Word: gierek
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...plane carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the strategist of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in a famed 1943 ambush; in Terrebonne, Oregon. For 28 years the Air Force gave sole credit to pilot Thomas G. Lanphier Jr., above left, but in 1973 Barber was officially recognized. DIED. EDWARD GIEREK, 88, reform-minded communist leader of Poland from 1970-1980 whose attempts to liberalize the economy plunged the country into debt and ignited the discontent that led to the creation of the Solidarity movement; in Cieszyn, Poland. DIED. KOREY STRINGER, 27, Minnesota Vikings football player who collapsed during training; from heatstroke...
...drives the laborers beyond their endurance. He steals food, then rations it. He intercepts calls and news from home "for their own good." He quarantines them from entertainment, and even from attending church. It takes no Soviet censor to find a political metaphor here: Nowak is the Polish statesman-Gierek or Kania or Jaruzelski-who must act the ruthless boss to satisfy his own ruthless boss. It is difficult, it is wrong, but it must be done to survive. Thus does the liberal turn totalitarian...
...Warsaw got two years each. In the same Warsaw court building, meanwhile, proceedings began in the highly publicized trial of Maciej Szczepanski, the former head of the state broadcasting networks, who is accused of embezzlement and bribetaking. He is one of several former officials, including former Party Boss Edward Gierek, who face criminal charges stemming from their alleged corruption and economic mismanagement...
...from a lack of spare parts for the spanking new equipment already in place. Round and round the vicious circle spun. The nation's factories operated in 1981 at only 60% of capacity. To make matters worse, poor harvests from 1974 to 1980 ravaged the country's agriculture, which Gierek had foolishly ignored in favor of industrial development, despite the fact that agriculture accounts for 20% of Poland's domestic gross national product. Moreover, a disproportionate amount of supplies and equipment went to the inefficient state farms, while the far more productive private farmers, who own 75% of Poland...
Fearing a national outcry, Gierek was reluctant to ease the strain on the budget by raising prices. He was right. When he finally increased prices in 1976, there were major riots in Radom and at the Ursus tractor factory. The brutal repression of these riots led to the formation of the Committee for Social Self-Defense (KOR), a precursor of Solidarity. The organization was the first significant link between the dissident intellectuals like Jacek Kuron and the workers who later founded Solidarity. Inspired by KOR activists, small independent?and illegal?labor unions cautiously began to form in various parts...