Solutions are possible - through free-market reforms backed by the continued support of the United States.

There are arguments in favor of the free-market reforms, but Polish politicians seldom make them.

In big cities, where free-market reforms and privatization have progressed the furthest, the reformist parties do well.

Elsewhere, the region is disillusioned with the last decade's free-market reforms.

Menem quickly embarked on a period of radical free-market reform.

But both sides now concede that it is in everyone's interest to reconstitute the bloc to make it compatible with domestic free-market reforms.

In 1989, President Rafsanjani began gradual free-market reforms.

On Jan. 5 he pledged to continue and consolidate the free-market reforms started by the Mazowiecki government.

The attack was cast by the federation as an effort to quiet an increasingly influential indigenous group that opposes the government's free-market reforms.

Administration officials argued that writing such authority into the legislation might reduce incentives for the Soviets to enact difficult free-market reforms.