ABSTRACT
The Soviet factor may have added to the onset of new disarray in Polish leadership. A Central Committee plenary meeting is convene by the Polish United Worker’s Party (PUWP) Politburo. The forces of restraint in Moscow assuredly shaped Pravda’s account of the Polish Plenum. The selective editing of Plenum materials is at the same time suggestive of Soviet disgust with the squabbling and wavering of the political hierarchy in Warsaw. The nature of actions and statements by numerous leaders of the trade association are evidence that Solidarity is sliding onto the path of adventures. The top–level apparatchik Olszowski had flaunted loyalty to the Soviet Union and personal ambition in a somber article on the PUWP Congress that wrote for the October issue of the international communist journal Problems of Peace and Socialism. “The state,” Olszowski says to Soviet delight, “will use any and all means as will be required by the situation for the defense of socialism”.
