Professor Naylor is at one with Senator Jesse Helms in virulently opposing American assistance for the compromise worked out by Solidarity with the Polish Communist regime as the first step in moving from a Stalin-style dictatorship of the proletariat and command economy to a representative democracy with a mixed economy. The nub of the matter is his resentment of the ''egocentrism'' that he thinks insures that ''socialism'' - whatever he may mean by the term - will never work in Poland. Professor Naylor is, in the end, no better able than anyone else, in the Soviet Union, Poland or the West, to tell us how Poland can extricate itself from its economic morass. But most of the financial help has to come from Western Europe, in particular from West Germany, which has the greatest political, economic and security stake in development of democracy in Eastern Europe and which, next to the Soviet Union, is Poland's largest creditor. President Bush's program of assistance to Poland is modest -much too modest, in view both of the stakes and the Republican Party's promises to Polish-Americans. Some of these promises have been honored, for example, through the program of grain sales initiated by President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. #Group farrago freeOver the last 40 years, American politicians have traded extensively in implied and explicit promises to Polish-American voters that, to the extent their ancestral countrymen were able to free themselves of the Soviet yoke, the United States would help them. Gorbachev's ability to entice President Bush ''into bailing out Poland,'' Professor Naylor's economics should be sufficient to enable him to see that that is not going to happen. Robots or slaves comes closer to it.Īs to Mikhail S. People who are prepared to work indefinitely, unstintingly and uncomplainingly at the behest of the state without adequate compensation, without the ability to provide decent food for their families, to find decent shelter or to clothe themselves, can hardly be called workers in today's meaning of the term. Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law in December 1981, Lech Walesa and his centrist colleagues were under strong attack for insisting that Poland's problems could be successfully addressed through dialogue with the ruling group. The leadership of Solidarity has called for negotiations and compromise with the Soviet leadership and the Polish Communist leadership and, when Gen. Rather, each was instigated by efforts of the Polish Communist Government of the day to squeeze blood from a turnip - to get more production from the industrial workers, while simultaneously increasing the cost of living. Professor Naylor complains that ''Poland, rather than compromising'' - with Soviet Communism - ''engaged in strikes, social unrest and violence in '56, '70, '76 and '81 - all aimed at its unwelcome Soviet guests.'' But none of these instances of lack of the discipline Professor Naylor espouses was aimed against the Soviet Union. It also raises questions about the kind of economics he professes. Naylor's diatribe against the Polish people (Op-Ed, July 6) is ill informed, inaccurate and unfair.
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