ALSO OF NOTE FROM POLAND

* Solidarity's national committee voted Wednesday to lift its strike alert. The alert had continued for 24 hours after the union accepted an agreement with the government averting a general strike.

Ending it means that Poland is free of active unrest for the first time since the March confrontations with the farmers and students. Its lifting also means a victory for union leader Lech Walesa's moderation.

* Four Warsaw Pact armies are still conducting coordinated exercises in Poland and next door in the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia.

The maneuvers began two weeks ago and are described as command structure tests with only limited forces. They seem to be going on longer than planned.

From the dramatic film footage of tank action and air and sea strikes given nightly on Polish TV, they may also have been enlarged in scale. Or it could be old film. Either way, it sends a warning to a party leadership that has yet to get a firm grip on events.

* The Polish Communist Party is losing members again. Thousands quit last August. Now others are threatening to do so.

The reason? Outspoken disappointment with Sunday's plenum, which kept the Politburo intact despite rank-and-file demands for the removal of those who oppose reform.

The grass roots, however, forced the decision for immediate party elections and the date for the special party congress. Between now and July they will present new challenges to the leadership to get on with a clearcut reform program.

* Farmers are still not taking "no" for an answer to their demands for their own "Rural Solidarity" trade union. Part of the agreement calling off the general strike was that the government will reconsider its refusal to recognize such a union.

The party could have its worst troubles yet if it fails to win peasant goodwill. It has promised more cash and fertilizer -- but only a truly independent farmers' organization will really do the trick.

For the country's chronic food shortages reflect the private farmers' ap athy . . . and spring sowing is just getting under way.

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