Abstract
The paper deals with the Polish efforts to assert national interests within the Warsaw Treaty Organization in Edward Gierek's era. It is based mostly on a research in the Polish and Czech archives and also the recent conclusions of Polish literature.
The analysis reveals that Gierek leadership to large extent modified an approach of W. Gomulka, the previous leader of the PPR.
It did not try to cross limits of a loyal Soviet satellite and avoided all separate actions. On the contrary, it sought to initiate reform of the Warsaw Pact's political structures, in order to expand a room for pushing the Polish interests into the alliance's joint policy.
However, such a strategy proven to be just little effective, as the Soviet Union had no interest in transforming the Warsaw Treaty Organization into a real alliance of equal members. Therefore, implementation of changes initiated by Poland had failed to affect the Warsaw Pact's mechanisms substantially.
Thus, the Soviet satellites' ability to push forward their interest through the organization remained very limited even at the beginning of the 1980s.