Word: gierek
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...
...whole absurd structure was bound to collapse, and it did. When the OPEC nations raised the price of oil in 1973-74 and caused a worldwide recession, Poland's exports, instead of continuing to rise as Gierek planned, began to falter. Unable to lay off any workers?a taboo under the full-employment doctrine of Communism?Gierek had to borrow more and more money from the West to keep going. Poland's foreign debt rose from $4.8 billion in 1974 to $25.5 billion in 1981. Servicing and repayment of the loans, which are owed to 15 Western governments...
...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...