The regime plays cat and mouse with Solidarnosc
AFTER MORE than two weeks of strikes hitting several major industrial centers, Lech
Walesa called on September 1 for a return to work, after meeting for about three hours with the strong man of the regime and one of the main authors of the December 1981 coup
Since then capitalist press coverage of
Poland has centered around the prospects for an accommodation between the Solidarnosc leadership and the regime. The following article deals with the bases of such speculation, as well as describing the strike
September 19, 1988 • #147 International Viewpoint d'etat. wave. CYRIL SMUGA
T HE COMMUNIQUE published
after the meeting between the chair of Solidarnose and the minister of the interior was strikingly brief. It contained no trace of any commitment, or even any promises. It even failed to note the credentials of the participants in this unusual meeting. Readers can judge for themselves: "On August 32, 1988, in Warsaw, General Czeslaw Kiszczak meet Lech Walesa. Bishop Jerzy Dabrowski and Stanislaw Ciosek took part in the discussion, in the course of which were discussed the conditions for holding a round table and the means of organizing it."
In order to get a more precise idea of what was discussed, you have to refer to the communique issued by the Polish Council of Bishops, which specifies: "Lech Walesa posed the most important question today, that of the roads leading to the application of trade-union pluralism, that is, the question of the status of Solidarnosc. His interlocutors stated that all the problems related to the trade-union movement will be dis-
It will be noted that this communique does not speak of any other commitments than those already made on August 26 by General Kiszczak concerning the organizing of a round table that is supposed to discuss any problems that the participants may raise. In particular, there is no question of amnesty for the large number of workers who have been arrested and sentenced for actions related to the strikes nor of guarantees for those who resume work.
On his return to
Gdansk, Lech Walesa got a chilly reception.
"You have betrayed Solidarosc,"
a woman shouted at him in front of Saint
Brigitta's Church, the strikers' support committee headquarters. "We have lost and wasted our time," commented a member of the strike committee." Alojzy
Szablewski, chair of the Gdansk Interenterprise Strike Committee, let slip the remark that "the decision to stop the strike is a bitter one," before adding that in his opinion the relationship of forces made it impossible to achieve recognition of the independent union.
Decision to end strikes greeted with amazement
Nonetheless, after a stormy general assembly held in the morning of September 1 at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, the workers accepted the strike committee's proposal to suspend the action. "We can fight for
POLAND our main objective by other means than striking," Lech Walesa explained. He went on to say, "there is no other reasonable way out other than to stop the mobilization."
"You are the only guarantee!" This was Lech Walesa's response to strikers who asked him on what he based his hopes about the outcome of negotiations that would be held later in an atmosphere of calm. At 2pm, the strikers marched out of the shipyard, greeted by a crowd of three thousand people shouting "Solidarnosc! There is no freedom without Solidarnosc! We will win!" In the wake of the evacuation of the Lenin shipyard, the mobilization in the Gdansk docks and the other shipyards also came to an end.
In the other strike centers, the decision on 3 end the mobilization if an agreement on
International Viewpoint #147 • September 19, 1988
POLAND local demands could be reached (in the Lenin shipyard the only demand was for legalization of Solidarnosc) was greeted with stupefaction and astonishment. In the Manifest Lipcowy mine, where the mobilization had started during the night of August 14-15, the strikers demanded that Lech Walesa come and talk to them so that they could understand his point of view.
In the Stalowa Wola metallurgical complex, the strike committee announced that there was no question of suspending the strike because they had not received guarantees that there would be no repression. In particular, they said that everything was ready for extending the strike to the foundry, where work had been continuing for technical reasons. They also demanded to be put in touch with the chair of the union.
In Szczecin the port workers, as well as those barricaded in the Dabie bus depot, undertook some tough negotiating on wage and repression issues, making any return to work conditional on satisfaction of their demands. In Cracow, a strike had been called again for September 1 in the Nowa Huta steel complex. It was suspended at the last moment. In Lublin, on the other hand, the workers of the FSC pickup truck factory organized a rally and presented their
Besides legalization of Solidarnosc, the FSC workers demanded an "end to the political monopoly of the PZPR [the Communist Party] and the satisfaction of many material demands. The factory management immediately agreed to open negotiations on the latter. They engaged in public dialogue with the strike committee in front of thousands of assembled workers. This persuaded the workers to suspend their mobilization that same evening. Despite these waverings, in the evening of September 1 the wave of strikes began to mount again.
Only a few days after Lech Walesa convinced the last strikers to go back to work, voices began to be raised loudly in the bureaucratic camp against any perspective of legalizing Solidarnosc. For example, the leadership of the so-called unions set up by the regime after the banning of Solidarnosc adopted a resolution on September 6 demanding that any recognition of Solidarnosc be excluded. In another, it called for resignation of a government guilty of
Police break up pit strikes
On the same day, government spokesperson Jerzy Urban declared that there was no question of allowing any union to function in an enterprise if it were linked to Solidarnosc in any way. Finally, the celebrated round table proposed by General Kiszczak seems to have got off to a bad start because the regime refuses to recognize any possible participants as members of Solidarnosc. 4 Kiszczak on esa other condition than being Lech Walesa agreed to meet General treated in fact as the representative of the strikers. But at the same time, the repression, which had been inaugurated with the police assault on three public transport depots in Szczecin and the proclamation of a curfew in the Upper Silesian mining regions, was growing. In about 20 mines, the strike was broken by force, with many strikers being arrested, sentenced and fired.
An independent peasant leader, Gabriel Janowski, who was bringing food to the Lenin and Myslowice Wesola mines, was arrested by the police who were keeping them under siege. After being savagely beaten, he was confined in a mental hospital, an unprecedented procedure in Poland.
In Stalowa Wola, a demonstration of a thousand people organized by the independent peace movement, Freedom and Peace (WiP), was attacked on August 28, and those arrested were very badly mistreated. The account of some of the victims was taken by Solidarnosc's Intervention Commission:
"They started hitting us on the steps of the Commissariat. Then, inside, they set up the first gauntlet. They hit people indiscriminately. They dragged us by our hands and feet on the staircase...I was thrown into a room by three officers. They beat me with their fists and with clubs. I fell down and I shouted. They pulled my jacket over my head. One of the officers held my head against the floor with his knee, and they started beating me systematically. I don't know how long that went on.
Repression stepped up during negotiations
"After that, they took us down into the courtyard and threw us into paddy wagons. We had to run another gauntlet. The officers hit us with clubs, fists, and kicked us....We were taken to the village of Nisko, where the ZOMO [riot police] barracks is. Inside the station, were forced to run another gauntlet. When we came into a room, they shouted 'on the floor,' and beat me again for a half hour.
"The police picked out some of us and concentrated on them...They were particularly hard on those who were not from Stalowa Wola." All those arrested were given heavy fines over the next two days.
While Lech Walesa was being received by the minister of the interior, in the Stalowa Wola complex, the workers had been facing an assault by helicopters and simultaneous attacks by machine-gun units and 500 soldiers from the Pomeranian paratroop division who had come to back up the ZOMO. The sit-in strike had started here on August 22 with major reinforcements on August 29 when six thousand workers brought in by the management to overwhelm the strikers had immediately joined in the action. In the following two days, arrests took place throughout the country.
Thus, while agreeing to meet with the chair of the union, the regime was continuing and extending its repression. General Kiszczak himself symbolizes the unity of the bureaucracy's policy. Minister of the interior, member of the Committee to Defend the Country (KOK)' and one of the principal architects of the 1981 state of war, he holds a grip on the repressive forces as a whole and is therefore responsible for all their exactions.
Support among the masses mainly passive
But, at the same time, Kiszczak personifies the liberalization measures, such as announcing the amnesty of political prisoners in September 1986 and in meeting with Lech Walesa on August 31. The decision to continue the repression while holding out a hand to the chair of the banned union owes nothing to chance. It indicates the limits of the liberalization that the regime is ready to offer, and is a bad omen for the perspective of democratization on which Lech Walesa seems to be pinning his hopes.
Was there a basis for hoping on September 1 that the relationship of forces between the strikers and the regime would lead to forcing the government to make more substantial concessions, or for Lech Walesa's position that calling for a halt to the mobilization was the "only reasonable attitude"? A simple answer to this question is difficult. The strike mobilization had not exhausted all its possibilities, despite the return to work in nearly all the Upper Silesian mines. This is indicated by the mobilizations that broke out in Lublin, as well as the widening of the strike in Stalowa Wola and the tensions that appeared in Nowa Huta most recently.
On the other hand, the workers participating actively in the factory occupations, as a general rule, represented only a minority. A larger number solidarized with the strikes but preferred to stay home, afraid of violent confrontations. In this respect the example of the Upper Silesian mines is significant. The bureaucracy failed to get masses of workers to sign statements against the strike by offering pay for the days not
Finally, aside from a few special cases like Stalowa Wola, where the calling of solidarity demonstrations made it possible to assure massive support by all sections of the population for the strike, the occupation strikes were generally quite isolated from the population,. Although sympathetic, most people remained passive. This was probably related to the fact that the universities were on vacation. During the spring strikes, the mobilizations of the student 1. Formed in 1981, the KOK became the real center of power in the bureaucracy. It is presided over by General Jaruzelski and makes decisions in time of crisis, relegating the party Political Bureau and the government to the sidelines. The announcement of the curfew in the regions affected by unrest, as well the proposal for a round table including representatives of the opposition, came shortly after a meeting of the KOK.
September 19, 1988 • #147 International Viewpoint youth had an exemplary effect.
In the government camp itself, as indicated by the calls for the removal of some leaders at the Central Committee plenum on August 27-28 and the public polemics between a member of the Political Bureau and the head of the official unions and the premier, dissention and factional struggles flared up again with a vengeance. However, the regime was able to retake the initiative both on the political level and through repression, which required a considerable homogeneity in its leadership. It was this contradictory situation that probably explains why the majority of strikers — while not necessary sharing Walesa's hopes for a future dialogue — accepted his call for a re-
Can it be said, therefore, that the meeting between a figure who for seven years was described as a "private person" and the putting forward of the scheme of a round table with representatives of the opposition were intended only to end strikes whose forcible suppression could have increased the polarization in the country and accelerated the radicalization of the youth? Certain-
Since the September part of the opposition, even at the expense of leaving the latter a certain maneuvering room that would not put the system in question. Thus, the official Polish press for a good clandestine journal, Res Publica, legally.
Finally, independent gatherings have been tolerated. The latest was the International Human Rights Congress held in Cracow in late August. A great number of opposition figures participated in it, along with foreign delegates coming even from Eastern bloc countries. In this way, bridges have been built between the orbits of the regime and influential circles within Solidarnosc. The discussions conducted this spring over a possible anti-crisis pact? both behind the scenes and in the official press are the latest example of this.
In a deliberately leaked secret report, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, who is both a member of the Political Bureau of the PZPR and the Central Committee secretary in charge of propaganda, advocated pursuing such a policy in order to "isolate the hard core" of the opposition. This was to be accomplished notably through initiatives COLIDARE
POLAND its Western creditors and from the International Monetary Fund, who are demanding a more consistent austerity policy as a condition for opening new lines of credit that are indispensable both for modernizing some industries and for financing the imports of raw materials and semimanufactures essential to the functioning of others.
Strategy of co-opting moderate union leaders
In order to ward off all these dangers, some sections at least of the bureaucracy are today considering the possibility of an understanding with the moderate wing of
Solidarnosc. For them this does not mean permitting the legal existence of a powerful
— as Solidarosc was in national union
1980-81 — that could dictate conditions to the government would be propelled by a dynamic that would inevitably lead to dual power.
Rather, what these sections of the bureaucracy have in mind is dividing the workers by trying to get at least a section of Solidarnosc to accept an austerity policy in the name of
"higher national interests." They want to impose a binding legal down by the trade-union law adopted in 1982— which authorizes selective repression of all outer limits of glasnost, Sipsive; s demonstrating a very real ideological pluralism and offering its readers information that, while biased, is relatively complete.
For example, the recent strikes have been the subject of long articles in which descriptive reporting has gone hand in hand with crude insinuations directed at the strikers. In January 1987, a Consultative Council was set up in which some independent intellectuals accepted places, and even some former Solidarosc advisers, such as the lawyer Wladyslaw Sila-Nowicki or the sociologist Andrzej Tymowski, who maintain numerous ties with colleagues in the opposition and rebel intelligentsia.
Some independent meetings tolerated
The regime has also authorized the functioning of some political clubs, where discussions about a transition to capitalism are in full swing, and permitted some former oppositionists to publish their previously designed to co-opt Lech Walesa and, through him, at least a section of the Soli-
General Jaruzelski's regime is indeed aware that simply banning Solidarnose and repressing the trade-union activists cannot in the long run offer any guarantee against new working-class uprisings. The disastrous economic situation, reflected by the growing burden of foreign debt?, shortages and galloping inflation, as well the chronic under-utilization of installed industrial capacity, has prevented General Jaruzelski from following the example of the Czecho. slovak "normalization," by combining repression and sustained improvments in the population's standard of living.
The drop in living standards®, combined with the housing crisis, is a powerful source of frustration and radicalization, especially for young people. Moreover, the Polish bureaucracy is under pressure from workers' initiatives that could lead to a generalization of the struggles. The Polish bureaucrats made no bones about the fact that in order to carry out such an operation they are counting on massive foreign financial aid in the first stage, comparable to a sort of "Marshall Plan." It was in fact in the hope of such aid, according to official explanations, that Poland joined the
A good number of Solidarnose experts and advisers, and even leaders, share this 2. See the interview on page 6. 3. It has reached nearly $40 billion, as against $26 billion in 1981, not counting the debt in rubles that amounts to nearly S7 billion. 4. In comparison with the 1980 index, the cost of living was up by 603% at the end of 1987, and it is estimated that it will pass the 900% mark this year. 5. It is estimated that 30% to 40% of industrial capacity is not utilized for lack of raw materials, energy or labor. 6. The fall in real wages is estimated at about 30% since 1981, although general scarcity makes monetary income largely symbolic. 7. In Warsaw, more than half of young couples lack hous go and aheari waid ar boysing after buying 5 into a cooperative is estimated at 30 years!
International Viewpoint #147 • September 19, 1988
POLAND perspective, although they make the legalization of Solidarosc a condition for participating in such an agreement. The galloping inflation that wipes out even large wage increases in a few months could lead some sections of the working class to accept measures that appear to stabilize their standard of living for a time. The hope is also present that subjecting enterprises to market forces could break through the straitjacket of bureaucratic control and lead to weakening the regime.
An ascending phase of struggles
Such a project, however, runs counter to the dynamic of the radicalization of a working class that has an accumulated experience of Stalinist betrayals, a considerable capacity for organization and a high level of militancy, as witnessed by the recent strikes. There is no reason to think that even extremely limited and restrictive measures leading to a de facto legalization of independent trade-union activity at the enterprise level could open the way for coopting the independent union.
In fact, since the regime's defeat in the referendum on the economic reform in November 1987, the Polish workers' movement has entered into an ascending phase of struggles and organization, shown by the strike waves this year as well as the growth of opposition political organizations and Solidarnose structures.
In the spring Polish workers demonstrated great tenacity and capacity for recovery after the defeats they had suffered. For example, despite the forcible evacuation of the Lenin steelworks in Nowa Huta on May 5, the strike continued until May 18. In August, in Szczecin, a number of workers cleared out of the bus and tram depots besieged by the police regrouped in those where the occupation was continuing. Although the strikers got nothing in the spring strike at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, less than three months later they resumed the fight in greater numbers and with more determination.
Despite a strong police presence and an unfavorable relationship of forces locally, the repeated attempts to launch strikes in a series of enterprises this summer — as well as the tenacious resistance of the Upper Silesian miners, some of whom did not hesitate to isolate themselves underground to prevent a resumption of work after the majority of their comrades had been cleared out by the police - also attest to a high level of combativity and determination.
The August strike wave has undoubtedly helped to reorganize Solidarnosc's structures by bringing forward new leaderships where the historical leaders have left the scene or not been up to the level of the tasks, and by making possible a massive recruitment of workers. In many enterprises, workers have taken advantage of the strikes to set up new trade-union committees. Moreover, in some cases the workers have already elected their representatives for the round table announced by General Kiszczak. This reduces the possibilities for making a deal at the top, behind the back of the workers' mobilization.
This project of a deal, especially in the form in which it is conceived by Solidarnos leaders and experts, is more dangerous because of the drifting and political disorientation it engenders than because of any threat that it might actually be put into
Moreover, the coming onto the scene of new radical organizations reflects a growing politicization, particularly of young people. For example, WiP activists have played an important role in supporting the strikes by circulating information and org anizing solidarity actions. In this movement, currents identifying with anarchism have appeared, symbolizing the new generation's desire to reestablish links with the historic traditions of the workers'
The involvement of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) in the struggles is indicated by the repression directed against several of its central leaders, including (once again) Jozef Pinior, Czeslaw Borowczyk and Jolanta Skiba in Wroclaw, as well as Piotr Ikonowicz, Krzysztof Trzaska Kilian in Upper Silesia, who were imprisoned for their role in the strikes.
Young people reinforcing the opposition
The extent of the radicalization of the student youth has been shown by the massive reappearance of the Independent Student Organization (NZS) in the spring, as well as the growing success of the politicosurrealist happenings organized by Alter-
Another important factor is that all the traditional organizations of the opposition have also experienced a major renewal of their forces. This is true of the oldest of them, the Confederation for an Independent Poland (KPN), which organized rallies in several cities on September 1, 1988. Another example is that of the Fighting Solidarnosc Organization (OSW), whose main leader, Kornel Morawiecki, was banished in the spring but returned clandestinely to the country at the end of August.
All these organizations have proven capable of organizing major actions, such as the August 31 demonstration in Poznan, in collaboration and in concert with Solidarnosc.