Word: first
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...first the Soviets want to get Poland back into a steady orbit. With 35 million people, Poland is by far the largest satellite, "the 'India' of the Soviet empire," in Bialer's words. It is also strategically vital, the buffer and transportation link between the Soviet Union and East Germany, where 19 Soviet divisions guard the bloc's western flank. The Gdansk agreement, which created the independent unions last Aug. 31, has kept the Soviets in a state of intense anxiety -and for good reason. Solidarity overnight became a third major power center in Poland, along...
Kania, who ran the state security forces for nine years before replacing Gierek as First Secretary of the Communist Party on Sept. 6, has surprised Western analysts with his moderation and political acumen. In public, he is soft-spoken and low-keyed, despite his burly, bulldog looks. Kania has made the unions work hard for every concession, but for the most part he has avoided slashing rhetoric and underhanded tactics. His regime blundered during a dispute over Solidarity's charter, trying to sneak in a clause affirming the party's "leading role." But it beat a hasty retreat...
Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito hurled the first challenge to East bloc unity; his country was ceremoniously expelled in 1948 from the Cominform, the Moscow-dominated alliance of Communist states, for pursuing an independent foreign policy. Thirteen years later, Albania effectively withdrew from the Warsaw Pact...
...touch of demagogy and personal vanity. One photographer who has followed Walesa notes that he never passes a mirror without stopping to pat his hair into place. In interviews, he sometimes seems flippant to the point of arrogance. In private conversation, he has a marked fondness for first-person pronouns. In public appearances, however, he can exhibit flashes of deep humility. A crowd of miners in Jastrzebie last October asked Walesa who could teach them democracy. His answer: "Who? Not Lesio [a diminutive of Lech], for he is too small, too stupid. Yourselves. Everybody." Yet he can be remarkably highhanded...
...dove under the dining room tables. Asked why roaming, drunken soldiers were shooting up the city, a young private replied: "Because we are rejoicing." It was chilling to contemplate what the trigger-happy troops would have done if they had been angered by the results of Uganda's first election in 18 years...