Eastern bloc watches Poland nervously

Press, 25 August 1980, Page 6

Eastern bloc watches Poland nervously

By

ELLEN LENTZ,

of the

“New York Times” (through NZPA) East Berlin The strikes in Poland and the growing political unrest in that country are hitting Eastern Europe at a sensitive moment when the Soviet Union’s Eastern bloc satellites are confronted with downturns in economic growth and widespread shortages. There is a general shortage of such items as meat, fish, and poultry in most Eastern bloc countries. Also, a basic problem in the bloc is a substantial growth of indebtedness to Western countries, along with the slowed economic growth. Western diplomats stationed in East Berlin said that Communist leaders in Poland’s, neighbouring countries were following developments there with considerable concern for possible repercussions in their own areas.

However, the diplomats and other political observers feel that there is no immediate danger of the Polish unrest spreading elsewhere in the bloc unless troops should intervene to quell the strikes. Apart from Poland, the smaller European bloc countries include East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria. According to one diplo-

matic source, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Rumanian Head of State and party secretary, has called oft scheduled visits in order to stay home and watch the situation closely. Western observers who follow events in Rumania said they could not confirm reports of the outbreak of strikes in that Balkan country. Last year, Rumanian mineworkers did strike for higher wages and better living conditions.

The people in Rumania, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia did not find out about the Polish events from their news media until last Wednesday, six weeks after they started, when short passages were broadcast from the speech that Edward Gierek, Poland’s party secretary, made appealing to the strikers to return to work.

In contrast, Hungary •— politically the most liberal of all the Eastern bloc countries — and East Germany have let their news media carry' fairly extensive, though carefully edited, reports on the Polish strike situation.

East Germany, wedged in between Poland and West Germany, evidently decided to give the Polish events a fair amount of news attention to onset the influence of Western reporting. Most of tlie 17 million people in East Germany get their news from

West German radio and television. The news media in Hungary and East Germany, while carrying lengthy excerpts from Mr Gierek’s speech and other factual reports on the strike situation, have failed to list any of the Polish workers’ political demands, such as their call for free trade unions.

On Wednesday, “Neues Deutschland,” in a War-saw-datelined report said that “anti-social elements’? had falsified the original demands of the workers and were aiming at “creating chaos and disorder.” Another official who Is an observer of Eastern Europe said that there was no evidence of any crackdown on political dissidents in any Eastern bloc’ countries. He added that it seemed remarkable that Charter 77, the Czech group of dissidents based in Prague, had not yet made a public statement about the Polish unrest Intellectuals in East Berlin said they were follow-, ing the news closely, but at present did not fear repercussions for themselves. ' After the Communist Government let opposition writers, artists and actors get to the West by the hundreds in the last three years, the potential for a dissident group forming in East Germany has dwindled to a handful of individuals.