Polish party split over Solidarity

Press, 31 March 1981, Page 1

Polish party split over Solidarity

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw Poland’s Communist leaders ended a marathon crisis meeting in disarray yesterday with an official announcement that party authorities had resigned and then had their resig* nations rejected. Rumours swept Warsaw that the entire 10-man ruling Politburo, which came under a barrage of criticism from rank-and-file members, offered to quit during the 18-hour session of the Communist Party’s Central Committ’e. The session ended at 4 a.m. Warsaw time (2 p.m. N.Z. time). Deep divisions emerged during its debate on how to deal with today’s threatened general strike by the Solidarity free trade union, a strike which would have - no precedent in Communist Eastern Europe. When the debate finally ended, the • official news agency, Pap, reported that the committee had. rejected resignations sub-

mitted by some members of the party authorities and had given a vote of confidence to the Politburo and the party secretariat. Pap said that the vote “obliged members of the Politburo and secretariat to meet in the shortest possible time with party organisations in factories.” This highlv unusual resolution apparently reflected grass-roots anger against the leadership for failing to keep in tunc with the will of rank-and-file party members This was a constant theme in the debate which opened with several tough statements from Politburo members trying to shift blame for the crisis on to extremists in Solidarity and its dissident allies. Speaker after speaker then implicitly rejected this thesis by arguing that sectors in. the ruling party itself had stood in the way of the political renewal brought about by last northern summer’s peaceful labour revolt.

The inconclusive outcome of the Central Committee meeting, the sixth since last August’s strikes and the first to end without any leadership changes, meant that the power struggle in Poland was still wide open. The immediate prospect appeared to be that the Government of the Prime Minister (General Wjojciech Jaruzelsjii) might not have sufficient room for manoeuvre to head off today’s strike. Talks between Government and union leaders aimed at averting the strike were adjourned on Saturday until late yesterday, effectively to await the outcome of the party meeting. In Wellington the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) said yesterday he had been asked by the Polish Association to state the Government’s views of the situation in Poland.

“I repeat what I said last December when the situation was thought to be equally serious. “Any action by Poland’s Warsaw Pact neighbours which went beyond the internationally recognised norms for relations . between sovereign States would be unacceptable to New Zealand, as it would be to the vast majority of United Nations members," he said. “Poland’s friends must accept its right to sort out its political and economic problems free from the threat of external military intervention. They must act with sympathy and restraint, as I believe the European Economic Community and the United States have done.” Pact exercise continues, page 8