Post by Jaga on Mar 6, 2020 23:55:38 GMT -7
Stanislaw Kania was the first secretary of Polish party not for a long time. He was neither the worst, not the best. At least he did not leave a bloodsheet on his hands
Stanislaw Kania, 92, Polish Leader During Solidarity’s Rise, Dies
Mr. Kania walked a tightrope between demands for reform within Poland and the Soviet threat of intervention.
Stanislaw Kania, the general secretary of Poland’s Communist Party, in August 1981. Two months later he was ousted and replaced by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, seated at left behind Mr. Kania in his military uniform.
Stanislaw Kania, the general secretary of Poland’s Communist Party, in August 1981. Two months later he was ousted and replaced by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, seated at left behind Mr. Kania in his military uniform.Credit...Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
By Dennis Hevesi
March 3, 2020
Stanislaw Kania, who as Poland’s Communist leader for 13 tumultuous months in the early 1980s steered a delicate course for his country, avoiding both open confrontation with Solidarity, the rising independent labor movement, and military intervention by the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday in Warsaw. He was 92.
The state-run Polish Press Agency said he died of heart failure and pneumonia at a hospital.
As first secretary of Poland’s Communist Party, Mr. Kania, a colorless career party functionary, led the government in Warsaw from September 1980 through October 1981. After surviving several attempts to oust him, he was finally deposed by party hard-liners under pressure from the Soviet leader at the time, Leonid I. Brezhnev. A Soviet invasion was averted, but within two months martial law was imposed by Mr. Kania’s successor, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski.
The struggle faced by Mr. Kania, a stocky man with close-cropped receding hair, was reflected in a speech he made to party members at the Lenin Steel Mill in the southern city of Cracow, Poland’s second-largest city, in June 1981. Speaking of militant members of Solidarity, he said: “They say that the socialist system does not yield to reform. They even do not exclude the vision of civil war in Poland. Such statements and actions cannot be treated as anything but stalking counterrevolution.”
Yet Mr. Kania (pronounced KAHN-ya) balanced that hard line against Solidarity with assurances that the government sought “constructive relations” with the union and would treat it “kindly.”
Mr. Kania never captured the hearts of the Polish people, but many were grateful to him that he had never ordered security forces to put down protests.
He had been national security chief for 10 years when the party chose him to replace Edward Gierek as first secretary on Sept. 6, 1980. Mr. Gierek was ousted in the aftermath of huge demonstrations, including strikes at the Gdansk shipyard, that had paralyzed the nation in August and prompted the government to agree to allow Solidarity to become an independent union.
Stanislaw Kania, 92, Polish Leader During Solidarity’s Rise, Dies
Mr. Kania walked a tightrope between demands for reform within Poland and the Soviet threat of intervention.
Stanislaw Kania, the general secretary of Poland’s Communist Party, in August 1981. Two months later he was ousted and replaced by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, seated at left behind Mr. Kania in his military uniform.
Stanislaw Kania, the general secretary of Poland’s Communist Party, in August 1981. Two months later he was ousted and replaced by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, seated at left behind Mr. Kania in his military uniform.Credit...Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
By Dennis Hevesi
March 3, 2020
Stanislaw Kania, who as Poland’s Communist leader for 13 tumultuous months in the early 1980s steered a delicate course for his country, avoiding both open confrontation with Solidarity, the rising independent labor movement, and military intervention by the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday in Warsaw. He was 92.
The state-run Polish Press Agency said he died of heart failure and pneumonia at a hospital.
As first secretary of Poland’s Communist Party, Mr. Kania, a colorless career party functionary, led the government in Warsaw from September 1980 through October 1981. After surviving several attempts to oust him, he was finally deposed by party hard-liners under pressure from the Soviet leader at the time, Leonid I. Brezhnev. A Soviet invasion was averted, but within two months martial law was imposed by Mr. Kania’s successor, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski.
The struggle faced by Mr. Kania, a stocky man with close-cropped receding hair, was reflected in a speech he made to party members at the Lenin Steel Mill in the southern city of Cracow, Poland’s second-largest city, in June 1981. Speaking of militant members of Solidarity, he said: “They say that the socialist system does not yield to reform. They even do not exclude the vision of civil war in Poland. Such statements and actions cannot be treated as anything but stalking counterrevolution.”
Yet Mr. Kania (pronounced KAHN-ya) balanced that hard line against Solidarity with assurances that the government sought “constructive relations” with the union and would treat it “kindly.”
Mr. Kania never captured the hearts of the Polish people, but many were grateful to him that he had never ordered security forces to put down protests.
He had been national security chief for 10 years when the party chose him to replace Edward Gierek as first secretary on Sept. 6, 1980. Mr. Gierek was ousted in the aftermath of huge demonstrations, including strikes at the Gdansk shipyard, that had paralyzed the nation in August and prompted the government to agree to allow Solidarity to become an independent union.