Word: gomulka
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...ignite huge fuel tanks in the yards; they were dissuaded at the last minute by party officials, who promised to listen to their grievances. In Warsaw, Cracow and other major cities, workers were preparing to stage a general strike and demonstrations when the abrupt resignation of Party Chief Wladyslaw Gomulka persuaded them to wait and see what would happen next. In his anger, Gomulka warned other officials that unless the rioting stopped, he would call upon Soviet troops and tanks to end it. Despite that threat, the Polish high command disobeyed his order that Polish troops fire directly...
Complicated Chess. Poland is almost completely calm now. Perhaps the chief reason for the quick restoration of quiet is the prudent and impressive manner in which Gomulka's successor, Edward Gierek, 58, has taken control. Gierek's first move was to grant a number of immediate concessions to the workers, including a price freeze and an 18% raise in the minimum wage (to a still miserable $33 a month). Gierek has now begun a more complex program and, to reassure his neighbors about his plans, he has visited Moscow, East Berlin and Prague and sent his top aides...
...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...
...Jaroszewicz, 61, who was also promoted from deputy Politburo member to full member. In his placating acceptance speech, Jaroszewicz announced that the new regime intended to seek "full normalization of relations" with the Roman Catholic Church, to which 95% of all Poles nominally belong. Full normalization was more than Gomulka had ever sought; the new regime seemed in return to be seeking a benediction, perhaps in Christmas or New Year's sermons...
...words could be taken at face value, they also indicated his tenuous and perhaps even temporary hold on his new post. There is some evidence to suggest that Gierek was only one of the key leaders who called the extraordinary meeting of the Politburo last weekend that led to Gomulka's downfall. His own election to the post of party boss was clearly the result of an internal compromise. Raised to full membership in the Politburo was Gomulka's powerful enemy, Mieczyslaw Moczar-who turned 57 on Christmas Day-the xenophobic, rigid hero who is the favorite...