Poland a Fragile Bid for Coexistence

By John Kohan.

The speaker on the podium of the plush, red-upholstered Congress Hall of Warsaw's Palace of Culture let loose with a spirited 90-minute harangue against almost every aspect of the Polish government's economic policy. Social benefits, he asserted, were "much lower and much worse" than in other Communist-bloc countries. The national economy was collapsing due to "incompetence, lack of knowledge, the pursuit of private interests and bureaucratic swank and arrogance." Seldom since the heyday of Solidarity, the independent trade-union movement, had such harsh blasts been sounded at a Polish labor conference. But the times they are a'changing: the impassioned orator was chairman of the government-sponsored All-Poland Trade Unions Alliance, and seated behind him was Communist Party Chief Wojciech Jaruzelski, who listened to the blistering broadside with apparent equanimity.

As the surprising frankness of the second national trade unions conference illustrated last week, Jaruzelski appears to be taking a different tack to haul his economically and spiritually exhausted nation out of the quagmire. Most notably, the ramrod-straight Polish army general, who has lately tried to soften his austere image by mingling with factory workers and common folk, now seems prepared to pry loose the lid that clamped shut on critics of his regime after the military crackdown five years ago. Indeed, the Polish leader admitted last week that some actions recently taken by his own officials "were mishaps, like an elephant in a china shop."

The most dramatic sign of the government's changing mood came when Jaruzelski's regime released virtually all of the country's political prisoners -- 225 oppositionists, including leaders of the Solidarity underground -- between July and September. Hard-line opponents of the regime warned that the amnesty was merely an interlude before the next round of jailings, but others thought that a new era of peaceful coexistence might be beginning. Said Opposition Journalist Stefan Bratkowski: "In comparison to what has been happening until now, this is a major political shift."

There have been other clues that the government thinks the time is ripe for accommodation. At Poland's Tenth Communist Party Congress last summer, Jaruzelski unveiled a plan for a national "consultative council" to advise the government on economic and social policy. The body is to include leaders of the country's powerful Roman Catholic Church and politically moderate intellectuals. Two weeks ago, Premier Zbigniew Messner took the unprecedented step of withdrawing a piece of economic legislation from parliament for revisions after it had been publicly criticized as a blatant attempt by bureaucrats to undermine proposed economic reforms that Jaruzelski had originally introduced in 1982.

The general's bid for domestic peace has been spurred by a harsh political reality: without creating some consensus of support, he cannot begin reconstructing Poland's shattered economy. Real wages last year amounted to less than 80% of 1980 levels, while net investment in industry and agriculture in the same period fell by 50% and exports that bring in badly needed hard currency dropped almost 25%. The biggest drain continues to be Poland's huge foreign debt, which now stands at more than $31 billion. Last September Polish and Western negotiators signed an agreement rescheduling 95% of the payments owed to lenders through 1987. Still, Finance Minister Bazyli Samojlik conceded last week that Poland would not be able to meet the $550 million due before the end of this year.

With the evident approval of Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Jaruzelski hopes to turn Poland's economy around by adopting the kind of quasi-capitalist reforms that have been introduced in Hungary since 1968. Among them: giving greater responsibility to factory managers, encouraging private enterprise to boost exports and consumer goods and services, creating wage incentives to improve productivity and reforming the tax system to stimulate investment. But the regime faces an uphill struggle. At every level, bureaucrats committed to centralized planning have for too long kept the country locked into a rigid economic system devoted to heavy industrial production at a time when consumers often lack such everyday essentials as forks and frying pans and still stand in line for rationed meat and gasoline.

Polish officials complain that their economic woes have been made worse by Western trade restrictions imposed after martial law was declared. Last October Solidarity Founder Lech Walesa and nine other prominent Polish opposition figures and moderate intellectuals issued an appeal to the U.S., urging President Reagan to "play a significant role" in putting the Polish economy back on track by lifting the remaining U.S. sanctions. Washington may be receptive to the plea. "Things are warming up step by step," says an Administration official. "But we have always urged caution. The Poles have often announced sweeping changes and then have failed to deliver."

Indeed, doubts persist about how genuine Jaruzelski's conciliatory gestures really are. Shortly after the September amnesty, Solidarity leaders gathered in Gdansk, the birthplace of the movement,to announce the formation of a Temporary Council of Solidarity. The organization's stated aim: to propose ways of cooperating with the regime in improving the economy and advancing political freedoms. Government Spokesman Jerzy Urban denounced the organization as "yet another illegal body." In the new era of openness, Warsaw clearly does not intend to share power with anyone, particularly if his name is Walesa.

With reporting by Kenneth W. Banta/Warsaw