Word: gierek
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...Gierek apparently learned about his fate last Wednesday when he met secretly near the U.S.S.R. border with Soviet Politburo Member Andrei Kirilenko. Western analysts assume that Gierek also learned then that he was losing his Politburo seat and Central Committee secretaryship. "His illness might have speeded things up a little more," said a West German specialist. "But now it seems the decision was made before...
...display of discipline, organization and shrewd negotiating skills provided by the Gdansk-based Interfactory Strike Committee (MKS) that became the bargaining agent for over 400 Baltic enterprises. Most astounding of all were the agreements that finally ended the major strikes. In addition to pay raises and increased social benefits, Gierek's regime had granted -on paper at least-a spate of political concessions unprecedented anywhere in a Communist country: independent, worker-run trade unions, a legal right to strike and a relaxation of censorship. In return, the strikers agreed to recognize the supremacy of the Communist Party...
Though the government's extraordinary concessions got nearly all the strikers back to work, ominous questions loomed even before Gierek's ousting. First of all, there was the text of the agreement itself; it contained ambiguous, even contradictory, language that could obviously lead to widely differing interpretations in the future. For example, the section providing for relaxation of censorship nevertheless asserts the government's right to "protect state and economic secrets." But more important was the question of whether the government would, or could, deliver on the spirit of the agreement. Even with the best of intentions...
...aloof from the riots of 1970 and 1976. Their burgeoning unrest last week was all the more alarming to Warsaw since coal and lignite provide 85% of Poland's energy and 15% of its hard-currency export earnings. The upheaval was also a personal blow to ex-Miner Gierek, whose birthplace and original power base was in Silesia...
Nine years ago Gierek gave Kania the job of running Poland's entire security apparatus-its espionage, counterespionage and police services. "He is very much the Communist law-and-order man," says one expert on Poland. A nimble careerist, Kania was named to the ruling Politburo in 1975 and now, at 53, is the youngest Communist Party chief in the Soviet bloc. Notes a West German specialist: "He has the strong ambition and ruthlessness needed to survive at the top levels...