home and set off alarms in Moscow. Thus the news of the partial easing of censorship in March was not published in Poland.

Though billed among journalists as a reform, the change has made many newsmen fearful. At least eight prominent Polish editors, including a number of liberals, have privately expressed their concern. Without censors they will have to police themselves and will be accountable for published stories that offend authorities. "The old system is fine," says Foreign Editor Stanislaw Kosiarski of Zycie Warszawy. "There was no need to think about what was allowed and what was not allowed." Another editor says that censorship has not been so bad: "A censor reacts to certain taboo words and phrases. As long as you can make your point without using those particular giveaway expressions, you'd be surprised what you can get past him."

But the two editors thus far affected applaud the move. "The old form of censorship had outlived its usefulness," Barecki says. "We are now making press control more rational, more practical, more flexible." Polityka Editor in Chief Mieczyslaw Rakowski agrees. Polityka has run one article--an expose of abuses in a provincial party organization--that the weekly's former censor says he would definitely have vetoed. Other pieces might also have encountered difficulty.

A number of overt restrictions remain, of course, even with the two uncensored papers. All Polish editors know that they must not print stories criticizing state and party leadership, or "allies"--that is, the Soviet Union. They cannot question Communism as the wave of the future or divulge information about trade negotiations between Poland and other countries. These restraints will probably remain even as other Polish papers are freed from the prior scrutiny of party censors.

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