The Polish Crisis of 1980 and the Politics of Survival,

The collapse of the Gierek leadership in Poland followed a two-month siege of workers strikes ostensibly triggered by selective meat price increases. In fact, however, the collapse more accurately reflected the degree of political and social bankruptcy of the Party and state in Poland. The repercussions of the strikes have been devastating for the Party and its old leadership. Yet, in spite of the turmoil within the Party and its old leadership, as well as the search for alternatives which is now going on, Poland is still at a state where radical change in the political system is seen by the population as both absolutely necessary and completely impossible. The problems and paralysis in Poland are far more acute than elsewhere in the Soviet bloc, but all these countries have similar problems. None of the bloc nations has entered the 1980s free from the specter of real economic crisis. Polands is the first and most severe case but will certainly not be the last. author