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Poland's Party Politics: The Extraordinary Congress of 1981*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Jerzy J. Wiatr
Jerzy J. Wiatr
Affiliation:
University of Warsaw
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Extract

For seven days in July 1981 the politics of the Polish United Workers Party remained in the centre of attention of international media. The IXth Extraordinary Congress of the PUWP produced an unprecedented atmosphere of drama and suspense. When it was over, its importance was heralded by terms such as “a watershed,” and “a historic turning point.”

Type
Note
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1981 , pp. 813 - 826
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1981

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References

1 The earlier Congresses took place in 1948 (unification of the Polish Workers Party and the Polish Socialist Party), 1954, 1959, 1964, 1968, 1971, 1975, 1980 (February). According to the PUWP bylaws the term of the Central Committee elected at the VIIIth Congress would expire in 1984.

2 Darnton, John, “Polish Congress: A Watershed in the Party's History,” The New York Times, July 21, 1981.Google Scholar

3 Earlier crises—the purge of 1948, the “Polish October” of 1956, the students upheaval in Marcl. 1968, the Baltic Coast strikes and riots of December 1970 and workers protest in June 1976—constitute the historical background of Poland's latest crisis. They repiesented various stages in the continuous conflict between centralistic-bureai cratic and democratic tendencies in Polish socialism. See Wiatr, Jerzy J., “Lekcji minionych kryzysow” (Lessons from Past Crises), Kultura (Warsaw), June 2 ., 1980.Google Scholar

4 Some Central Coi imittee members have lost their seats, however, either because of their responsibilit for past policies or because of accusations of corruption raised against them, or t Dth. Those expelled from the Central Committee included Edward Gierek, former prime minister Edward Babiuch, and five other full or alternate members of the lolitical Bureau elected at the Vlllth Congress.

5 At the previous Congresses election of delegates was also by secret ballot but the number of candidates was limited, nomination was made by “electoral commissions” on recommendation of the outgoing party leaderships, and the election of the first secretary, Political Bureau and the secretariat was in open, acclamation-like, voting.

6 Following the administrative reform of early 1970s, Poland is divided into 49 provinces (wojew)dztwo). Some of them are largely urban and industrialized while many smaller pro’ ‘inces are mostly rural, with small or medium-size cities and little industry. Nine if them have universities, as well as other institution's of university-level e lucation, others have—at the most—colleges and schools of lesser academic prestige.

7 At the Poznan provincial conference, where four central candidates were recommended by the Political Bureau, it took four procedural votes as well as a (temporary) withdrawal of the Political Bureau representative from the conference hall and telephone negotiation with Warsaw, before the issue was resolved. The conference, explicitly on request from the first secretary of the Central Committee, placed all four central candidates at the ballot but finally only two of them (both generals) were elected.

8 Le Monde, June 10, 1981.

9 The two nondelegates among Political Bureau members were industrial workers elected to the Political Bureau as late as April 1981.

10 Trybuna Ludu July 14, 1981.

11 They joined other former members of the PUWP leadership expelled from the party by Central Control Commission, including former prime minister (until February 1980) Piotr Jaroszewicz and former deputy prime minister Tadeusz Wrzaszczyk.

12 Trybuna Ludu, July 21–22, 1981.

13 On the eve of the Congress, Rakowski published his two new political books written in 1979 and 1980 respectively and circulated previously among high party officials and intellectuals. The first, Rzeczpospolita na progu lat osiemdziesiatych (The Republic Entering the Eighties) (Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1981)Google Scholar presented a critical analysis of Gierek's policies and outlined some reform proposals. The second, Przesilenie grudniowe (The December Crisis) (Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1981)Google Scholar discussed the background, the course and the aftermath of the 1970 crisis. Both were highly topical. Rakowski himself came under attack from some discussants at the April 1981 Central Committee session for his position on partnership cooperation with the “Solidarity.”

14 At the end of July he resigned from the government.

15 This is consistent with high eligibility of the military at all lower level elections and with the fact that the military remained the only state or party institution where changes of personnel during the crisis year were minimal.

16 They both were elected secretaries of the Central Committee as well.

17 Of the available few “old timers” the most notable absence in the new Political Bureau is that of Mieczyslaw Rakowski who remained, however, a deputy prime minister.

18 The most impressive example is the election of Professor Hieronim Kubiak, 47, a sociologist from the University of Krakow, to the Political Bureau and to the position of a secretary of the Central Committee—the first case that someone who was never even a member of the Central Committee and never held a national office, achieved such an elevated party position.

19 Such divisions within the PUWP existed before the crisis as well. On the eve of the Polish crisis Adam Bromke predicted “a forthcoming revival of the intra-party struggle” between “the moderates and the hardliners.” See Simon, Maurice D. and Kanet, Roger E., Background to Crisis: Policy and Politics in Gierek's Poland (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981), 17.Google Scholar Divisions of similar nature were clearly visible in all past Polish crises, particularly in 1948, 1956, 1968 and 1970. See also J. Wiatr, “Lekcje minionych kryzysow.”