Word: gomulka
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Gierek came to power with a mandate for change. Worker riots in 1970 over increased food prices had toppled the Gomulka regime. The new government tried a policy of rapid economic development, heavily dependent upon Western technology and credits, to bring Poland out of economic stagnation. An international recession and a string of bad harvests led instead to an economic slump; and Gierek, like his predecessor, attempted to end artificial price controls in 1976. Workers took to the streets, and the regime backed down. With no solution in sight, Polish consumers now suffer from endemic shortages of meat. Necessary consumer...
Reliance on Western credit reflects some profound changes in Eastern Europe. Since 1970, when riots by Polish workers protesting higher food prices brought down Party Boss Wladyslaw Gomulka, Soviet-bloc countries have made a determined effort to improve the material standard of living of their people. Encouraged by diplomatic détente, they have developed a voracious appetite for Western products, buying everything from consumer goods to entire factories. One result: the economic woes of the capitalist world, to which Communist planners initially thought they would be immune, by last year made themselves felt on the other side...
...named first secretary of the party in Silesia, where he gained a reputation for protecting the interests of miners and other industrial laborers. When worker unrest threatened to wreck Communist rule in 1970, Gierek, who clearly spoke a common language with workers, was a logical choice to succeed Wladyslaw Gomulka and save the tottering party...
...merchant ships; since the late 1940s, the U.S.S.R. has invested millions of rubles in developing Polish yards. The regime of Communist Party Secretary Edward Gierek has decided to intensify that development. Gierek knows all too well that the bloody wage-price riots of 1970 that toppled his predecessor, Wladyslaw Gomulka, began with strikes in the Baltic docks and shipyards and is determined to keep the workers there prosperous. A major investment in the five-year plan that ends in 1975 is 7.5 billion zlotys ($341 million) for shipbuilding...
...about the impact of Gierek's agriculture reform, in which a return to a free Western-style market has replaced central planning. One result: Polish farm income has risen 37% in the past year. Though 80% of Polish farm lands are still privately owned, the farmer during the Gomulka regime was a virtual serf to the state, which told him exactly what and how much to raise. Now a farmer is free to grow whatever sells best. Says one: "I switched from grain and vegetable farming to raising pigs, and am making more money than ever...