Communist leaders on Saturday voted to disband their crumbling party at a congress later this month and to form a leftist party with a new name and platform that rejects 40 years of communist slogans.
The Communists, who last year surrendered control of the government and lost their leading role in society, are hoping to regain some credibility and hold onto what power and members they still have by cutting ties to their past."The new party will be created with great effort," party leader Mieczyslaw F. Rakowski said in a speech concluding a party Central Committee plenum. "It will have a new structure and program."
The first day of the three-day congress scheduled for Jan. 27 will be devoted to abolishing the Communist Party and the following two days to forming a new party from its remnants, Politburo member Leszek Miller said.
After Hungary, Poland would become the second East bloc nation to disband its Communist Party, which ruled for four decades until ceding control to Solidarity.
Party members will be polled before the congress on choices for a new party name, Miller told the policymaking Central Committee.