NID: POLAND: COMMUNIST PARTY TRYING TO SAVE ITSELF

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe: A 30-Year Legacy
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06826846
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 26, 2019
• Document Release Date: December 10, 2019
• Publication Date: January 12, 1990

Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826846
CI Li
POLAND: Communist Party Trying lb Save Itself
The Central Committee of Poland's Communist party decided
Saturday to dissolve the party at its Congress on 27 January and
to form a broad-based ''socialist" party with a new name, a new
leadership, and a commitment to parliamentary democracy.
the leadership's first priority is to head
oil a split into orthodox and reformist panics
Comment: The shaken party's promise of far-reaching changes in its
political program is unlikely to make it competitive or stave off its
further decline. The changes approved by the Central Committee arc
a vain attempt at appeasing the reformists in the leadership without
jeopardizing the party's traditional base. But the quest for internal
cohesion probably will not restore the Communists' electoral
competitiveness. The party is so discredited that its successor cannot
escape being tainted, and a further decline appears inevitable. Large
numbers of Communists already have abandoned their party tics to
protect their jobs with the Solidarity-led government, and more
defections arc likely. If the party suffers massive defeats in the local
elections this summer, as is li prsureror a formal split may
prove irresistible.
NR Record
7
11-p-searls
TS 2710/90
12 January 1990
VIS
Approved for Release: 2019/10/29 C06826846