THE XIth PLENUM OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED WORKERS' (COMMUNIST) PARTY
The XIth Plenum of the Central Committee of the United Workers' Party of Poland was marked by a series of economic decisions and a new battle, this time against Gomulka and the Stalinist tendency properly so called (the "Natolinists").
The party decided to discharge about 200,000 workers of the metallurgical industry and to try to find work for them in agriculture, trade, and public services, as well as in the underdeveloped western provinces taken over from Germany. One hundred thousand other employees of the central offices are to find more productive jobs elsewhere.
The CC also decided on a serious raise in rents in order to make housing construction self-supporting.
These measures gave pretexts to the Stalinist fraction for an attack on Gomulka under cover of a policy "in defense of the workers." The attack was carried out by Wiktor Klosiewicz, former trade-union leader during the Stalinist period, and currently Minister of Labor. Klosiewicz in reality wanted to criticize Gomulka's "insufficiently resolute" attitude against the revisionists and especially his insufficiently conformist attitude toward the Kremlin on the occasion of the Moscow meeting of the leaders of the Communist Parties last November.
Klosiewicz was backed up in his criticisms by only 5 (out of 75) other members of the CC, despite estimates that the number of "Natolinists" is far greater that this figure. Polish left-communist circles explain this by the fact that Klosiewicz is in reality one of the least anody: least capable, and most and th.: the others refrained from running the risks that he did. And in fact Klosiewicz was expelled from the CC for having made an "attack on the unity"
The question of the balance-sheet of the party purge was at discussed at this Plenurn. It will probably be a subject the ext flenum especially devoted to preparing the par congress.
Up till now purge has eliminated only about 150,000 (out of about 1,300,000) members. But far from having been carried out on a political basis that might reinvigorate the now extinguished political life of the party, it was carried out on the basis of moralistic considerations, while having yet hit at some genuinely leftist elements and some show-piece "Stalinists."
most backward aspect of current developments Poland, which is still struggling with serious economic diffi.
is the lowering of the level of political, gical, and cultural life. Gomulkaist neo-conformism is once
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