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CRISIS IN
EASTERN EUROPE
Where
It
Will
Lead
by
Gene H. Hogberg
Workers in Poland are threatening to unravel Soviet dominance over
the political affairs of Eastern Europe. Will Moscow have to make a deal
with the West to preserve its interests?
If
so, the political
map of Europe will be altered beyond recognition-with grave
consequences for Britain and the United States.
N
OT SINCE
the late
Marshal
Josip Broz
Tito wrested inde-
pendence
for
Yugoslavia in 1948
has the Soviet
Union been faced
with sucb a stern
challenge in Eu–
rope. At stake is
Moscow's entire
buffer zone that it
acquired by force
in the aftermath of
the Second World
War.
Communist Party
officials in East Ger–
many, Czechoslo–
vakia, Hungary and Romania
are deeply disturbed over the
stunning economic and politi–
cal concessions made by
Poland's communist govern–
ment to that country's newly
independent labor movement.
They fear that Poland's whiff
of freedom will blow their way
February 1981
military forces of the
Soviet Union and other
Warsaw Pact allies
poised to forcefully put
an end to the Polish
experiment. That the
Soviets
could
do so no
one doubted. Kept in a
stage of alert, in a
tightened noose around
Poland, were sorne six–
ty Soviet divisions–
roughly one-third the
entire armed might of
the U.S.S.R.
But mi litary inter–
vention, on the order of
§
Soviet thrusts into
~
Hungary in 1956 and
~IWI 7
Czechoslovakia in
:::;,..--.,,____ '1:
.g
1968, confronts Mos–
~
cow with a decidedly
~
no-win option, one that
LECH WALESA, Poland's independent
union feeder, signs agreement with gov–
ernment official. Mr. Walesa uses sou–
venir pen from Pope's 1979 visit.
as well, threatening the com–
munist monopoly of power.
To Crush , o r No t t o Crush
The year 1980 ended with the
the Kremlin has shown
extreme reluctance to exercise.
Interventi on could not be
undertaken without paying an
enormous price. The Polish army
and civilian population would
resist mightily. According to
sorne estimates, the Soviets might
have to use up to a million sol-
diers-and keep them there
indefinitely. The fifteen Polish
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