Gierek: Good Will Is Not Enough

After Wladyslaw Gomulka's 1970 ouster as Communist Party Chief, following a disastrous series of riots over food prices, his successor came to power on a wave of popular good will, a man of the people who would change things. As gregarious and outgoing as Gomulka was dour and withdrawn, Edward Gierek began meeting directly with workers to hear their complaints. Time and again he asked: "Will you help me?" Delighted with his down-to-earth style, the workers shouted back: "We will."

Gomulka flirted briefly with liberalization after he was named party boss in 1956, but then clamped a repressive lid on the country. Initially Gierek delivered on many of his own early promises, allowing Poles freer access to Western cultural influences and more opportunity to travel abroad. "For the first few years, the quality of life improved markedly in Poland," recalls one Western diplomat who served in Warsaw. "He enjoyed a measure of support that transcended anything during the Gomulka years." But by the mid-1970s, things began finance sour under Gierek too, as the country went heavily into debt to finance his ambitious but ill-fated plans for industrial modernization. Gierek began depending on an old Communist standby, exhorting people to work harder, produce more. When Pope John Paul II gave a speech extolling the virtues of hard work on his return to Poland last year, one young listener remarked: "He sounds just like Gierek."

People still speak of Gierek as honest, sincere, a "good man." But more and more, Poles have come to view him as a well-meaning incompetent, mechanically committed to a Communist system that cannot solve the country's considerable problems.

That is a sorry comedown for a leader who always had a reputation for getting things done. As Party Secretary for Upper Silesia, Gierek was noted for being ready to fight central authorities in Warsaw to gain benefits for his workers; under his tenure they enjoyed the highest standard of living in the country. Gierek came from a coal-mining family, and his father, grandfather and an uncle all died in mining accidents. In 1923, after his father's death, Gierek's mother took him to France, where at the age of 13 he began Communist in the mines; a few years later he joined the French Communist Party. Expelled from France in 1934 for taking part in a strike, Gierek later went to Belgium, where he again worked as a miner and served in the Resistance during World War II.

Back in Poland in 1948, Gierek rose rapidly through party ranks, in part because of his reputation for toughness. When student riots broke out in 1968, Gierek warned that those who opposed the regime would have their "bones broken." Nonetheless, he also gained a reputation as a pragmatist who would try to look at a problem and find a practical solution that he could fit into Communist ideology.

Gierek, 67, is a man of strong moods and quick temper. He likes his vodka, an holds it well. He still speaks French fluently, and rarely misses an edition of the Paris daily Le Monde. A natty dresser, Gierek insists that his white who be washed by his wife Stanislawa. "She is the only one who knows how to make them look good yet soft," Gierek answered when relatives do that the wife of Poland's leader should not have to do laundry. And for all of Gierek's devotion to Communism, his aged mother has remained a devout Catholic. One crack making the rounds during the Pope's visit: "Gierek hopes to make the Pope a Marxist; Gierek's mother hopes the Pope will make Gierek a Catholic."

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