biography
pronunciation:
[geerek]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1913–2001)
|
| biography:
| Polish statesman, born in Porabka, S Poland. He lived in France (1923–34) during the Pilsudski dictatorship, and joined the French Communist Party in 1931. He was deported to Poland in 1934, and lived in Belgium (1937–48), becoming a member of the Belgian resistance. On his return to Poland in 1948, he joined the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP), being inducted into its Politburo in 1956 and appointed party boss of Silesia. He became PUWP leader in 1970, when Gomulka resigned after strikes and riots in Gdansk, Gdynia, and Szczecin. Head of the Party's ‘technocrat faction’, he embarked on an ambitious industrialization programme. This plunged the country heavily into debt and, following a wave of strikes in Warsaw and Gdansk, spearheaded by the ‘Solidarity’ free trade union movement, he was forced to resign in 1980, and was expelled from the Party in 1981. |
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