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Poland Consolidation of the Opposition in the 1970s
In the wake of the Baltic upheavals, Edward Gierek was
selected as party chief. A well-connected party
functionary and
technocrat, Gierek replaced all of Gomulka's ministers
with his
own followers and blamed the former regime for all of
Poland's
troubles. Gierek hoped to pacify public opinion by
administering
a dose of measured liberalization coupled with a novel
program of
economic stimulation. The center of the program was
large-scale
borrowing from the West to buy technology that would
upgrade
Poland's production of export goods. Over the long term,
the
export goods would pay for the loans and improve Poland's
world
economic position. The program paid immediate dividends by
raising living standards and expectations, but it quickly
soured
because of worldwide recession, increased oil prices, and
the
inherent weaknesses and corruption of communist planning
and
administration. By the mid-1970s, Poland had entered a
seemingly
irreversible economic nosedive compounded by a crushing
burden of
external debt. Another attempt to raise food prices in
1976
failed after an additional round of worker protests
(see Reliance on Technology in the 1970s
, ch. 3).
Domestic economic problems were accompanied by
increased
pressure from the Soviet Union for closer Polish
cooperation with
the other members of the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance
(Comecon--see Glossary).
In 1971 Poland abandoned Gomulka's
strict opposition to closer economic integration, and a
series of
long-term agreements committed Polish resource and capital
investment to Soviet-sponsored projects. Such agreements
guaranteed Poland access to cheap Soviet raw materials,
especially oil and natural gas. Nonetheless, in the 1970s
Poland
experienced shortages of capital goods such as computers
and
locomotives because Comecon obligations moved such
products out
of Poland.
Meanwhile, the
Helsinki Accords (see Glossary) of 1975
inspired open dissent over human rights issues. The
immediate objects of dissent were the regime's proposal of
constitutional amendments that would institutionalize the leading role of
the PZPR, Poland's obligations to the Soviet Union, and the
withholding of civil rights pending obedience to the
state. In
1976 a group of intellectuals formed the Committee for
Defense of
Workers (Komitet Obrony Robotników--KOR), and students
formed the
Committee for Student Solidarity. Together those
organizations
intensified public pressure on Gierek to liberalize state
controls, and many publications emerged from underground
to
challenge official dogma.
By the end of the 1970s, the hard-pressed Gierek regime
faced
an implicit opposition coalition of disaffected labor,
dissident
intelligentsia, and Roman Catholic clergy and lay
spokespeople
sympathetic to dissident activities. Democratically
oriented
activists grew more adept at defending workers' interests
and
human rights, a strategy that paid off handsomely in 1980.
Under
the stellar leadership of its longtime primate Cardinal
Stefan
Wyszynski, the Catholic Church attained unrivaled moral
authority
in the country. The prestige of the church reached a new
peak in
1978 with the elevation to the papacy of the archbishop of
Kraków, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla. As John Paul II, Wojtyla
became
the first non-Italian pope since the sixteenth century.
The
election of the Polish pope sparked a surge of joy and
pride in
the country, and John Paul's triumphant visit to his
homeland in
1979 did much to precipitate the extraordinary events of
the next
year.
Data as of October 1992
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