Solidarity Aide Nominated as Polish Premier

President Wojciech Jaruzelski on Saturday formally nominated a longtime Solidarity adviser, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, as Poland’s new prime minister, who will put together the first non-Communist government in Eastern Europe since the end of World War II.

The historic step was announced in a four-paragraph statement issued by the Polish news agency and climaxed a swift and incisively orchestrated drive by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa to wrest the government from Communist control.

Message to Sejm

“In the nearest future,” the announcement said, “the president will table a motion to the Sejm (lower house of Parliament) Speaker on the appointment of Tadeusz Mazowiecki to the post of premier and entrusting him with the mission of forming a government. In the present situation, the president sees a need to create a government enjoying the necessary support of parliamentary floor groups and to build it on foundations of broad agreement between Poland’s political and social forces.”

Mazowiecki, 62, the editor of Solidarity’s weekly newspaper, Tygodnik Solidarnosc, has been a member of Solidarity’s inner circle of advisers since the union was born in the Gdansk shipyards in 1980. Walesa’s personal choice for the job, Mazowiecki met with Jaruzelski for two hours on Friday and said afterward he was ready to accept the position.

His election by the Sejm, probably on Wednesday, is a virtual certainty.

As a result of a new coalition with the United Peasants’ Party and the Democratic Party, Solidarity controls 264 seats, a majority in the 460-member Sejm. With 103 votes between them, the Peasants and the Democrats on Wednesday abandoned a 40-year alliance with the Communists, decisively shifting the balance of power.

Mazowiecki, who told reporters Friday that he intended to spend Saturday “walking in the woods,” spent the day at a school for the blind run by Franciscan nuns, where he was briefly interviewed by Polish television.

The economy, he said, is “the greatest problem” for Poland. “I think about it, but no one has a miraculous answer. I think the most important thing is that people think that things can be better. . . . We are capable of doing very much. It is not easy, but it is possible if people feel they are on their own. . . . The government has to give the feeling that it is creating possibilities, not limiting them.”

Mazowiecki, a devout Catholic, was one of Solidarity’s leading negotiators in the lengthy “round-table” negotiations that began last April. Like many of Solidarity’s leaders, he was imprisoned during the martial-law crackdown imposed by Jaruzelski in December, 1981, and was released after one year. He immediately returned to his opposition activities.

President Jaruzelski on Saturday also accepted the formal resignation of Prime Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak, who offered to step aside on Monday after attempting unsuccessfully since his appointment Aug. 2 to form a government.

As the announcement of Mazowiecki’s appointment was issued, the Communist Party’s 230-member Central Committee was meeting in an emergency session to formulate a new strategy to deal with a situation that reflected the worst fears of party hard-liners, who had fought hard against a yearlong government rapprochement with Solidarity.

The hard-liners, however, appeared in general retreat, while the party’s younger and more progressive members lobbied for a proposal that would advocate a technocratic government of “experts” free from direct links to political parties. It was not a proposal likely to generate much enthusiasm from Solidarity.

Wlodzimierz Lozinski, a spokesman for the president, said there is “some division” within the Central Committee over the president’s action, but “generally speaking,” there was support for accepting it, since “there is no alternative.”

‘A Major Breakthrough’

Solidarity’s leadership, in its own executive session in Gdansk, issued a statement saying the move “should produce a major breakthrough in Polish public life by doing away with the present policy of nomenklatura, “ the system in which party members are appointed to key positions throughout government and industry.

Indeed, the formation of a Solidarity government appears to spell an end to the Leninist principle that insists on the leading role of the Communist Party in the affairs of state. The reversal of this cherished Communist idea promises to upend power arrangements that have existed in the country since the Communist takeover in Poland after World War II.

Under the agreed upon arrangement, the Communists will retain control of two sensitive ministries--defense and interior--thus assuring the Soviet Union that its security arrangements with Poland remain intact. The Communists also expect to play a strong role in foreign affairs, and a bargain may be struck to assign a Communist to the position of deputy foreign minister.

However, it seems assured that all other ministries will be in the hands of Solidarity and its new coalition allies. Solidarity sources say that the United Peasants’ Party could wind up with four or five ministries and the Democratic Party with two.

The key ministries of agriculture, industry, commerce, health, justice, transport, communications--in short, all government departments dealing with domestic affairs and economic policy--are sure to be in the hands of the Solidarity coalition. The effects will be sweeping, although, as Solidarity activists admit, the changes may be at times confusing, conflicting and perhaps even chaotic.

More Political Reforms

Solidarity has made clear already that it will press ahead with further political reforms. Speaking to a parliamentary caucus last week, one deputy said that Solidarity can be expected to move as quickly as possible to bring state-run television and radio under the supervision of Parliament, thereby cutting out Communist control of the electronic media. It is also expected that the Communists who have served as spokesmen for the government will be replaced.

Solidarity has also said it wants to renegotiate the agreements reached with the government in April, which called for fully free elections in four years, and schedule free elections in two years.

The decision by Jaruzelski to accept a Solidarity prime minister and what amounts to a Solidarity Cabinet can be taken as the ranking achievement so far in the career of Walesa--a career that clearly has still not reached his peak. It is generally assumed that Walesa, when the chance comes, will seek election as president of Poland, a possibility that no longer seems remote.

The drive for Solidarity to take the government was Walesa’s own idea, one that ran counter to the thinking of Solidarity’s moderate-leaning brain trust, which cautioned that Solidarity is not yet prepared or experienced enough to take over a government.

The notion first began to be discussed after Solidarity’s triumph in the June elections, in which its candidates swept 99 of 100 seats in the new Senate and won all 161 seats for which it could compete in the Sejm.

No ‘Grand Coalition’

The Communists tried unsuccessfully to coax Solidarity into a “grand coalition.” They watched (“paralyzed like rabbits,” in the scolding phrase of Communist Party leader Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski) while Walesa’s lieutenants pried loose the Peasants and Democratic parties from the Communist coalition.

After its embarrassing performance in the elections, the Communists’ setbacks continued. Jaruzelski himself was elected president by the margin of half a vote in the Sejm. Gen. Kiszczak’s election as prime minister was briefly stalled by a premature threat by the Peasants’ Party to vote against him. And after his election, the threats mounted to vote against any Cabinet he nominated.

At that point, Walesa’s campaign--some of it carefully waged behind the backs, or over the heads, of some of Solidarity’s more conservative advisers--was on the edge of success. The defections of the two minor parties clinched it.

A key element, however, was out of Walesa’s hands: the acceptance of the idea by the Soviet Union. Walesa, early last week, pointedly repeated his assurance that Solidarity had no intention of withdrawing Poland from its Warsaw Pact security commitments to the Soviet Union. A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman called the statement “sensible” and went on to say that while the Soviet Union was watching Polish events with “concern,” it had no intention of interfering.

A Major Turnaround

Moscow’s acceptance of an opposition government in Poland represents a major turnaround for the Soviet Union, which has considered Poland a key element (as well as a most troublesome one) in the string of East European nations that serve as a buffer against the West.

Diplomats and experienced observers of East European politics believe it is inconceivable that Jaruzelski could have taken such a momentous step without close consultation with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. And the activities last weekend of Soviet Ambassador Vladimir I. Brovikov, who met with Kiszczak, the outgoing prime minister, and the heads of the Peasants and Democratic parties, suggest that the Soviets were kept closely informed and were passing on their own counsel.

The implications, for the rest of Communist Europe, are far reaching. The Polish experience gives the green light to Hungary, running second in the reform sweepstakes, for similar changes, which could follow elections to be held there next year.

Czechoslovakia, however, is likely to be the country where Communist leaders will receive the news with the most shock and alarm. The hard-line Czechoslovak leaders have dug in their heels against political reform and give little more than lip service on issues of economic reform.

Significantly, the regime in Prague has been increasing its pressure on opposition activists, common targets of arrest and police harassment. In recent days, the leadership has attempted to forestall planned demonstrations Monday (in protest of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion) by circulating rumors that police may be issued live ammunition to deal with protesters.

The hard-line regime in East Germany, which is wedged between Poland and affluent, democratic West Germany, also views the momentous changes in Warsaw with alarm. Its concern is compounded by the recent flight of large numbers of East Germans to the West.

Enormous Pressure

The pressures on Solidarity are enormous, now that it enters a new era, clearly transformed from a union-based opposition movement to a political party--even though it has not yet accepted that definition of itself.

Solidarity faces its own internal divisions as well, including disputes over how fast to move toward a market economy, steps that could cause steep price increases and consequent worker demands for compensatory wage hikes. Walesa could find himself in a replay of 1981, when he spent much of his time crisscrossing the country in the attempt to get strikers to go back to work.

It is likely that the Polish public, and even demanding factory workers, will give Solidarity a period of grace, but it is not certain how long the patience will last.

“It is an incredible success for our struggle, but let us now see it in practice,” a delighted Walesa told the Associated Press in a telephone interview from Gdansk after Jaruzelski’s announcement. “This is just the beginning.”