From Russia with Suslov

By Thomas A. Sancton

Moscow's hawk flies to Warsaw with a warning

Just a "friendly visit." That was how the official Polish press described the sudden jaunt to Warsaw last week of a high-level Soviet delegation headed by hawkish Politburo Ideologue Mikhail Suslov. But friendship, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. For hard-lining Polish Politburo Members Stefan Olszowski and Tadeusz Grabski, who were on hand to greet their Soviet comrades at Okecie Airport, the handshakes must have felt fraternal indeed. For Warsaw's Party Boss Stanislaw Kania, who led the delegation, and who has shown a tenacious commitment to reform, Suslov's arrival may have seemed more like a Siberian blizzard.

The visitors immediately retreated to the Central Committee's marble headquarters in central Warsaw for a six-hour meeting with the entire Polish Politburo. The bland Soviet official statement that followed significantly omitted any reference to the customary "identity of views" and contained no expression of confidence in the Polish leadership.

Most Western analysts saw Suslov's trip as a gloves-off bid to stem the tide of Polish reform. "They don't send Mikhail Suslov to hand out flowers," said a European diplomatic analyst in Moscow. Added a senior Western diplomat: "I have no doubt that he read them the riot act." If that was in fact Moscow's message, then Suslov was the right mailman. Unsmiling and wraithlike behind dark-rimmed glasses, the 78-year-old party theorist has long been the Kremlin's chief "liquidator of deviationists," as one Western expert put it. He had already delivered a none too subtle admonition at the tenth East German Party Congress two weeks ago: "Any deviations from our socialist teachings result in fatal consequences." That was hardly an empty threat, since it came from a man who, according to Western intelligence reports, has been demanding armed intervention in Poland for months.

Suslov's visit may have been prompted by fears that Warsaw's Central Committee meeting this week would sanction further democratic reforms. Shortly before the visit, in fact, Kania told a socialist youth congress that "we have an unbending will to continue the process of social renewal, to develop democracy in the party and state, to reform the national economy, social life and government personnel." One could hardly draw up a list of goals more abhorrent to the Kremlin.

What most alarmed the Soviets, perhaps, were rumors that Olszowski and Grabski might be purged at the Central Committee plenum. If such a move was in the works, Suslov may have been out to save the two men from an ignominious sacking. Suslov may also have urged a postponement of the Polish Party Congress, now scheduled for July, and inveighed against plans to elect delegates to it by a democratic secret ballot.

Suslov's personal intervention in Poland coincided with some reminders that armed intervention could ultimately enforce Moscow's injunctions. Members of the Warsaw Pact's Military Council, a phalanx of top-level generals, converged on the Bulgarian capital of Sofia last week for a three-day strategy meeting. Speaking in Moscow on the 111th anniversary of Lenin's birth, meanwhile, Soviet Politburo Member Konstantin Chernenko accused the West of trying to "destabilize" Poland and warned that "we will not allow anybody to infringe on the lawful interests of our country and our allies."

Moscow had plenty to kick about. Two weeks ago, the Kania government promised official recognition to Rural Solidarity, an 800,000-member independent farmers' union. At the same time, some 500 rank-and-file Polish Communists were allowed to hold a heretical meeting at Torun to demand greater democratization within the party. As if that were not enough to exasperate the Kremlin, Polish leaders continued to pursue a conciliatory policy toward the independent trade union federation. That policy was reflected in the government's proposed agenda for talks with Solidarity that resumed at week's end. Though it glossed over some of the more prickly political issues raised by the union, the government offered to discuss "institutional guarantees" against harassment of Solidarity members, as well as a broadening of union access to state radio and television. At the same time, however, authorities wanted to defer some promised pay increases and secure the union's help in salvaging Poland's battered economy.

It will take more than domestic cooperation to set the Polish economy right. Saddled with a $27 billion foreign debt and crippled by falling production, the country is on the verge of economic collapse. In an effort to avert a financial catastrophe, representatives of Poland's major Western government creditors--including West Germany, France and the U.S.--are scheduled to meet with Polish representatives in Paris to discuss a possible deferment of the $4.4 billion that Warsaw owes them this year. The decision of those governmental creditors will probably determine the attitude of the 350 commercial banks to which Poland owes another $2.5 billion this year.

Some potential relief came two weeks ago, when commercial bank representatives meeting in London recommended that Warsaw be allowed to delay payment on $1.05 billion due before July 1. But that limited rollover agreement, as one Western banker put it, was like "applying a Band-Aid to a patient in the intensive care unit." Ultimately, Poland's creditors may have no choice but to shore up their profligate client. Since Warsaw has almost no recoverable assets abroad to offset losses, a default would be nearly as costly for the lenders as for the Poles themselves. Summed up a British banker in London: "In a real sense, we are condemned to salvage the Poles."

--By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Richard Hornik/Vienna

With reporting by Richard Hornik

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