Poles face reform plan

Press, 30 April 1981, Page 8

Poles face reform plan

NZPA-Reuter Warsaw Poland’s Communist leaders will meet today to grapple with the problem of producing a reform programme that satisfies rank-and-file party members but does not alarm Moscow.

Barring, an almost unthinkable decision to row back on the 10-month-old reform movement, the party’s pol-icy-making Central Committee is expected to approve a date and programme for a national congress designed to make the liberal changes in Poland permanent. Party sources said that the congress, which could be one of the most momentous in

recent Soviet Bloc history, was expected to take place between July 14 and 18. Today’s plenum, which will also review changes in the party statutes to reflect the new open style of the ruling party, will be the first in months which has not been held against a backdrop of strikes and industrial chaos. However, it follows a visit to Warsaw by the Kremlin’s top ideologist, Mikhael Suslov, and an admission by a senior Polish Communist that East Bloc allies .. are losing faith in the ability of the Polish party to solve the crisis. Kazimierz Barcikowski, a

member of the Polish Politburo, said faith in the.ability of. the Polish Communist Party had wavered after a meeting of rank-and-file party activists in the. city of Torun.

The Torun activists, claiming to represent one-third of •the party’s three million members, demanded further democratisation of the party, dismissal of hard-liners, and more open government. They also called for live television coverage 'of today’s plenum and said party members would place themselves on a state of alert awaiting the outcome.