Gierek gambled that his personal appearances would resolve the crisis. He went to Szczecin on 24 January and to Gdańsk the next day, met the workers, apologized for the past mistakes and assured them that as a former worker himself he understood their plight and would now govern Poland for the people. Participants of the Szczecin strike demanded freely elected worker councils and union representatives. Gierek consented, but in reality the authorities soon marginalized and eliminated the worker leaders from the legally existing labor structures and their places of employment. The February 1971 Łódź strikes followed and concentrated on economic demands. Afterwards prices were lowered, wage increases announced, and sweeping economic and political changes promised. The Polish opposition movement, traditionally led by the intelligentsia, after the two heavy blows of 1968 and 1970 was in disarray and silent. The revisionists' tenuous connection with the communist party was permanently broken, but a new strategy had not yet emerged. However, already in 1971 Leszek Kołakowski published in the émigré Kultura journal a seminal article entitled Theses on Hope and Hopelessness. It put forward a concept of civil democratizing resistance movement that would be valid even in the repressed and seemingly deadlocked state socialist society. Gierek decade (1970–1980) Catching up with the West Gierek, like Gomułka in 1956, came to power on a raft of promises that everything would be different from now on: wages would rise, prices would remain stable, there would be freedom of speech, and those responsible for the violence at Gdynia and elsewhere would be punished. Gierek was believed to be an honest and well-intentioned man, and his promises bought him some time. He proceeded to create a new economic program, based on large-scale borrowing from banks in the West, to buy technology that would upgrade Poland's production of export goods. This massive borrowing, estimated to have totaled over 24 billion US (1970s) dollars during Gierek years, was intended to be used for equipment and modernization of Polish industry, and for import of consumer goods to give the workers more incentive to work. For the next few years, the regime optimistically engaged in reform and experimentation and for the first time many Poles could afford to buy cars, televisions and other luxury items. Attention was paid to the wages workers received. The peasants had their compulsory deliveries abolished, were paid higher prices for their products and free health service