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Suslov's personal intervention in Poland coincided with some reminders that armed intervention could ultimately enforce Moscow's injunctions. Members of the Warsaw Pact's Military Council, a phalanx of top-level generals, converged on the Bulgarian capital of Sofia last week for a three-day strategy meeting. Speaking in Moscow on the 111th anniversary of Lenin's birth, meanwhile, Soviet Politburo Member Konstantin Chernenko accused the West of trying to "destabilize" Poland and warned that "we will not allow anybody to infringe on the lawful interests of our country and our allies."
Moscow had plenty to kick about. Two weeks ago, the Kania government promised official recognition to Rural Solidarity, an 800,000-member independent farmers' union. At the same time, some 500 rank-and-file Polish Communists were allowed to hold a heretical meeting at Torun to demand greater democratization within the party. As if that were not enough to exasperate the Kremlin, Polish leaders continued to pursue a conciliatory policy toward the independent trade union federation. That policy was reflected in the government's proposed agenda for talks with Solidarity that resumed at week's end. Though it glossed over some of the more prickly political issues raised by the union, the government offered to discuss "institutional guarantees" against harassment of Solidarity members, as well as a broadening of union access to state radio and television. At the same time, however, authorities wanted to defer some promised pay increases and secure the union's help in salvaging Poland's battered economy.
It will take more than domestic cooperation to set the Polish economy right. Saddled with a $27 billion foreign debt and crippled by falling production, the country is on the verge of economic collapse. In an effort to avert a financial catastrophe, representatives of Poland's major Western government creditors—including West Germany, France and the U.S.—are scheduled to meet with Polish representatives in Paris to discuss a possible deferment of the $4.4 billion that Warsaw owes them this year. The decision of those governmental creditors will probably determine the attitude of the 350 commercial banks to which Poland owes another $2.5 billion this year.
Some potential relief came two weeks ago, when commercial bank representatives meeting in London recommended that Warsaw be allowed to delay payment on $1.05 billion due before July 1. But that limited rollover agreement, as one Western banker put it, was like "applying a Band-Aid to a patient in the intensive care unit." Ultimately, Poland's creditors may have no choice but to shore up their profligate client. Since Warsaw has almost no recoverable assets abroad to offset losses, a default would be nearly as costly for the lenders as for the Poles themselves. Summed up a British banker in London: "In a real sense, we are condemned to salvage the Poles."
—By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by Richard Hornik/Vienna