Under his rule, Poland took heavy loans and started extensive investment programs in housing and infrastructure - Gierek built Central Railway Line, connecting major cities such as Warsaw and Kraków together through high-speed rails.
Other major investment projects of Gierek included the Broad Gauge Metallurgical Line, the Tychy and Bielsko-Biała Small Scale Car Factories (today key to the Fiat concern) and the giant Katowice Steelworks.
He is more practical than Gomułka, he is more educated, he knows foreign languages, he spent years in France and Belgium; he has a broader horizon of thought; he was able to establish relations with the Church in Silesia.
"[11] The party was founded in 2004, and its main goal was to materialize the popularity of Gierek and nostalgia for economic stability under his reformist rule into a potent political movement.
[12] Edward Gierek's Economic Revival Movement ran in the 2005 Polish parliamentary election as a part of the Democratic Left Alliance's coalition; however, the party failed to win any seats in the Sejm.
In the 2015 Polish parliamentary election, ROG supported the United Left coalition, and the party's then vice-president Eugeniusz Wypijewski ran for the Senate on its behalf in the Włocławek district.,[15] coming 3rd out of 6 candidates and receiving 13.57% of the vote.
[4] ROG describes itself as an alternative to "disappointing reality" of capitalist Poland, which plunged many social groups into poverty and caused enormous wealth inequality.
The party believes that the post-communist governments wasted away the achievements and legacy of Communist Poland, rendering the effort that Poles put into developing and participating in it useless, leaving "a black hole in the biography".
[21] The party is heavily opposed to decommunization and lustration policies, condemning them as harmful and unnecessary while emphasizing the need to "bring the 1970s fully into the post-war Polish heritage".
[23] The party also heavily opposes privatization and condemned the capitalist transition achieved by Balcerowicz Plan; in 2013, Bożyk stated: "By the end of the 1970s, Gierek's credit stood at $20 billion.
"[24] Despite its communist and anti-Atlanticist orientation, the party praised the pragmatic foreign policy of Gierek, who allowed for limited cooperation and trade with the West while staying loyal to the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact.
[5] The party argued that while Poland should disengage from NATO and stand against American interventions such as the Iraq War, active participation in the European Union would be desirable.
ROG believes that as long as the EU pursues anti-globalization and protectionist policies that would protect European workers from "the ruthless actions of global world market mechanisms", friendly relations with the Union should be maintained.
[25] The party strongly condemns the supposed "cult" of cursed soldiers, describing it as harmful and arguing that it promotes a false narrative that serves right-wing politicians as well as anti-communism.
"[26] The party is particularly defensive of its ideological patron Gierek, stating that he pursued a policy of achieving greater autonomy from the USSR, both politically and economically.