NID: POLAND: COMMUNISTS STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL SURVIVAL

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe: A 30-Year Legacy
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06826857
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 26, 2019
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2019
• Publication Date: January 26, 1990

Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826857
POLAND: Communists Struggle for Political Survival
Any change made at Poland's Communist party (PZPR) congress this
weekend undoubtedly will do little to reduce public hostility or enable
the party to compete successfully in local elections in April.
The three-day meeting will be dcyoteu to recasting the PZPR as a
new. purportedly democratic party. Party reformers, however, have
warned that differences between the old and new
parties may be cosmetic.
The new party will inherit financial difficulties resulting from
the loss of massive government subsidies. Moreover, anti-Communist
activists are daily occupying numerous party offices, and Warsaw is
moving to reclaim state assets held by the party.
Comment: Antipathy for the PZPR remains almost universal, making
any successor party unlikely to be clectorally competitive. Nor is
the new party, which probably will be dubbed Socialist or Social
Democratic, likely to attract leftwing Solidarity members. Some
reformers may exit the Congress if their demands are not met, but
rising anti-Communist sentiment has inspired a siege mentality
that probably will hold the party together for now.
The party's choice of a leader is wide open, particularly because most
delegates are not tied to either reform or hardline factions. The top
candidates�Rakowski, Tadeusz Fiszbach, and Leszek Miller�are
actively campaigning; each has sought to improve his image by
meeting with Lech Walesa. Miller probably has the best chance of
being accepted by both reformers and hardliners.
Important organizational questions must also be decided, particularly
whether PZPR memberships will be automatically transferred to the
new party. Transferring memberships would seriously undercut any
portrayal of a break from the past. Following the recent example of
the Hungarian Communists by requiring applications to the new
party, however, probably would have the same emhar7ssing result:
a paucity of applicants.
7
�Torgereet
TCS 2721/90
26 January 1990
Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826857