Rival Reform Parties Arise as Poland’s Old Guard Falls

The Communists dissolved their 41-year-old party today and split into two pro-reform groups that will try to find a place in the East Bloc’s first democracy.

Former Communists today chose Alexander Kwasniewski, a 35-year-old sports official, to lead the new Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland. Most of the former Communist Party members joined the party.

But a more radical reformer backed by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, former Gdansk party chief Tadeusz Fiszbach, broke away from the larger group and created a smaller party, called the Social-Democratic Union, that he said would not be tainted by the Old Guard.

Poland has led the past year’s whirlwind of democratic reform in the East Bloc, and its Communist Party became the second in the Warsaw Pact after Hungary to disband in an attempt to distance itself from a repressive past.

Hungary’s Communists dissolved their party in October, a month after the Solidarity movement took control of Poland’s government and ended 40 years of Communist rule. Hungary is to hold free elections on March 25. Poland held elections in June, when Solidarity-backed candidates won all but one of the seats they contested.

The Social Democrats elected Kwasniewski, who is close to the former Communist leadership, as their first chairman. Leszek Miller, a former Communist Party secretary, was chosen as general secretary.

“We feel very moved by this election, and also terrified because we are aware of the immense tasks,” Kwasniewski told the delegates. “I hope we can do together what we have to.”

Kwasniewski, who directs the government’s sports committee, has said he wants a party capable of rallying leftist opinions and winning popular backing following the demise of the Communist Party.

On Sunday, the main body of Communists voted 1,228 to 32 to create a new party with a platform calling for a multiparty system, respect for human rights and a market economy with some state ownership of capital.

Fiszbach and about 100 followers declared formation of their own Social Democratic Union based on “completely different organizational and financial principles.”

Fiszbach, a parliamentary deputy who quit his regional party chief job after the 1981 martial law crackdown on Solidarity, denounced what he called “artificial unity” and said it was impossible that all the old Communists had instantly become believers in democracy.

The Social Democratic Union’s founders included about two dozen formerly Communist members of Parliament. In a statement, the breakaway party said it would call a nationwide congress in coming months and likely field candidates in the local elections.