Word: gomulka
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...months since Polish workers rose at Poznan crying for bread and freedom, the Poles have won half a loaf of freedom but very little bread. Out of their protests, Wladyslaw Gomulka rose to power, wrested control of the Polish Communist Party from the Stalinists, defied Moscow and won an election. But he inherited a mess: Poland was close to economic bankruptcy and moral anarchy. For all he tried to revive the Poles' fierce national pride and to relax the grip of the police state, Communist Gomulka found no Red formula to solve the economic crisis...
...blunt, things are chaotic. Housing is miserable and overcrowded. Wages are so low (average: $65 a month) that many a Pole works overtime at two jobs, puts his wife and children to work, or steals what he can from the state-run enterprises, to stay alive. Gomulka had hoped that "creeping freedom" and his stand against the hated Russians would be enough to inspire the Poles to work...
...their own-the right to stay away from work. In the first half of 1957, absenteeism has more than doubled, to 26 million man-hours lost. To drown their woes, they took to drink at an increasing rate (7.5 liters hard liquor per head per year-30% above 1956). Gomulka warned the workers that he could not raise wages until they produced more; the workers replied that they would not work harder without some real evidence of a better life. They began agitating for wage increases, and-though strikes are forbidden in Gomulka's Workers' State-even staged...
...cars left the barns. Instead, before the day was over, 6,000 men and women employees were on a sitdown strike, demanding that their 800-zlotys monthly pay (enough to buy one pair of shoes) be increased 50%. The militia fired tear gas and wielded clubs. A worried Gomulka dispatched a trade union chief, a vice-minister and a security general from Warsaw, called out the troops to keep order, pressed 750 trucks into action to provide transportation in Poland's second largest city (pop. 675,000), and banned the sale of vodka to prevent "real trouble...
...Minh, the goateed scholar and activist who is President of Communist North Viet Nam, last week smooched in comradely fashion with Polish Communist Chief Wladyslaw Gomulka, this week continued his buss ride through the satellites, reared back and thrust his deep-pile chops at Yugoslavia's Marshal Tito. Then, to prove there was Marxism beneath the mush, he fired off a blast at "imperialist America and its puppets, who are continuing to arm themselves in an attempt to dominate the world." Next target for Ho's communal cuddling: Albania's Enver Hoxha...