A New Party Boss Takes Charge

By Thomas A. Sancton

As a few strikes persist and workers launch free unions

The three-room flat in a crumbling pre-war building in central Warsaw normally houses a family of five. Last week it was suddenly transformed into the bustling headquarters of Warsaw's new independent trade union. Day after day, a steady stream of workers flowed through the kitchen to sign up for membership. In the back bedroom, beneath a photograph of Pope John Paul II, workers sat at a round table discussing union organization with intellectuals and lawyers who had volunteered to advise them. The commotion did not bother Stanislawa Runowska, 68, a round-faced woman who lives in the flat with her daughter and three other relatives. "It is all for the good of the Polish nation," she explained with a smile. "We are patriots."

Similar scenes were taking place elsewhere in the country as workers scrambled to form the independent unions they had been promised by the government in a series of extraordinary strike settlements. Negotiated separately in Gdansk, Szczecin and Jastrzebie, the accords had ended the country's major strikes after two months of labor turmoil. Now the workers were seeking the fruits of their hard-won victory. In Gdansk, the union headed by Lech Walesa, leader of the Lenin Shipyard strike, was already operating out of its new headquarters in the busy Baltic port. In the capital, faculty members of Warsaw University were organizing a teachers' union. The Szczecin-based board of the Polish seamen and dockworkers was planning to submit a motion of secession from the party-controlled Central Council of Trade Unions (C.R.Z.Z.).

Such mass defections threatened to reduce the government's official labor organizations to empty administrative shells. Seeking to avoid that eventuality, newly installed C.R.Z.Z. Chairman Romuald Jankowski called for sweeping reforms aimed at turning the existing bodies into "independent and self-governing organizations for working people." He appealed to workers to remain in the old unions, elect new leaders, and "help us change our policy."

But few workers seemed willing to renounce the right to create their own unions. On the contrary, scattered strikes broke out in more than a dozen factories as skeptical workers demanded assurances that the major agreements signed elsewhere also applied to them.

Against this backdrop of simmering unrest, Poland's new party boss, Stanislaw Kania, moved to restore public confidence in the government and the party and shore up the disastrous economic situation that had sparked two months of upheavals. Kania, 53, had been chosen at an emergency Central Committee meeting on Sept. 5 to replace the ailing Edward Gierek. A medical bulletin last week described Gierek's condition as "improving," following a reported heart attack. After his first week in power, Kania remained a largely unknown figure to most of Poland's 35.4 million citizens. But if Kania lacked the broad popularity that Gierek had enjoyed upon taking office nearly ten years ago, he had some decided advantages over his predecessor. While Gierek had built his political base in Silesia, Kania, whose party responsibilities formerly included internal security, had spent most of his career as a Warsaw apparatchik--a man who knew the party administration from the inside and was trusted by his colleagues.

More important, Kania was able to build on something Gierek had lost: Moscow's confidence. In a cordial letter of congratulations, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev praised Kania as a "staunch Communist" firmly committed to "the inviolable friendship with the Soviet Union" and to the "leading role of the Communist Party." Behind the praise lay the clear expectation that Gierek's successor would preserve the party's supremacy in Poland.

Kania outlined his policy in an address to the Central Committee shortly after his appointment. He promised to honor the strike agreements, but pointedly warned "antisocialist elements" not to exploit the situation for their own ends. He traced the labor upheavals to legitimate grievances over the party's "serious economic mistakes." He pledged to restore public trust through bold economic reforms and even suggested that the party might adopt a form of collective leadership in order to improve its efficiency. But he was careful to stress Poland's unshakable loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet alliance.

The new leader also pursued conciliatory themes during a two-day visit to Gdansk and Katowice. Televised excerpts of his speeches gave the nation its first close-up view of the dark-haired, heavy-set politician. Speaking in a deep, quiet voice, Kania declared in Katowice that the only kind of "force" that could stem the workers' discontent was "the strength of confidence, the power of the party's bond with the masses." On the crucial question of labor organizations, Kania said he preferred the principle of "unity"--meaning the monopoly of the party-controlled unions--but would respect the new independent labor organizations. One public hint of his reputed toughness was a call to "fight resolutely against those [advocating] positions inconsistent with socialism," an apparent allusion to dissident intellectuals as well as potentially troublesome workers.

Despite Kania's talk of moderation and reform, doubt remained about his intentions. His freedom of action was limited in any case by the dilemma he had inherited from Gierek: repudiation of the agreements would spark renewed labor upheavals, yet the establishment of truly independent unions would irk Moscow. For the present, he seemed to be feeling his way, seeking a balance between the workers' expectations and the Kremlin's imperatives.

Describing the quandary facing the leadership, Central Commitee Member Mieczyslaw Rakowski told TIME: "For the party, this was a huge shock. These changes should be carried out by the party. But you can't do this under shock." Despite the confusion sown by the strike experience, Rakowski felt that the promised reforms could be "a very positive step toward a socialist system that will be accepted by the people."

Washington policymakers seemed willing to take Kama's assurances at face value for the time being; their optimism was shared by few analysts in Western Europe. Said a skeptical West German Foreign Ministry expert: "What we saw [in the accords] was a tactical retreat by the government. Warsaw needed to fend off the danger of Soviet invasion and get the workers back to their jobs. Now the clawing back of what was given on paper begins." West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, moreover, had special reason for gloom: both men got on well with Gierek and saw his relative openness to the West as an important factor in maintaining European detente.

On one point there could be little disagreement: the appalling state of the Polish economy. Planning Chief Henryk Kisiel estimated that the strikes had caused a $667 million drop in national income, while the promised pay raises would cost $3 billion a year. This would place a severe strain on an economy already groaning under a $20 billion hard-currency foreign debt.

Kisiel outlined a number of possible reforms to remedy the situation: some industrial decentralization, a better balance of goods and money in the marketplace, increased production of consumer goods, and the transfer of about $200 million to the agricultural sector to boost sagging food production. One key reform he proposed will be hard for the people to accept: an overall price rise, which sparked the strikes in the first place.

No amount of economic reform can succeed without a massive influx of foreign aid. As Poland's foremost trading partner and a major creditor ($550 million in hard-currency loans since May), the Soviet Union is a logical source. Warsaw accordingly dispatched a delegation to Moscow to seek assistance and explain the strike agreements. Headed by First Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Jagielski, the man who negotiated the Gdansk accord, the Polish envoys met first with Soviet trade officials. Jagielski then held a private meeting with Mikhail Suslov, the Soviet Politburo's hard-lining ideologist; diplomats in Moscow had no doubt that Suslov expressed strong disapproval of the independent trade union concept. The question undoubtedly came up as well during Jagielski's meeting with Brezhnev the following day. Whatever political advice the Soviet leader gave, TASS announced that Moscow's deliveries of food and manufactured goods would be stepped up to ease Poland's crisis.

The Soviet press, meanwhile, continued its campaign against "antisocialist elements and Western imperialist propaganda." In particular, Pravda blasted AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and other U.S. labor leaders for sending aid to "antigovernment" Polish strikers and labor unions. The American leaders, warned Pravda, "are profoundly mistaken in thinking that their interference in the internal affairs of the sovereign Polish state will go unnoticed."

Despite Moscow's heated public rhetoric, however, quiet diplomatic contacts had in fact taken place. In two meetings with Soviet representatives, U.S. officials reiterated Secretary of State Edmund Muskie's public calls for noninterference. Two weeks ago, in discussions with Soviet Charge d'Affaires Vladillen Vasev, Muskie disavowed any U.S. Government responsibility for the financial aid sent by American labor groups. But Washington did not scrimp on its official aid to Warsaw; at week's end President Carter announced a $670 million credit for the purchase of U.S. grain and foodstuffs.

Back in Warsaw, another high-level meeting took place last week between leaders of two important power blocs: the workers and the Roman Catholic Church. At the invitation of Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Labor Leader Walesa attended a private Mass at the chapel of the Primate's palace, followed by a meeting in the Cardinal's apartments. The invitation was widely interpreted as an attempt by Wyszynski to mend fences with the workers, many of whom felt that he had failed to support them adequately during the strikes. The workers were especially disappointed by the Cardinal's Aug. 26 sermon calling for "calm and responsibility." Excerpts were broadcast on state television, giving the impression that Wyszynski opposed the continuation of the strikes. The Polish episcopate later protested that it had not authorized the broadcast and that the government had edited it to serve its purposes, but many workers remained suspicious.

"I think the Cardinal realized his mistake and that is why he received Walesa," explained Warsaw Journalist Stefan Kisielewski. If the sermon was a mistake, it will soon be forgiven by Poland's Catholic workers. Though it is uncertain whether the church will forge an alliance with the emerging labor movement, strong bonds of faith and common purpose remain--bonds that Stanislaw Kania can ill afford to ignore. Says Kisielewski: "You can't fight the workers and the church.''

--By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Barry Kalb/Warsaw and B. William Mader/Bonn

With reporting by Barry Kalb/Warsaw, B. William Mader/Bonn

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.