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measure of international prestige because of his sponsorship in 1957-1958 of the multifaceted "Rapacki plan" for East-West disengagement in Europe, and later for being the first (in December 1964) to broach to the United Nations a proposal for a conference on European security. Both the Gomulka and Gierek regimes have underscored the Polish origins of this proposal which, though much modified and under Soviet sponsorship in later years, seemed to be coming to fruition in the early 1970s as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Rapacki was succeeded by former economic planner Stefan Jedrychowski, a bland but able and responsive individual who shepherded the ministry through the negotiations on the Polish-West German treaty, and who, to demonstrate continuity, was retained in that post by Gierek until December 1971. The incumbent since then has been Stefan Olszowski, a young, ambitious, but personable conservative.

In 1971 the Polish diplomatic establishment under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in charge of embassy level relations with 95 countries (including the so-called Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam). Poland, however, maintained resident diplomatic missions in only two-thirds (63) of these countries; moreover, 13 of those resident missions were headed by charges d'affaires. The relative paucity of top foreign services staffing reflects in large party reasons of economy and a reordering of priorities in terms of foreign representation that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This included the closing of several resident embassies in the developing countries, especially Africa. These reductions, however, were partially offset by the staffing needs in those countries with which Poland succeeded, over the same period of time, in establishing or reestablishing diplomatic or consular relations. These include several Latin American countries, Spain, and a number of non-Communist countries in Southeast Asia - most prominently consular ties with Australia and New Zealand. Poland is also one of the three Communist countries - the others are Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia - that have maintained a resident military mission in West Berlin since the end of World War II.

a. U.S.S.R. and the Communist world

Despite the increasingly sophisticated nature of the bonds between the USSR and its Eastern European allies - sophistication which should not be automatically identified with relaxation - the basic identity of Polish and Soviet foreign policies continues to be conditioned by the similarity in world outlook, strong ideological considerations, and by the social and political goals shared by the Polish and Soviet leaderships. In the Stalinist era, automatic subordination of Warsaw to Moscow prevailed; under Gomulka the factor of mutual consent and compromise was introduced as a principle; under Gierek this factor is dominant and growing. Nevertheless, although permissible and perceptible differences in emphasis and motive exist, and Poland can, within a set framework, make indigenous foreign policy initiatives as well as contribute to bloc policies as a whole, both Gierek and his Kremlin counterparts realize that communism is in power in Poland despite the popular will and not because of it and, as a result, the present regime in Poland is ultimately as dependent on the USSR for its existence as was its predecessor.

These fundamental political and ideological imperatives constitute the basis of the bonds that continue to tie Poland and the Soviet Union in an unequal alliance, and are symbolized by Poland's membership in the support of the Warsaw Pact, the 1955 collective security treaty which stands as the formal political and military underpinning of the system of Soviet alliances in Eastern Europe.

Poland's membership in the Warsaw Pact also underscores its military ties to and dependence on the Soviet Union, as well as the consequent absence of an indigenous defense policy. The Polish armed forces constitute the largest military establishment in Eastern Europe after that of the Soviet Union, and they are well organized and well trained, and are equipped with Soviet and domestically produced weapons. They are, however, logistically dependent on the Soviet Union for extended and sustained operations. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Premier) is constitutionally vested with the general direction and control of the military, but this and all other aspects of national defense policy are determined in practice by the top party leadership within the framework of its political relation with the USSR. As a result, the joint Polish-Soviet awareness of the importance of the Polish armed forces to Soviet strategic interests in the area and the basic identity of outlook by the Soviet and Polish leaderships preclude any deviation in Polish defense policy from the role assigned to it by the USSR.

This is true despite the anomalous role of the regular army units in the violence accompanying the December 1970 workers' uprising along the Baltic coast. When Gomulka reached his ill-fated decision to fire on the striking workers, Defense Minister Jaruzelski reportedly refused to relay the order, and regular army troops (as distinct from militarized

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