Center For Security Policy Highlights Constraints Facing Solidarity-Led Government In Poland

(Washington, D.C.): The Center for Security Policy today welcomed the expected confirmation of Tadeusz Mazowiecki as the first non-communist prime minister in Poland in over forty years. As it did so, however, the Center released a new report, entitled Poland: The Unchanging Face of Communism and What the West Should Do About It. This analysis highlights major constraints that need to be addressed to ensure Solidarity’s ability to extract Poland’s economy from its present chaotic condition and calls for a coordinated, measured and disciplined Western response to the emerging Polish situation.

"The Mazowiecki appointment is a signal development, one which marks a new milestone on the road toward fully reenfranchising peoples of the Soviet bloc involuntarily deprived of their right to self-governance," said Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., director of the Center. "It does not, however, represent the final and irreversible installation of democracy and a free market — developments that alone hold hope for Poland’s political and economic survival."

The Center remains concerned about the effect of the Polish Communist Party’s retention of the key positions in the new, "non-communist" govemment. These positions include the powerful presidency and ministries of defense (the armed forces) and interior (the police and intelligence apparatuses). They may also involve control of such other crucial portfolios as those of the ministry of finance, the deputy prime minister, foreign affairs and the govemment-controlled media. This distribution of power clearly leaves in the hands of discredited communists the wherewithal to terminate the democratic movement and economic recovery at will. At the very least, these mechanisms will almost certainly serve as a debilitating check on noncommunist parties’ ability to effect fundamental changes in Poland’s economic system.

"Without basic, systemic change — for example, the elimination of the command system and collectivization, paring back the massive nomenklatura (numbering close to one million), the replacement of its worthless currency and relief from the colonial demands of the USSR — Poland is doomed to continued privation," Gaffney added. "Only by establishing a market economy, and a truly democratic political process conducive to its efficient operation, can the Poles enjoy the sort of freedoms and standard of living to which they aspire."

Unfortunately, unless the West follows the prescriptions for Polish aid laid out in the Center’s analysis, it runs the risk in responding to current events in Poland of retarding, rather than advancing, such fundamental, systemic change there. Under present circumstances, should Western countries rush to supply the Polish government with new credits, debt relief, trade benefits, and technology — particularly in ways that run counter to prudent business practices and sound national security policy — this assistance could serve merely to prop up the existing communist-dominated political and economic system and stymie pressure for its ultimate transformation.