Democracy Is Thin Gruel When Cupboards Are Empty : Poland: The government is threatened with strikes--and worse--unless it can put food and fuel on the market. Foreign aid is needed immediately.

A rapidly approaching crisis in Poland may well determine the ultimate success or failure of the revolutionary developments taking place in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The economic situation in Poland is entangled in domestic and international complications. The initial steps taken by the new government to overcome it have included a restraint on wage increases and a sharp increase in prices--and this in a land already suffering from galloping inflation.

Every time in the last 15 years when there has been a general price increase in Poland, widespread strikes and serious political crises have developed. The only way a repetition of this scenario can now be avoided would seem to be immediate, massive infusions of direct foreign assistance--several billions of dollars, in the opinion of some Polish economists. Western Europe has come up with $720 million for this year, and the United States has pledged $500 million. The Japanese have promised aid. But it is doubtfule that the assistance will be enough and in sufficient time to make an impact when it is needed, which is in the immediate future.

There are two major political groups in Poland, Solidarity and the Communist Party, and each is divided into three factions: a trade union-oriented wing, a democratic reformist wing and a radical reformist wing. The moderate wing of Solidarity now dominates the government. With the new price increases, the trade-union wing of Solidarity is pressuring for nationwide strikes. This would be disastrous. But if the Solidarity group doesn’t call for strikes, the trade-union wing of the party is almost certain to do so.

One reason for popular support for Solidarity was a widespread belief that leaders like Lech Walesa could produce foreign assistance to ease the shortage of consumer goods. This faith now appears to be waning. Understandably, the Polish population is more concerned with being able to buy food and fuel than with the government’s structural reforms. Popular participation in the democratic process was sufficient to defeat the Communists, but it has not been really widespread. In the elections last July, voter turnout was about 38%; in a critical by-election in October, it was only 14%.

With the discrediting of the Communist Party, Solidarity is the major, if not the only, force holding the Polish government together. Should it now falter, the result would likely be chaotic. Waiting on the sidelines, in anticipation of just such a development, are two small, right-wing parties, believed to have allies in the Polish army. These groups manifest all the characteristics of traditional Polish nationalist extremism--violently anti-Soviet and with anti-Semitic tendencies. Already they have been demanding a return to Poland of territory seized by the Soviet Union during and after World War II.

Of all the Eastern European countries, Poland is considered by the Soviet Union as the most important from a geopolitical and strategic point of view. Gorbachev has proclaimed, and thus far observed, a strictly hands-off policy on Eastern European developments. He would be hard-pressed to maintain that policy if the crisis in Poland should result in a right-wing, openly anti-Soviet regime and raise the border issue. Soviet reticence would be especially difficult in the face of continued threats of secession by the neighboring Baltic republics. German pressures for reunification constitute another worrisome factor for the Kremlin in this connection, with some German groups calling for a return of East Prussian territories that are now part of Poland and the Soviet Union.

Soviet intervention--direct or indirect--in Poland would certainly produce a strong negative response from the West. This in turn would pose a serious threat to Gorbachev’s valiant efforts in both domestic and foreign policy and possibly doom the renaissance of democracy throughout Eastern Europe.

If developments in Poland are the key, then Western aid to Poland is crucial. The question is whether the aid will be sufficient and whether there is time for it to have a beneficial impact.