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make a hara currency loan of socialists, then Polish communthe Polish ists would have the right and the bogged down in a major economic crisis of its own and embroiled in a seemingly endless and costly war aimed at crushing opposition to its puppet government in Afghanistan.

The economic strains of military intervention in Poland would also bear down on the Stalinist bureaucracies of the other Warsaw Pact countries.

They, too, face their own economic crises and share the Kremlin's fear that their own working class will follow the Polish example in fighting for independent trade unions.

The military manoeuvres and preparatons; te campaign against the Polsh oppositionists in the Stalinist official press throughout Eastern Europe; and the atmosphere of crisis whipped up by the Warsaw Pact summit are plainly designed to serve a dual purpose.

On the ones nand, the Stalinist leaders hope to frighten Polish workers into submission.

On the other hand, if they fail, then the groundwork will have been laid for an actual military invasion.

The fact that invasion is still only being held in reserve was underlined by the decision last week of the Soviet leadership to $1.1 billion bureaucracy. East Germany, too, has apparently offered a substantial interest-free loan.

And Polish Party chief Kania has been sent back, with ringing -if unconvincing-declarations of confidence, to sort out the problems of preserving bureaucratic control.

A special plenum of the Party's 240-strong Central Committee was held, which issued a stern warning that "the fate of the country and the nation is at stake."

For the Stalinist bureaucracy of course the most important issue at stake is their own position of power and privilege.

As one Party member pointed out to Newsweek magazine, if genuine reforms along the lines demanded by workers were carried throush:

"There are a lot of people who are going to lose their fur coats and Mercedes cars. They will do anything to restore the status quo-even welcome the Russians"

First of the Polish bureaucrats to offer an advance welcome to Russian invaders was the new propaganda chief Jozet Klasa, who declared that:

"If the threat to socialism was real, if power passed from the hands of democracy to antiduty to seek from their socialist allies."

Klasa does not just speak for himself. It is estimated that at least 50,000 Communist Party functionaries at present derive their privileges from their bureaucratic mismanagement of Poland's nationalised economy.

This is on top of the hundreds of thousands of factory managers, police and army chiefs and administrators.

Fat salaries

None of these bureaucrats wishes to see Polish workers stripping them of their fat salaries, comfortable houses, limousines and special shopsor calling them to account for their disastrous economic policies.

They would sooner see a Russian invasion crush the working class and restore to them the political power on which their wealth depends.

Their willingness to invite in such heavy-handed assistance has been increased by the movement demanding an extension of democracy and accountability within the Communist Party itself which finds itself increasingly estranged from the working class. A recent survey shows that less than one-fifth of the Central Committee are workers.

And with around one million The death of Portuguese Prime Minister Francisco Sa Carneiro in an air crash is likely to have such a profound effect on Portuguese politics that it is hard to believe that someone did TROOPS TROOPS • JANK 5 TANK INFANTRY & MARINES AIRBORNE BERLIN ¡MATIONAL! SOVIET EAST TROOPS TROOPS TANK INFANTRY &! 4 10 MARINES PRAGUE® "cHosOVAKIA TANK INFANTRY & MARINES AIRBORNE Financial Times Party members having joined solidarity, the demand for rank nd file election or delegates to the Congress have been growing and some local branches have been considering the unheard of step of tabling resolutions in opposition to the leadership line.

Meanwhile Lech Walesa and the leadership of Solidarity have responded to the Kremlin's sabre-rattling.

Included in the deal which secured the release of two Gdansk SICIECIP O LAN D:

POZMAN WARSAW 2007 WROCLAW Boo.

AUSTR A Mites. _100 HUNGARY D 150 • BUDAPEST arrested Solidarity members and the lifting of a General Strike threat was an agreed six-week moratorium on strike action.

Walesa has been fighting tooth and nail since then to have this deal ratified and upheld.

Quietly ditched

The Solidarity demands for a probe into the power, the budget and the privileges of the secret police are likely to be TOMILUNION *ExCL FORCES Me BORDER EEUROPE REGION I TANK INFANTRY & MARINES SOVIET AIR ARMIES HUNGARY TANK INFANTRY & MARINES quietly ditched by Walesa, who from the outset regarded them as an embarrassment.

But as Poland's economic crisis gallops ahead and the food queues lengthen, Solidarity leaders will find it increasingly hard to hold the workers in check.

Kania, Brezhnev, other Stalinist heads of state and the imperialist leaders are all plainly praying that they succeed. 11+20 STRENGTH

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