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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 26, 1981
PAGE 7
Communist help to govern.
they did in the ear1ier
office.
The Communists lost heavily in the elections, as
presidential vote that swept Mitterrand into
Mitterrand's Gallic logic seems to be this:
Throw a few crumbs to the
Communists now while they are weak and submissive. The Communists were
forced to accept Socialist conditions on key issues--even criticism of the
Soviet move into Afghanistan--in order to get the government posts.
Mitterrand also believes he has bought labor peace since Communists control
France's largest labor federation.
Nevertheless, Mitterrand's surprise action has raised eyebrows in Wash
ington, London and elsewhere. It is the first time that Communists have
been in a NATO government since the alliance was founded in 1949 (with the
exception of brief periods of time in Iceland).
Communist power-sharing in France creates
where Communists are also scrambling for
could thus accelerate Western Europe's
dominance of the Western alliance.
a precedent for Italy and Spain,
places in government. The move
gradual drift away from U.S.
It is virtually certain that France will be dominated by the left for a
considerable period of time. Mitterrand is in office for seven years, the
new National Assembly for five. During this time, the Socialists are
certain to redistrict French representation in their favor, reducing the
proportional strength of the rural, more conservative parts of the country.
All major trends in French society--urbanization, the rising number of
salaried workers, growth of the service sector, the steady flow of women
into the work force--favors the Socialist/leftist cause.
Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, political observers are becoming increasingly
jittery over the possibility of a Soviet move into Poland. Moscow fears
that reformers within Poland's rulership will win out completely over pro
Soviet hardliners at next month's Communist Party congress.
The Red Army's move into Czechoslovakia in 1968 occurred right before that
country's party congress would have formalized the "Prague Spring" as
official policy.
The Polish Communist bosses, similar to their Czech
counterparts 13 years ago, have been attacked very harshly, in biting
communiques, by the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party.
Still, the average Pole is worried more about his rapidly declining stand
ard of living than the threat of Soviet intervention. Shortages of nearly
everything prevail. Butter, flour, rice, sugar and most meat are rationed.
Milk is unavailable after 7:00 a.m. (lines form at food shops from 5:30 on).
The list of goods either unavailable or difficult to come by lengthens
every day.
It includes gasoline, vodka, cheese and cigarettes.
Shoe
polish, shampoo and chocolate have long been unavailable.
The Soviets, despite their increasingly more strident
reluctant to intervene directly.
Said one observer:
begins a war with a nation as large and as tenacious as
what the Soviet Union risks."
threats, are still
11
No one lightly
Poland and that is
Meanwhile, what, if anything, has Poland's native son, Pope John Paul II
been doing during the mounting Polish crisis?
Apparently quite a bit,
behind the scenes at least. According to Bernard D. Kaplan of the Hearst