Inside Report (3)

Watch for striking changes in Poland later this month.

The Communist Party Central Committee will almost certainly meet before March is out. The meeting could mark a turning point in Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski's bid to secure controlled, but meaningful reform. Informed sources say it may bring a major shift in top leadership, including removal of the most rigid opponents of reform.

''Liberal'' reformers - though dismayed by martial law - have taken heart from the evident strengthening of Jaruzelski. They say he beat off a challenge from hard-liners at the Central Committee's Feb. 24-25 meeting, denying the floor to their most extremist spokesman. On his subsequent visit to Moscow, he received the strongest Soviet backing yet for a political solution of the crisis based on ''social accord'' and a program of national union.

The general now is seen as more confident and as actively seeking a better public image. Early this week he made an informal, unannounced visit to a textile plant 20 miles from Warsaw. He went straight to the work floor and spent three hours listening to many of its 4,000 women workers.m