Word: polished
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Rebellion is a natural outgrowth of the Polish character-ebullient, romantic, ready to defend national pride at the drop of a kapelusz, and ironic enough to look forward to a potent drink right afterward. Sums up a Polish woman: "We can only be compared with the Irish." A Western diplomat who has served in Poland puts it differently: "The Poles are a bunch of anarchists." That may be overstating matters, but it is true that the Poles bend less willingly to Soviet domination than any other satellite. The Catholic Church, which has nurtured the Polish spirit when outside powers have...
...comparison with other East bloc nations, Polish life was seemingly not all that bad. The average wage ($200 a month) and per capita meat consumption (152 lbs. a year) were surpassed only in East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Private hard-currency bank accounts were legal, passports were relatively easy to obtain and the state provided the usual panoply of Communist benefits: guaranteed jobs, free medical care, factory-sponsored vacations. But this was not enough. Poles were tired of standing in endless lines: for meat, flour, sugar and other staples. They were tired of shoddy, overpriced goods, when they could...
Warsaw University Historian Zygmunt Hemmerling traces last summer's strikes back to the Stalinist model of forced industrialization that was imposed on Poland after World War II. Compounding the error, the government in 1971 moved to modernize Polish industry with heavy infusions of Western technology and capital. Former Party Boss Edward Gierek dreamed of a throbbing new industrial sector that would spew out exports for Western markets and earn hard currency to repay Poland's debt and raise its standard of living. The plan backfired in the mid-1970s when Poland, hampered by mismanagement, rising energy prices...
...Polish economy, in the words of a Western diplomat, is a "result-oriented system which unfortunately does not produce results...
Solidarity's strike moratorium could get a severe test next week, when the Polish Supreme Court is expected to decide whether private farmers can form an independent union. So far the authorities have resisted, arguing that the farmers are self-employed and thus cannot bargain as employees. The farmers contend that they are in effect state employees, since the government sets their prices. At a meeting last week, they warned of a possible strike if their union is not recognized. It was not a threat the authorities could take lightly, since private farmers own 75% of Poland...