World: A Tough New Boss

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Stanislaw Kania is virtually unknown in the West, but Poland watchers are in agreement on one point: he is a loyal apparatchik with orthodox views and no inclination to buck Moscow. "Kania's advent does not bode well for people espousing reform," says Richard Davies, former U.S. Ambassador to Poland. "He can be expected to try to restrict the realization of the agreement with the workers." Another analyst puts it more harshly: "Of all the people they could have picked, he is one of the toughest."

Nine years ago Gierek gave Kania the job of running Poland's entire security apparatus—its espionage, counterespionage and police services. "He is very much the Communist law-and-order man," says one expert on Poland. A nimble careerist, Kania was named to the ruling Politburo in 1975 and now, at 53, is the youngest Communist Party chief in the Soviet bloc. Notes a West German specialist: "He has the strong ambition and ruthlessness needed to survive at the top levels."

Square, squat and dour-faced, Kania is the only top Polish official of solely peasant stock. Raised in a village in southeastern Poland, he trained as a blacksmith, but in 1945 went to work for the Communist Party. In 1968, although he had little formal education, Kania was appointed head of the Central Committee's administrative department, where he ran the party machinery according to the wishes of the Politburo and the party secretaries. To satisfy so many constituencies, as he evidently did, Kania needed considerable bureaucratic skill—and the political finesse of a big-city mayor. As security chief, he expanded his power base while weeding out Gomulka loyalists and Stalinist diehards.

Almost nothing is known of his private life. The few Westerners who have met him have been struck by his shrewdness and tough-mindedness, as well as his utter lack of humor. To be a Pole, almost by definition, is to be fervently nationalistic and Roman Catholic, but Kania seems to have rechanneled his religious impulses. Explains a Bonn analyst: "It's not that he is anti-church or anti-Catholic, because no Pole is. Rather, he is a devout Communist."

That he is the Kremlin's creature seemed certain by his selection over the wily Stefan Olszowski, 49, an economic reformer and Gierek's longtime rival. Speaking on his own, Kania urged political compromise in Gdansk, but denounced some of the strike leaders as "antisocialists" who were heading in a direction "that no longer has to do with the interests of the workers." Now he will have to satisfy Moscow without igniting his restive nation. Says a West German expert: "He faces a monstrous task."