Communists to Rename Polish Party
Polish Communists today voted overwhelmingly to transform--and rename--their party after their loss of power to the Solidarity movement.
Politburo member Leszek Miller told the Central Committee that a plebiscite by the membership on the future of the Polish United Workers’ Party, the official name of the Communist party, had produced a landslide vote for change.
The result means that the 41-year-old party, formed to impose Stalinism on postwar Poland, will probably cease to exist in its current form in a few months.
Party leaders have already proposed renaming it the Polish Socialist Labor Party.
Miller said 1.1 million of the party’s 2.2 million members took part in the plebiscite on the future of the party and 72.1% voted yes to the question: “Are you, comrade, for transformation of the Polish United Workers’ Party into a new party with a new program, statutes and name?”
The results did not define the shape or name of the new party, which will be decided at a special congress that Miller proposed for Jan. 27.
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