Gierek: Building from Scratch

Poland's Communist Party Chief Edward Gierek arrives in Washington this week for an eight-day state visit, bringing with him a reputation as one of the East bloc's shrewdest leaders. Since 1970, when dock workers' strikes over high food prices brought him to the head of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party, Gierek has overseen booming economic development and the evolution of the Warsaw Pact countries' most politically permissive society. Relying heavily on foreign credits (and risking what he hopes will be temporary trade deficits), Gierek has purchased huge amounts of Western technology and capital equipment in an effort to create viable export industries. Though the country's stan dard of living remains far below that of the West and even below that of neighboring East Germany, Poland has sustained a growth rate of 12% a year under Gierek, while the average national in come has risen a respectable one-third since 1970, from $825 to $1,100.

Gierek has shown great flexibility in ideology and politics. Poland, in fact, since the Stalinist days when it was a dispirited Soviet satellite, has turned into a rather un typical socialist state. Private farm ownership is tolerated, ordinary citizens are comparatively free to travel abroad, and churches are packed on Sundays -- all made accept able to the Soviet Union by internal stability and a close adherence to Moscow in foreign policy.

Unlike his predecessors, Gierek has tried to avoid an open battle with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, to which more than 90% of all Poles be long. Western books and periodicals are readily available on Warsaw's news stands, while even such capitalist cultural phenomena as the Rolling Stones and avant-garde theater groups have been invited to Poland, where they drew capacity crowds.

Gierek is unique among Communist leaders: he lived for many years in the West, and he comes from a genuinely proletarian background. The son of a mine worker who died when Gierek was four, he worked in French and Belgian coal mines from the age of 13 until his early 30s. He returned to Poland after World War II, where he quickly became active in the party. In 1957 he was named first secretary of the party in Silesia, where he gained a reputation for protecting the interests of miners and other industrial laborers. When worker unrest threatened to wreck Communist rule in 1970, Gierek, who clearly spoke a common language with workers, was a logical choice to succeed Wladyslaw Gomulka and save the tottering party.

Last week Gierek met with TIME Correspondents William Rademaekers and Gisela Bolte in his office on the third floor of the labyrinthine Central Committee building in Warsaw. Nattily dressed in a steel blue suit, white shirt and matching tie, Gierek seemed relaxed and sure of himself as he discussed the problems of Poland and the world. His views:

ON POLAND'S FUTURE: One should perceive Poland's present and future in the context of efforts we have made in the past 30 years. This effort was tremendous. More than 6 million Poles were killed in World War II; 40% of our property lay in ruins. Also it should be remembered that during the war Poland lost most of its intelligentsia. These past years have really been difficult ones, a period of belt tightening and building, building, building from scratch. The only country that came to our assistance with concrete, tangible help was the Soviet Union, and I am not saying this as a Communist, but as a Polish patriot. Now Poland ranks tenth in the world in terms of industrial output. But at the same time our country has a lot of shortcomings and some neglect in its infrastructure. We are now working to overcome these difficulties.

ON CHURCH-STATE RELATIONS: One can be a good Catholic, like most Poles, and be an active participant in the construction of a socialist society at the same time--as most Poles are. We have never considered the church a challenge to the Polish Communist Party or our system, and in fact the church has never tried to endanger the system or the party. We, on our part, have never tried to endanger the church. In both our practice today and our endeavors for the future, we will not attempt to minimize the role of the church in Poland. It is a basic assumption of our government that the church is a substantial force in this nation [that] can participate in keeping moral values and virtues that are common to all people irrespective of their faith.

ON EUROPE'S PROPOSED SECURITY CONFERENCE: I personally believe that this conference will constitute a major step along the road to detente. If everybody wants this conference to convene, and I believe everybody does, we should all work on ways to convene it as soon as possible at the highest possible level.

ON "BASKET THREE" OF THE CONFERENCE AGENDA: We are all for it "free movement of peoples, ideas and information across borders". We do not have any reason to be afraid of anything that would flow from the West here except perhaps for some things that we think are wrong, things of a moral nature, such as drugs, etc. For example, what would happen if several thousand streakers decided to come to Warsaw and run naked here? That would be an insult to our morality. I am not sure that the Catholic faithful here in Poland, of whom there are a great number, would not beat these people up.

ON MEETING POLISH AMERICANS: In principle I do not assume that I will hold any such meetings while in the U.S.; this is a state visit. Naturally, if Americans of Polish extraction would like to meet with me, then the pleasure is all mine. I will surely encourage them to visit Poland as often as possible, to come and see what has changed in this country. In other words, while being good Americans, to have some sentiment for the country of their forefathers.

ON RELATIONS WITH THE U.S.: We have our opinion fixed about Americans. We know the way they are. We respect them. We know your industriousness,' your supreme efficiency and organizational skills. In this respect, one can make some comparisons between you and the ancient Romans.

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