Word: blocs
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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Initially hailed as a Red liberal, Gomulka proved to be far more complex than that easy description suggested. True, he brought about a period of liberalization in the late 1950s that, for a time, made Poland the most open of the East bloc nations. After he brought some Stalinists into the Politburo in 1959, he began gradually to snipe at the church and the intellectuals. Conditions reached their worst in 1968 after the suppression of the student demonstrations...
Many children raised in religious families learn prayers so totally by rote that sometimes, even in middle age, they find the words still crossing their minds en bloc, a memory that bypasses understanding on the way to the tongue. So it is with certain secular incantations, including the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Some of the young are beginning to examine its wording; one phrase has troubled them. Recently, the senior class president of the Eastchester, N.Y., Senior High School, along with other students and the school's principal, organized a petition campaign to have the formula changed...
Under N.E.M., the Hungarians have curtailed the dictatorial powers of the central planners and placed economic decision making in the hands of local plant managers. The plan has wrought a mini-miracle since its launching at the beginning of 1968. Next only to East Germany, Hungary runs the East bloc's most successful economy. Industrial output has increased 33% in the past five years, and real income has risen...
Hasty Summit. Just about everyone of prominence in the East bloc was present in Budapest, with one highly significant exception: East Germany's Walter Ulbricht. He stayed in East Berlin to show his displeasure with his Communist comrades for cozying up to West Germany. Ulbricht's truancy brought a growing rift within the East bloc into public view for the first time...
...East bloc diplomats admitted that there were difficulties between Moscow and East Berlin and that they have affected the slow-moving Big Four talks about improving the status of isolated West Berlin. One stumbling block may well be that the Russians are unable to induce Ulbricht to make concessions that would guarantee access between West Berlin and West Germany. In an effort to resolve the differences, the Communist leaders will meet this week in a hastily convened summit, which probably will be held in East Berlin...