SLOGANS OF UNIVERSAL PROSPERITY

 
Edward Gierek
On December 20th 1971 during the VII meeting of Polish United Workers' Party Edward Gierek was chosen the first secretary of the party. On December 23rd Piotr Jaroszewicz became the prime minister. For a few weeks the new management of Polish United Workers' Party was trying to achieve stabilization. The price rises were kept but nobody who had taken part in fights in Gdansk was punished. The censorship blocked all articles about the events. On January 18th under the influence of people the local press in Szczecin and Gdansk published a list of 41 killed during the riots. On January 5th 1971 Gierek and Jaroszewicz had an appointment with Brezniew in Moscow. Gierek talked about the need to regulate the relationships with the catholic Church. Also he claimed that the December events pointed at the need for bigger Militia forces. Besides he suggested that the salaries for poor people should be higher and emphasized the desire to cooperate with Moscow. He invited the Soviet government to help in creating the economic plans and assured that Poland would not lead its own foreign policy.

In 1971 the currency reserves were used. The economic mechanism was improved. The agricultural production increased. Broadly speaking people's incomes went up by about 11%. Despite this, the amount of goods in shops was enough. The successes of the first year encouraged Gierek and Jaroszewicz team to carry on the rise of consumption and investments at the same time.

In February 1971 during the VIII meeting Gierek announced the reconstruction of lots of economy branches. The main purpose of this strategy was to speed up technological modernization. A credit from the West was easy to obtain because of profitable tide of the market and cheap Rockall. In 1970-1976 debts of countries of Central Europe increased from 2 milliard to 45 milliard dollars. One fourth of this amount was assigned to Poland. It was treated as a fight with unemployment. Poland was one of the countries which developed their economy. The most important of all was heavy industry -electricity and also foundry. The development of machine industry led to the rise in the number of cars. The number of cars, buses, lorries increased. Also the railway lines were modernized and electrified. A great deal of money was spend on building the Katowice foundry. The most important product was coal. The coal was the main export. There were established new coal-mines. However in that time light industry was neglected. In 1971-1975 there started to work 65 houses' factories, which in 1975 produced about 60% houses.

Since 1971 party-governmental commission directed by Jan Szydlak worked out the project of reform of the economic system. In 1973 there were created huge economic organizations, so-called consortium, which got the right to take decisions about the employment limits, fund of salaries, lead the foreign trade and own investments.