Have a Soothing Cup of Tea

By Thomas A. Sancton

There isn't much else in the pot, and trouble is brewing

The party congress had come and gone, government officials had promised new approaches to old programs, but still the anger grew. In Warsaw, some 2,000 textile workers quit their jobs for three hours, and many municipal bus drivers refused to go out on their routes. In Lodz, the country's second largest city, caravans of trucks and buses drove into the center of town with headlights flashing and horns blaring to the cheers of thousands of approving onlookers. The vehicles were festooned with red and white national flags and banners bearing such blunt messages as HUNGER and WE STAND IN LINE UNTIL OUR HEARTS BREAK. Next day as many as 10,000 women and children took to the streets of Lodz in protest.

The latest unrest was sparked by the government's abrupt announcement two weeks ago that food prices would soon triple or even quadruple-- and the simultaneous word that meat rations would be cut by 20%, allotting each person only 6.6 lbs. per month (average U.S. consumption: 12.5 lbs.). That decree was one too many for the Poles, who must line up as long as 14 hours for basic foodstuffs. Moreover, between 30% and 50% of those standing in the queues go away empty-handed because of shortages of virtually everything. Even in the relatively well-supplied city of Cracow, window displays in grocery stores consist almost entirely of pyramids of packages of tea.

With the deepening food crisis, the public mood has shifted from resignation to anger. "Waiting in line is a national sickness," complained a Gdansk woman, who takes turns in the queues with her husband and two teen-age children. Snapped an unmarried Lodz textile worker: "We have been making sacrifices for years, but nothing has changed for the better. They need to improve our working conditions and give us some more food before they start talking of sacrifices."

As dissension spread last week, a hasty compromise was hammered out between the government and Solidarity, the trade union. But the agreement, which promised to rescind the ration cut after one month and make up the shortfall in the future, sidestepped the fact that restrictions are unavoidable in Poland.

At week's end the government's problems produced a Cabinet shuffle that unseated three ministers. Among them was Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Jagielski, who was reportedly sacked for failing to produce an economic recovery program. Premier Wojciech Jaruzelski, an army general, turned to two fellow officers to fill vacant posts: General Czeslaw Kiszczak as Interior Minister, and General Tadeusz Hupalowski as Minister of Administration.

Solidarity blames the food shortages largely on the government's grossly inefficient distribution system. There is some support for that argument. Grain-bearing ships, for example, are often unable to unload at Polish ports because there is no room in the grain elevators. Reason: a lack of trains to transport the grain to Poland's hungry people.

But the real root of the problem is the country's overall economic crisis. With wages rising and exports falling, the country can hardly meet the payments on its $27 billion foreign debt to the West, much less pay for food imports. Agricultural production has also been reduced because Poland cannot afford to import parts for tractors and combines; last week 60,000 were idle.

The U.S. is taking steps to stock Poland's larder. Last week the Reagan Administration announced plans to grant Warsaw $55 million in long-term credits to buy and transport 350,000 metric tons of U.S. corn to Poland to help save the country's threatened poultry industry. The Administration also authorized the Catholic Relief Services agency to buy surplus American agricultural products at low prices for shipment to Poland. Reflecting just how critical its food shortage has become, Poland has attracted the concern of CARE, the New York City-based charity that first gained international recognition in 1946 by sending its food packages to World War II victims in Europe. Last week CARE shipped 11,000 packages to Poland, the beginning of a $5 million emergency relief effort by the organization. Poland thus became the only non-Third World country currently receiving any kind of aid from CARE and the first in 14 years to get the traditional package: a 13 in. by 13 in. by 6% in. cardboard box containing about 23 lbs. of basic foods, including canned meat, cooking oil, rice, sugar, flour, powdered milk and split peas. Some 600,000 packages, costing $12 each and funded by private donations from the U.S., Europe and Scandinavia, will be distributed in Poland over the next year.

According to CARE Executive Director Philip Johnston, the program was inspired by a worried wave of calls, letters and donations from Polish Americans. When the organization first approached Polish authorities in early May about the possibility of sending food aid, says the CARE spokesman, "their reaction was remarkably favorable." The final agreement, signed in Warsaw in June, allows CARE to supervise distribution of the packages. They will be sent to the neediest groups: the elderly, young children, pregnant women and nursing mothers. The spectacle of capitalist charity aiding the victims of Communist economic shortcomings was heavy with political symbolism. Said Aloysius Mazewski, president of the Polish-American Congress, which launched the CARE project: "The fact that they can't feed their own people is humiliating. It simply underscores the inefficiency of their system." As food lines grew longer and tempers shorter in Poland, that point hardly needed to be made. --By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Linda Drucker/New York and Richard Hornik/Bonn

* Examples: sugar would rise from 16-c- to 60-c- per lb.; ham from $2.45 to $6.20 per lb.

With reporting by Linda Drucker, Richard Hornik

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.