POLAND REFORMS SEEM TO BE THE OLD NAG IN NEW HARNESS

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32522, 4 February 1971, Page 10

POLAND REFORMS SEEM TO BE THE OLD NAG IN NEW HARNESS

(By

VERA CLINTON.

Warsaw correspondent of the "Financial Times." London.)

(Reprinted from the "Financial Times" by arrangement.)

Scepticism and inertia are the grey mood in Poland today as the people watch the feverish efforts of the country’s new leadership to lift their land out of what is now admitted to be the worst political and economic crisis in 25 years of Communist rule.

The initial reaction to the replacement last month of the party chief, Mr Wladyslaw Gomulka by Mr Edward Gierek was one of relief. But these feelings have gradually given way to a growing awareness of the magnitude of the task facing Mr Gierek. He has to push on with reforms needed to revive a stagnant economy and to produce from limited resources a credible prospect of early material gains for disillusioned workers and harassed housewives. Discontent still smoulders among the shipyard workers in the Baltic ports of Gdansk and Szczecin who struck in protest against sharp food price increases before Christmas ahd clashed with police in bloody street battles. Effective early moves Mr Gierek’s early moves were swift and effective as far as they went. He alleviated the impact of the price increases on the hardest-hit sector of the population by increasing wages, pensions and family allowances for 5.2 m people with big families and -low incomes. He froze food prices at their increased level for at least two years, and promised that prices of industrial consumer goods would be reduced as soon as conditions permitted. Food supplies, whose inadequacy in recent months made shopping a nightmare, have improved, as Mr Gierek said they would, and meat' queues have grown shorter. The Government has redrafted its house-building programme to provide more flats in 1971. Sharp instructions have gone to factory managements and trade unions to start organising longpromised and badly-needed canteens, changing rooms, showers, improved heating and other social services for workers.

All these moves are in character with Mr Gierek’s reputation of being tuned in to the moods and needs of workers and able to get things done quickly. But they are marginal to the main task of convincing the average working man and woman that they have a per-. Isonal stake in working harder to get their country out I of its economic rut and give : it the impetus to catch up I with modern times.

months, is sure to include increased output targets for most industries. Mr Gierek’s friends in the mining and steel industries have already announced raised production goals in response to his “it all depends on us” New Year appeal for better work.

Other moves being considered are a freeze on the upper limits of salaries, and new Party statutes limiting the length of terms of office for individual party jobs—which would presumably mean that the top post of Party First Secretary would rotate among the leaders, preventing anyone repeating Mr Gomulka’s performance of holding it for 14 years. A Politburo member, Mr Jan Szydlak, explained that the idea behind this change was to establish a system “in which people would take up and leave their positions normally and not in crisis situations.” “Principal criticism” Mr Gierek has also opened the door to “principled criticism” throughout the Party and other organisations, and disgruntled workers have seized the chance to let fly at high places. But in spite of this safety valve, tension and dissatisfaction persist in the troubled coastal towns. Mr Szydlak said that a small group of shipyard workers in Szczecin had tried vainly to i start a strike recently. Rej ports from Gdansk, where [the disorders broke out on December 14, spoke of daily slow-downs or interruptions of work for meetings to air unresolved grievances. Party meetings have been held in all Poland’s 19 voivodships (provinces) to prepare for a plenary session of the Central Committee to analyse and assess the December troubles and apportion responsibility for them.

Mr Gomulka and his four associates dismissed from the 12-man Politburo last month have already been accused implicitly in the press and in some speeches of causing the disturbances by ruling autocratically, being out of touch with the workers, and seriously violating Leninist norms of Party life. The departure of one more, Politburo member, Mr Ignacy] Logasowinski, seemed cer-' tain. He resigned his post as;

chairman of the much criticised central trade union organisation last Friday, saying he understood the need for a basic change in its activities.

His removal was seen as a concession to demands by the restive shipyard workers who have accused the trade unions of bureaucracy, timidity, neglecting their interests and taking important decisions without consulting the general member ship.

Workers in Gdansk and elsewhere have been demanding the removal from the Politburo of Stanislaw Kociolek the former local party secretary in Gdansk and now national economic chief, and Foreign Minister Stefan Jedrychowski who headed the Planning Commission for 12 years. The Central Committee Session expected to be held this month, is likely to be accompanied by more changes in high places.