Communists Act to Dissolve Polish Party

The Polish Communist Party took the first steps toward dissolving itself Saturday and to lay the groundwork for members to become “social democrats” in “a new Polish party of the left.”

But the old Polish United Workers Party--as the party is formally known--took up nine hours of its congress entangled in a legal debate over how to pass on its property holdings to its successor. And a handful of leading reformers--including several leaders of its parliamentary delegation--walked out and were discussing the formation of a separate party.

The reform group was led by Tadeusz Fiszbach of Gdansk, whose allies headed into a late night meeting to form what they called the Social Democratic Union of the Polish Republic. They finally adjourned early this morning. The remaining delegates adjourned the congress late Saturday.

The new name of the old party, as proposed by its outgoing leader, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, is to be the Social Democratic Party of Poland.

“They are trying to initiate a new party,” said Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, a member of Parliament and of the reform group, “but it will be obvious in two or three weeks that they have no public support.”

As delegates met, about 500 demonstrators from anti-Communist groups gathered outside chanting, “Communists must go!” They burned a red flag. Riot police, a few of them swinging truncheons, moved in to clear the area, but no arrests or serious injuries were reported.

The police moved the protesters a block away, where some of them continued to throw stones, bottles, firecrackers and a few gasoline bombs.

The Communists’ obvious lack of public support has spurred the party to reconstitute itself and to try to market a more youthful and modern image.

As Cimoszewicz suggested, the party--under whatever new guise--faces an uphill battle, and even its most optimistic young members believe it is in for a long period of “rebuilding” before it can hope to offer serious competition in an election campaign.

The party was humiliated in elections last June, when Solidarity candidates swept the newly created Senate and won every seat in the lower house for which it was eligible to compete. The election victory marked a new era in Polish politics, dominated for 40 years by the Communists, and paved the way for a Solidarity-led government.

The Communists have been reeling ever since the election, and this congress, called especially to dissolve the old party and create a new democratic socialist party, is seen by party members as its only chance for rebirth in a fresh political order that is now clearly dominated by Solidarity.

The odds-on favorite for the new party’s leader is Alexander Kwasniewski, a 35-year-old party activist who is being put forward as a fresh face and a distinct break with the older generation of party leaders.

In his speech opening the congress, outgoing party leader Rakowski, 65, suggested it is time for the party leaders of his generation to step aside.

“I consider it appropriate to pass over the helm to a new generation. I personally am not going to run for leadership of the party, and I think that comrades of my generation will not do so,” Rakowski said.

“We will begin a new party which should have the ambition of being the strongest party of the left,” Rakowski said. “It will be a party that will reject any monopoly of power and will be dedicated to political pluralism.”

Rakowski delivered what amounted to a scathing attack on the party’s past policies, saying “we deserved to be beaten” in the June elections. He said the Soviet model of communism, forced on Poland at the end of World War II, “pushed Poland farther and farther down on the list of European economic statistics. . . .”

“The main weakness of the Communist movement was the resignation from political democracy,” he declared. “The market, replaced by central planning, left us with totalitarianism of the bureaucracy. . . . Lenin’s idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat turned into the dictatorship of the party.

“You cannot effectively reform the system without reforming the role of the party, but it took us a long time to reach that conclusion,” Rakowski said.

The party then launched into its hours of wrangling over procedural matters that would ensure the transfer of the party’s considerable property holdings to the new party.

The issue is crucial to the delegates, since the party directly employs about 40,000 people, with as many as 200,000 holding other jobs by virtue of membership in the party.

Some of those jobs have already been slashed, and the government, under Solidarity leadership, has cut off government subsidies to political parties. Solidarity Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, however, blocked a bill in Parliament last week that would have “nationalized” the Communist Party’s assets, turning them over to the state.

Late into the night, the delegates voted to suspend the congress of the old party and set up the temporary framework of the new one. The methods, however, seemed remarkably similar to the old-style Communist Party congress proceedings, as a prearranged slate of officers was quickly adopted to preside over the congress. The ramrod process particularly offended Fiszbach’s group of reformers.

“I haven’t seen such manipulation for a long time,” said Wieslaw Kaczmarek, a member of Parliament who walked out with the Fiszbach group, which refused to register as delegates for the new party.