Polish Regime’s Image of Ineptness Cited : Government Report Points to Poor Credibility, Unclear Policies

An internal study by the Polish government says that after nearly four years in power, Premier Wojciech Jaruzelski’s regime suffers from poor credibility and an image of ineptness in the eyes of the public, a lack of clarity in its policies and political “dangers” from virtually every sector of Polish society.

The study contends that organized opposition by the outlawed Solidarity trade union and other groups is weakening and that Solidarity is now “fighting for its existence,” although it still poses myriad threats to the regime and its policies.

However, the report portrays the Roman Catholic Church and Poland’s independent-minded artistic and academic communities as riddled with committed opponents of the regime, who are fomenting “ideological and political chaos” throughout the country. It says that church-state relations should be reassessed and calls for the use of financial pressures on Polish intellectuals to compel their obedience to the state.

In addition, both the new official trade unions and a broad-based political organization called “PRON,” set up by the government in 1981 as a channel of communication between the state and society, are said to be in danger of stagnation, since neither the public nor large elements of the state bureaucracy take them with sufficient seriousness.

The 25-page report, titled “Dangers in the Social-Political Sphere in 1985,” was stamped “Confidential” and issued in numbered copies for discussion at the March 22 meeting of the Council of Ministers, the Polish Cabinet. A copy was obtained by The Times.

The report enumerates a discouraging list of perceived threats to the regime’s efforts to expand its influence over Polish society--from wayward youth and resentful workers to anti-communist clerics and intellectuals to subversive foreign radio stations that feed the nation’s discontent. Not least among the regime’s problems, the report says, is a lack of clarity, and sometimes reality, in its own pronouncements.

Singling out credibility as the Jaruzelski government’s major stumbling block, the report blames the “insufficient growth of confidence in the regime and its credibility” on what it calls the “relatively low . . . effectiveness with which (its) voiced declarations are implemented.”

“More and more, charges are raised that the regime is not able to execute its own decisions,” the study says. Often, it continues, “reality is ignored when tasks are set,” and it adds with a note of urgency: “The directive for today and tomorrow should be credibility.

“The central authorities must present tasks in a way that is understandable to the entire state apparatus and to the society.”

Apathy, buck-passing and a feeling of resignation are said to afflict Communist Party bureaucrats, civil servants and economic managers alike, posing a “serious threat” to the conduct of state policies. Poland’s economic troubles, it continues, have compounded these attitudes and contribute to “passivity, mistrust and sometimes justifiable fatigue due to living conditions” in the society as a whole.

The net result, the study acknowledges, is that the “moral authority of the regime is being reconstructed with difficulty.”

The authors of the study were not identified, nor was it known whether the Council of Ministers will use it as a basis for action. Given the level at which it was reviewed, however, the report appears likely to have broad influence on the government’s perceptions of the tensions and divisions in Polish society.

The study suggests a deep sense of insecurity in Gen. Jaruzelski’s regime that seems at times to verge on absurdity. In listing social threats to youth and educational institutions, the report lumps drug addiction together with “free summer camps for children” sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, and it alleges that the church is engaged in a campaign to “take over the minds of the society, especially its youth.”

Infiltration is a recurrent theme. In addition to subverting children at free summer camps, the church is accused of conducting “ideological infiltration of the scout movement” while trying to expand its influence in schools, factories and health and recreational facilities.

Solidarity, meanwhile, is said to be continuing its efforts to infiltrate the official trade unions, artistic and cultural groups, universities, factory self-management units and the church.

‘Real, Not Sham’

The report nevertheless stresses the need for dealing openly and honestly with the Polish public on the country’s serious economic and social problems, “through dialogue that is real, not sham.” And it argues that there is no alternative to “presenting the truth, even though it may sometimes be painful and in conflict with public expectations.”

Somewhat inconsistently, however, it accuses the state-controlled news media of falling down in their obligation “to promote government actions” and provide a “correct interpretation” of the state’s social and economic policies.

Making clear what the government expects from the press, radio and television, the study complains that the Polish media often show a “lack of convergence with the government’s working agenda” and that the state’s policies and decisions “are not presented in an appropriate light, and are not introduced into social awareness in a proper way.”

The study, which provides a rare view of the world through the eyes of a beleaguered Communist regime, offers few concrete prescriptions for Poland’s many ills, except in regard to the two sectors of society seen as posing the greatest resistance to Jaruzelski’s leadership--intellectuals and the church.

It accuses the Catholic episcopate of seeking to assume the “role of an important political force in Poland . . . and warrantor of its future.” The report outlines no specific actions against the church but recommends that the “state of implementation of policy toward the church, and of church-state relations, should be reassessed.”

Proposals for dealing with Poland’s intellectuals are more sharply defined. Coming shortly before a plenum of the party Central Committee set for later this month, which is to deal with issues of the intelligentsia, the report indicates that the government contemplates rolling back the measure of freedom that universities and research institutes gained during the Solidarity era in 1980-81.

State policy, the report says, should work to attract those academics who are still hesitant toward the regime and “eliminate determined opponents, especially among academic cadres.”

“In the present ideological strife, conducted on many planes, intellectual communities can play a significant, negative role,” the study warns.

Mindful of this, it says that financial pressures--delicately described at one point as “individualized economic incentives” and more bluntly at another as “governing by means of money”--should be applied so as to “secure the disciplined activity of universities, the Polish Academy of Sciences and other research institutes.”

Similarly, “economic-financial instruments” are seen as the most effective means “to steer the activity of artistic and cultural institutions, as well as individuals.”

Intellectuals also should be reminded of their dependence on the state and should be given a “warning that engaging in anti-socialist activity will force the authorities to change their attitude toward the academic community.”

As a further step, the report calls for amending the current law on higher education to give the state full authority to appoint senior university officials and to carry out annual personnel reviews to weed out politically undesirable faculty members. Similar proposals to amend the 1982 high education law have stirred wide public controversy, but as of last December, the Council of Ministers was on record as seeing no need to change the law.

Poland’s economic problems, made worse by a hard winter and the threat of spring floods, is portrayed as the overriding challenge to Jaruzelski’s government. But the report to the Council of Ministers says the most immediate and pressing political challenge is posed by the elections next fall to the Sejm, Poland’s nominal Parliament.

Only state-approved candidates may run, but the government counts on a large turnout and a resounding vote for the candidates as a demonstration of its acceptance by the Polish public. As things stand, this is by no means assured, partly because the main political instrument for getting out the vote is said to be floundering.

This is PRON, the Patriotic Front for National Rebirth, a national political grouping formed during martial law in 1981 in the hope that it would serve as a forum for discussing social issues within limits set by the state and speed the process of national reconciliation.

Unfortunately, the report says, PRON is threatened by “serious dangers” that include declining activity at the local and factory level, a lack of initiative in recruiting new members and efforts by Solidarity both to infiltrate PRON and to portray it as an uncritical sounding board for government policies. State authorities are said to often treat PRON precisely this way.