Former Polish leader Gierek dies

WARSAW, Poland -- Edward Gierek, the communist ruler of Poland in the 1970s, has died of a lung illness at the age of 88.

Gierek's son, Adam, told the Polish news agency PAP, that he died on Sunday morning at a hospital in the southern city of Cieszyn.

First secretary of Poland's communist party in 1970, Gierek promised more contact with the West as well as internal reforms.

But his administration was toppled amid food price protests in 1980 that led to the emergence of Solidarity, the Soviet bloc's first free trade union.

Gierek introduced a more relaxed style of rule that included the provision of cultural amenities and more freedom to travel to the West than allowed by other Soviet bloc countries.

He launched a programme to modernise Poland's outdated industry, encouraging foreign investment and taking multi-billion dollar loans from the West.

But rising prices and deteriorating living standards sparked resentment and strikes in 1976 and in 1980.

Gierek was eventually replaced as communist leader by General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who in 1981 imposed martial law to wipe out Solidarity.

More than $30 billion in loans from western countries and banks is still being paid back some 12 years after the fall of communist rule in Poland.

Janusz Rolicki, a communist-era journalist who wrote a book on Gierek, said: "It was under Gierek that the end of the Stalin style of governing really took place," Reuters news agency repored.

But historians say despite his pro-reform efforts Gierek remained subservient to the Soviet Union.

After retiring in 1980, Gierek lived with his wife Stanislawa in his native Silesia, Poland's industrial heartland.

Though he made few public appearances, he once gave a detailed interview in which he stressed no Polish worker was ever fired while he was in power and the country would have prospered had he remained in office, said Reuters.