Word: gierek
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...workers win and outgoes Gierek...
...remarkable triumph of the workers of Gdansk and the miners of Silesia in wresting a series of unprecedented reforms from the Communist government when there was unsettling news. There had been rumors all week long, perhaps inevitably in a Communist country, that the price for Polish Leader Edward Gierek might be stiff. One version had it that his entire Politburo had been called on the red carpet to Moscow. Nonetheless, in downtown Warsaw the country's parliament assembled on schedule to discuss and ratify the government's settlement with the striking workers. Then came the first shock...
...Politburo and committee members converged on the Party House, their white sandstone-faced headquarters. There, something quite different was going on, and, in the ease of hindsight, perfectly predictable. Indeed, the script had been used before. At 1:30 a.m. Saturday came the official announcement that the ailing Gierek-whose malady might be more political than physical-had been replaced. The new boss of the Polish Communist party, the country's ruling authority, was Stanislaw Kania, 53, whose responsibilities for the past five years in the Politburo pointedly included, among other things, .security and defense. A tough, inside-party...
...Gierek's speech also contained a tempting concession to the strikers: the offer of new secret-ballot elections to the party-controlled Central Council of Trade Unions. Instead of the current system, under which the outgoing representatives propose 85% of the candidates, the new vote would be open to an unlimited number of candidates-including the current strike leaders. The workers in Gdansk remained unimpressed. Said Lech Walesa: "We are not politicians. We are not interested in politics. We want our own trade union...
Walesa's control over fellow workers was exhibited from the start. At a mass meeting early in the strike, a man rose and identified himself as a member of the local writers' union and pleaded for understanding for Communist Party Chief Edward Gierek. When a bona fide member of the writers' union and one shipyard worker denounced the man as an impostor and provocateur, a group of workers backed him against the wall. Walesa grabbed the microphone and warned, "If he is hit or even touched, I will give up the leadership." He then called...