Word: polished
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...Solidarity and ignited the political imagination of the Polish people...
Moscow knew that if the reforms in Poland survived, a contagion of democracy could sweep through the satellites and finally threaten the Soviet Union itself. The Soviet leaders could not permit this to happen. In the Polish crisis, we were not seeing the collapse of the Soviet empire. Moscow's difficulties with the Poles were a sign of trouble and decay, but the situation was not irreversible. Solidarity could be snuffed out. There was never any question that the popular movement in Poland would be crushed by the U.S.S.R. The only questions were: When would this happen, and with...
...Polish situation was heavy with the possibility of death and repression on a horrifying scale. Ever since the hand of Russia fell on Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, many have predicted that the satellites would one day rise up and "roll back Communism." In 1956, the freedom fighters of Hungary had battled Soviet tanks in the streets, but the U.S. had not rescued them. This memory was a stark warning to us. If the Poles were to rise in response to what they took to be a signal of encouragement from Washington and fight their...
...Polish frontiers and the regime installed in Warsaw by the Soviet Politburo was assuming an increasingly threatening posture toward Solidarity. This moment, pregnant with the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Poland, was not one to choose to resume selling the Soviets foodstuffs that we had denied to them because they had invaded Afghanistan...
Caught between two pressures, Glemp may find himself in embarrassing difficulty. The hand-picked successor to the late Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski lacks Wyszynski's charisma and sure hand for balancing accommodation with the Communists with, when necessary, forthright independence. Some recent decisions of the Polish church, as a result, have been made not by Glemp alone but by a council of the episcopate that includes Cracow's Franciszek Cardinal Macharski and seven senior bishops. The council's communal decisions could yet become more defiant toward the regime than Glemp would like. -By Spencer Davidson. Reported by John...