Page:CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7.pdf/30

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7

urgent domestic tasks. Having weathered a second wave of strikes in early 1971 - primarily by rescinding Gomulka's price increases - Gierek cautiously began to implement his program of domestic renewal, stressing material well-being and social reform. Although his initial steps treated the symptoms rather than the causes of Poland's economic and political ills, they brought about relative peace on the scene, a situation which he needed in order to consolidate his grip on the party and government machinery and to remold it into more effective instruments of rule.

(2) The dynamics of consolidation - Despite the fortuitous political assets listed above, the domestic climate remained tense and Gierek's hold on the situation was tenuous. To consolidate his position in the party and among the people, Gierek had to explain the failures of the past and outline some guarantees that they would not recur; to rid the party and government bureaucracy of the ballast that had accumulated during the Gomulka era; and to institute gradual changes in the nature of party and government operations so that the promised new relationship between the regime and the people would appear credible. Gierek's decision soon after taking power to convoke a Party Congress in December 1971 - a year ahead of statutory requirements - suggested that he intended to be energetic in pursuing his goals and that he hoped to obtain a formal mandate from the party as early as possible.

At a major Central Committee plenum in February 1971 Gierek, turning to the causes of the December 1970 crisis, forcefully divorced his regime from its predecessor. He accused the former leaders of mislabeling the riots as a counterrevolution, whereas, Gierek said, they were actually the expression of legitimate grievances. He blamed the clique surrounding Gomulka for having lost touch with the people and mismanaging social and economic policy. Unlike Gomulka's purged old guard, which the plenum unceremoniously ousted from the Central Committee, Gomulka's own membership in that body was merely suspended and remained so until the December Party Congress when he was finally dropped and relegated to the political shadows.

The party that faced Gierek after his assumption of office bore some similarity to that which confronted Gomulka in 1956, but there were also major, and to Gierek favorable, differences. Unlike Gomulka, whose initial support came from often mutually antagonistic leaders with significant political influence, Gierek had around him a group of important party men among whom there was basic unit and none of whom, with the exception of Moczar, has a measurable personal following. At the same time, however, the new leadership included several holdovers from the Gomulka regime and reflected Gierek's deliberate effort to form a team broadly representative of "party opinion." Moczar's role within the new leadership was initially ambiguous, but his reputed status as a potential rival to Gierek was soon resolved both by his own weakness and Gierek's positive skill. In any event, there is strong evidence that Moczar has been divested of his internal security responsibilities on the Party Secretariat before he became ill in April 1971

'''FIGURE 4. PZPR Central Committee in session, 6-7 February 1971 (U/OU)''' (picture)

24

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070029-7