Word: crackdowns
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...economic problems on the U.S. sanctions, at the same time warning that prices for food and other consumer goods could soon rise as much as 400%. Since increases in state-subsidized food prices have sparked three major labor upheavals, Communist authorities were reluctant to raise them again before the crackdown. But martial law, says Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski, now provides "an umbrella for conducting necessary economic and social reforms." By the same logic, however, an easing of repression would invite open protest. Admits Rakowski, the onetime party liberal who has become a key figure in the regime...
...Solidarity underground, meanwhile, continued to issue calls for "passive resistance," but its activities seemed to be tapering off. One newsletter that surfaced in Paris last week listed the locations of prison camps where some 5,937 Solidarity activists and intellectuals rounded up in the crackdown were being held. Union members in Paris also published the text of the loyalty oath that employees were being forced to sign in order to keep their jobs. The pledge stated: "Bearing in mind the fact that . .. Solidarity recently opposed the constitution and government . . . with the aim of undermining the socialist system, I hereby resign...
...most feared and hated of the security forces are the 20,000 to 25,000 troops known as ZOMO, the Polish acronym for motorized police units. They take their orders directly from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In December's crackdown, while the army cordoned off the trouble spots, ZOMO units broke up most of the demonstrations that took place after Jaruzelski imposed martial law. In Gdansk they burst into the Lenin shipyards to end a sit-in by the workers who had launched the independent Solidarity trade union in August 1980. When coal miners in the Wujek...
...surprise of many Westerners who knew him well in the past, Rakowski has become an ardent defender of the repression that began on Dec. 13. Is he a patriot who truly believes the crackdown will save his country from chaos? An idealist turned pragmatist who hopes to preserve some of the reforms won before the declaration of martial law? Or is he just an opportunist enjoying his place at the fulcrum of power? Those who know him well agree upon only one point: Rakowski is a survivor...
When the generals wanted to explain their crackdown to the West Germans, Rakowski was naturally the man they sent to Bonn. Martial law, he said, was necessary to prevent the outbreak within "a matter of weeks" of a civil war that would have provoked a Soviet invasion. Stern Publisher Henri Nannen, who has known Rakowski for twelve years, considered his explanation sincere, and an American diplomat described him as a "man of integrity." In contrast, a respected West German analyst notes that Rakowski has a "weakness for ambition" and "always knows which way the wind blows." One British expert points...