Jaruzelski Named to a New Term; Military Gets Greater Policy Voice

Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski was named to a new term as leader of Poland’s Communist Party on Thursday in a realignment of the Politburo and the Central Committee that affirmed his unchallenged authority.

In the closing session of a five-day party congress, seven of the Politburo’s 13 members were removed and nine party officials added. The new members include three senior generals, which will give the military and the security forces a much larger voice in policy-making.

Along with Jaruzelski, 62, who is commander in chief of the armed forces, four of the 15 Politburo members are now generals. The other three are Florian Siwicki, the defense minister; Czeslaw Kiszczak, the interior minister, and Jozef Baryla, the party secretary in charge of security affairs.

Also named to the Politburo was Alfred Miodowicz, chairman of the new, state-sanctioned trade union organization set up in 1982 to take the place of the outlawed Solidarity free trade union. The appointment of Miodowicz, ostensibly to give workers a direct voice in policy-making, leaves little substance to official claims that the new union body, known by the Polish acronym “OPZZ,” is independent of state control.

Liberals Noticeably Absent

The reorganized Politburo has no one who is clearly identified with the Communist Party’s liberal, reform-minded wing, which has long been a source of pressure for democratization within the Communist framework.

At the same time, all four blue-collar “worker” members, the symbolic representatives of Poland’s brand of conservative, orthodox Marxism, were also removed from the Politburo.

The result is a party leadership populated almost entirely by followers of Jaruzelski’s policy line, which Polish observers and diplomats alike generally regard as moderately conservative--one that favors the minimum amount of repression needed to curb the Solidarity opposition, takes a cautious approach to economic reforms and seeks improved relations with Western Europe, if not the United States.

‘External, Internal Enemy’

In a speech to the closing session of the party congress, Jaruzelski maintained that Poland remains “under the fire of an external and internal enemy” nearly five years after he suppressed the 10-million-member Solidarity union under military rule in 1981.

“We will resist sharply and firmly those who will want to damage and incite,” he said.

Despite his martial tone, the government is proceeding to draft legislation for the latest in an annual series of amnesties for political prisoners. It is likely to be announced, as others have been, on the July 22 anniversary of the Communist regime’s constitution of 1952.

According to Polish party sources, the amnesty will probably free all but about 20 of an estimated 350 people currently in prison for “politically motivated offenses.”

Activists to Be Freed

Some Solidarity leaders will probably be released, and there are unconfirmed reports that most, including the recently captured leader of the Solidarity underground, Zbigniew Bujak, may be freed. Doing so would gain the regime a measure of sorely needed public confidence, lift some barriers to credits from Western Europe and underscore the regime’s contention that Solidarity is increasingly irrelevant to Polish society.

Jaruzelski did not mention the amnesty in his closing speech Thursday except to say that “we open a new chance for all those who want to join (in) work for the good and the future of socialist Poland.”