Word: gierek
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Although he has been boss of Poland's Communist Party for little more than a month, Edward Gierek is about to receive a decisive report card. When the party's 91-man Central Committee assembles, perhaps as early as this week, Gierek must persuade its members to support his plans for economic and political reforms. Since most members owe their jobs to Gierek's predecessor, the ousted Wladyslaw Gomulka, this may prove to be quite a challenge...
...Gierek last week weathered a different but no less important test with high marks. With unrest continuing among the workers whose December rioting led to the leadership shakeup, Gierek took the unusual and daring step of meeting personally with the most militant protesters in Szczecin and Gdansk...
...Szczecin Gierek met the workers' committee in an extraordinary session that lasted from early evening until 2 a.m. the next day. Carefully Gierek called the rebels "rodacy" (countrymen) or "stare pierony" (old mates), rather than "towarzysze" (comrades), a word that Gomulka used in addressing nonparty members as well as Communists-an offense to many of the former...
Like a chess player who tries to make three moves simultaneously, Gierek is attempting to assemble an administrative team, establish a basis of public trust and tackle the economy's problems-all at once. A trained engineer who made Silesia's coal miners the envy of Poland for their superior wages and modern equipment, Gierek is filling some important government posts with fellow Silesians. To establish contact with the people, he frequently visits factories and speaks on TV and radio. He has fired the country's trade union boss and the Szczecin party chief. Well aware that...
...further move to create public trust, Gierek has ordered the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee to meet weekly and make public a resume of their discussions. He has discouraged the adulation normally conferred on a party chief. Though Gomulka's portrait has come down from office walls throughout Poland, the new boss has told aides that they can put up pictures of the Polish eagle or Lenin, but not of Edward Gierek...