The united front preserved by the leaders from the Solidarity stable until May 1990, has collapsed. Solidarity's Union of Individual Farmers has called on the peasants to declare war on the government. On July 6, for the first time, the Prime Minister found himself in a minority in parliament - where the Citizens parliamentary group related to Solidarnosc has only 35% of the seats, owing to the Round Table compromise - when the deputies refused to fully endorse changes in the government.' Thus, a year after the establishment of its first government with a non-Stalinist leadership since the war, Poland finds itself in a grave economic and political crisis, which will be at the centre of the debate in the presidential elections likely soon.
International Viewpoint #191 • October 1, 1990
YUGOSLAVIA / POLAND
Elites and
CYRIL SMUGA Continued from previous page nians, once brought to their senses, will meekly accept either a reduction in their status to that of second class citizens or the partitioning of Kosovo between Serbia and Albania. In the Serbian half, containing at least half-a-million Albanians, the "alien" population would either be expelled or assimilated by force.
The Albanian democratic opposition is well aware of these scenarios. Its adoption of the Gandhian tactic of peaceful civil resistance has earned it much respect in the country and abroad. In July the European Community and the US House of Representatives passed resolutions severely criticizing the conduct of the Serbian and Yugoslav governments in Kosovo.
The Croatian and Slovenian parliaments, especially the latter, have condemned the dissolution of the Kosovo assembly. In Kosovo itself, the growing lawlessness of the occupying power, the deliberate engineering of the economy's collapse and pressure from angry workers have pushed the Kosovo Alliance of Independent Trade Unions into calling a general strike from September 3.
Despite the fact that they face a state armed with the most sophisticated weapons of "riot control", the Kosovo Albanians have, it seems, taken up the challenge. 12 die for their freedom, if necessary, while They have accepted that they may have to hoping that domestic and foreign pressure will combine to prevent such a bloody outcome.
Growing resistance to Milosevic's plan
The Kosovo Albanians cannot stop the growing counter-revolution in Serbia on their own. To be sure, as in the past, the defence of national rights and sovereignty will play a crucial role in the struggle for democracy in Yugoslavia.
Non-Serb nationalities are today erecting a defensive ring around Belgrade which, in the last instance, only a military putsch can dismantle. Belgrade's intervention in Croatia misfired, however, precisely because the army drew back from starting a civil war.
The relatively moderate response of the Croatian government to the Knin incident, directed partly by wisdom and partly by necessity, has raised both its own standing and that of the republic's president Franjo Tudjman in the eyes of the Croatian population.
The previously suspicious opposition - in particular the left-leaning Croat intelligentsia — rallied to the government. Serb deputies in the Croatian parliament elected on the Communist Party ticket also stood by the Zagreb government. Sympathy for Croatia's Serb minority grew as a result, preventing a complete Croat-Serb split.
Responses of this kind, however important they are in keeping the danger of civil war at bay, will be of limited import since national homogenization in other parts of Yugoslavia will feed the idea that the Serbs are a beleaguered nation.
This could deliver them straight into the hands of Milosevic and his gang. What is needed is a breach in Serbia itself. This is why - despite the intended electoral machinations of the SPS — the coming elections in Serbia will mark a crucial political date in Yugoslav history.
In the absence of an alternative, the Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic's newly formed Union of Reform Forces could emerge as a major challenger to Milosevic's SPS - provided that Belgrade can be prevented from unleashing civil war in the meantime.
It is becoming clear that an outline of a new Yugoslav settlement scrupulously respectful of national equality should be offered by anti-Milosevic forces in advance of the Serbian elections.
Their ability to do so will provide a critical test of Yugoslavia's emerging democracy. The alternatives are too dreadful to contemplate. *
T HE ROOTS of the crisis are to be
between the post-state of emergency bureaucratic leadership and the Solidarnosc leadership. The deal was intended to ensure the preservation of the state apparatuses in the framework of the restoration of capitalism, and to avoid the danger that the dynamic of anti-bureaucratic mass mobilizations might lead to the appearance of an independent workers' leadership as had happened in 1980-81. The compromise enjoyed the passive support of the masses, who hoped that it would enable them to realize their
A situation of "dual power by proxy" was established. On the one side were the leaders of the social movement, aiming to get their own social base to pay the costs of capitalist restoration, on the other a battered bureaucratic leadership fearful that any new strike wave would finish them off for good. Self-interested imperialist support for the restorationist project and the benevolent neutrality of the Soviet leadership completed the picture, creating a double pressure, that of financial dependence on imperialism (a debt of $40b) and political-military dependence on the Soviet Communist Party disappears
For this edifice to stay stable, the Solidarnosc leadership has to be able to keep the population obedient to the state and prevent strikes. The disappearance of the PUWP (Communist Party) - perceived by the masses as one of the guarantors of the compromise — and the collapse of the bureaucratic regimes in the surrounding combined with the problems facing the Soviet léadership, have shaken this edifice. The social cost of the Balcerowicz Plan has reduced the social base of the regime, worsening the instability.
The reality of the Round Table compromise has thus at last begun to become apparent to the population -ment between elites reached apart from the majority of the society and to its detriment. The poor showing of the candidates of Solidarnosc' Civic Committees during the May 27 local elections' as well as the railway workers strike which North Western Poland in May were the first signs of this new awareness.
The government has chosen to respond to the first signs of social mobilization from the railway workers and the peasants - with contempt and threats. Police were sent to break the peasant blockade of the Gdansk-Warsaw road and then to evict peasants and deputies who were occupythe Ministry of Agriculture. choice has provoked profound unease in Solidarnosc, a significant proportion of whose militants interpret it as a concession to the routed Stalinist bureaucracy.
Sensing the danger of an explosion of the union movement, Lech Walesa stepped in. With the slogan "stability at any price" he opposed the road of "accelerated changes" aligning himself with the Centre Alliance, a populist, pro-capitalist grouping opposed to concessions to the bureaucracy. He tried at the same time to keep control of the civic committee movement that the Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, with the support of exoppositional intellectuals such as Bronislaw Geremek, Adam Michnik and Jerzy Turowicz, had tried to turn into a governmental fan club, leading to a crisis of the politico/trade unionist Solidarnesc edifice. The governmental group replied to this threat by a big campaign accusing Walesa of being an autocrat and prospective dictator.
Privations with a meaning
Lech Walesa presented his ideas in a series of interviews: "The idea that a man who is on strike, but is ready to talk to the government, should be crushed and conquered is a bad one. You do not have the right to do that. You have to convince him, make him understand that the situation demands that he grit his teeth and work. But you also have to convince him that his effort and his privations have a meaning, that they are serving the country and will end up by bringing him wellbeing later on. You do not have the right to humiliate him — on the contrary, he must feel that he has won a victory."
In an interview in Adam Michnik's daily, he reiterated this credo: "There is no hope of economic handouts, and in consequence it is necessary to guarantee to the society a large measure of participation in the exercise of power, and thus to ensure acceptance... But instead we have said 'keep quiet, because the best people are in charge, and wait.' Meanwhile explosive forces have accumulated owing to nonparticipation. " He dotted the "i"s on July 8 in a speech to the assembly called by the union commission of the Gdansk naval shipyard: "If there is no communication of your great efforts to the society, then, even if you deal with a thousand things, one little puff from the miners or the peasants will chuck all your efforts into the dustbin...It is necessary to return to the enterprises and listen to what people are 1. According to a CBOS poll in mid-July 1990 (Gazeta Wyborcza, August 27, 1990). 3. On August 15, 1990 there were 762,200 registered about 6% of the non-agricultural labour force. The government has stated that there will be at least 1 million out of work by December 1990. 4. Tadeusz Mazowiecki presented the resignations of five ministers, all from the old nomenklatura. Parliament accepted the changes at the head of the Minis-
— where Krzysztof Kozlowski, a Catholic journalist tied to the ex-opposition replaced
Czeslaw Kiszczak, Jaruzelski's right hand man during the state of war; Transport — where a Solidarnose militant Ewaryst Waligorski replaced a former member of the PUWP; and Defence Vice-Admiral Piotr Kolodziejczyk replaced another figure from the emergency period,/ General Florian
POLAND saying, for their support is indispensable for these very difficult reforms"?
While Walesa has criticized the worst effects of the government's economic policies, he has not questioned the social and economic logic of the government's choices. On the contrary: "inflation and recesdevelopment of competition. And competition must be created through the granting of credit to the private enterprises, by speeded-up privatization, by demonopolization and by restructuring....Let us get our economy into order by creating its natural basis — private enterprise....It is necessary to allow Western banks and firms to make real profits. "10
The July economic programme of the Centre Alliance, which Walesa is supporting, only differs from that of the government in secondary details. It pronounces itself in favour of the introduction into Poland of the "West European capitalist model" and proposes a radical reduction in the transition period by privatization and "shock" de-monopolization. This requires not only the "invisible hand of the market" but also state intervention to accelerate the process, and in particular to liquidate the bureaucratic apparatus and change the personnel. The Centre Alliance is also proposing to free wages in the private sector and stabilize agricultural prices by a state buying policy."
The basis of the disagreements is thus the issue of the relation of the government with the masses on the one hand and with the old Communist nomenklatura on the other. Maintaining the compromise
As opposed to the Centre Alliance, Tadeusz Mazowiecki is seeking to maintain the compromise with the old bureaustay clear of accelerations imposed by extra-parliamentary pressure. Ernest Skalski, a pro-government editorialist, summed up the fears aroused by Walesa's initiatives: "Lech has gained the support of the peasant militants and preserves the support of many regional Solidarnosc leaders. The former are calling into question the whole of the government's economic policy because in practise they are demanding that agriculture be Siwicki. Parliament did not however accept the resignation of the Minister of Communications Marek Kucharski and did not accept the candidate put forward for the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, which remains unfilled. 5. Bronislaw Geremek, who leads the OKP's parliamentary fraction understands this perfectly well: "In the local elections we got 42%, but if the rate of abstentions (58%) is taken into account, we got less than 20%. Let's face facts; we are weak." (Reczpospolita, July 9, 1990.) 6. See /V 187. 7. Interviewed in Tygodnik Solidarnosc, June 8, 1990. 8. Gazeta Wyborcza, June 20, 1990. 9. Rzeczpospolita, July 9, 1990. 10. Tygodnik Solidarnosc, June 8, 1990. 11. Repo polia, July 16, 1990 and Gazela Wybore: 13 za, July 23, 1990. October 1, 1990 • #191 International Viewpoint
International Viewpoint #191 • October 1, 1990
POLAND protected from the market economy. The regional leaderships, in an understandable reaction to the price rises, are de facto coming out in favour of the maintenance of subsidies, which are an essential element of the command economy.... Walesa may one day find himself trapped between his own slogans in favour of speeding up changes, and especially economic changes, and the demands of his own social base. "12
It was with the concern to keep the support of the old apparatus in case of an eventual confrontation with popular mobilizations in mind, that Mazowiecki presented his reshuffled government to parliament on July 6.
No policy of revenge
A short while before, he and other Solidarnosc leaders opposed to Walesa had met General Jaruzelski and his entourage. It would have been during this meeting that the green light was given for the replacement of the old regime's Interior Minister with one of Jaruzelski's associates. "We are firmly opposed to a policy of revenge," explained the Prime Minister chance for a peaceful transition to democracy, thanks to a compromise between democracy aspirations and that part of the nation which, following on from our tragic fate, is more or less tied, whether by conviction or convenience, with the old order....The government will not deviate on the road to an inflation-free market economy....Any straying from this road... would deprive Poland of foreign aid and would remove any possibility of seeing our indebtedness fall - and we are on the right road to get this. "3 Talking three weeks later to the heads of the Defence Ministry and the commanding officers of the army, Tadeusz Mazowiecki insisted once more on the element of continuity: "Poland needs a strong army....The state must have a strong support for its power....The army today has the chance to become the backbone of the state's stabili-
Having failed to transform the civic committees movement into a political party supporting the government, Walesa's opponents launched their own party, the
Movement for Democratic Action (ROAD).
An old Solidarnosc leader, Zbigniew Bujak, and one of the current leaders, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, head this organization, within which are found the big names of the intellectual opposition of recent decades. The new grouping rejects the label "left-wing" which Walesa and the Centre Alliance have tried to stick on itl6, preferring to locate themselves "to the West of the Centre". Presenting the organization, Frasyniuk explained to Gazeta Wyborcza: 14 up the presidential elecal i in sto speed "Our immediate political aim is to speed whole nation can choose their president... To demand a strong president is to bet on chaos and disorganization; we are
Parliament , government and a ROAD's number one propagandist, Adam Michnik: "the price rises and spectre of bankrupt enterprises are creating frustration. But I do not believe there is any other road for the Polish economy....Jaruzelski. sees his role in contributing to the peaceful realization of the timescale of democratic changes....Nobody can say if the constitutional amendment proposed by will be voted through1.It appears doubtful to me that Jaruzelski will resign as president if the amendment is rejected. Will the supporters of speeded up change for the post of president then have recourse to other solutions? Will they support destabilization to impose this change?"*19
The division that has appeared inside Solidarnosc has also shown that it is Tadeusz Mazowiecki who has the support of the West. At the height of the polemics, the president of the World Bank, Barber Conable, revealed that he wanted Western governments to reduce the Polish debt.20 At the beginning of August, American president George Bush decided to invite General Jaruzelski to visit him in September 1990 — at just the moment when the Polish parliament was talking about sack-
Atmosphere of haste
The noisy battle of the elites has obscured the preparation of a fundamental change in the structure of the Polish economy. On July 13 in an atmosphere of haste, and ignoring the reservations of numerous sections of Solidarnosc, the parliament voted laws allowing the privatization of industry through by 328 votes to 2 12. Gazeta Wyborcza, July 14, 1990. 13. Rzeczpospolita, July 7-8, 1990. 14. Gazeta Wyborcza, July 21-22, 1990. A few days later the press reported the destruction of the archives — lists of agents and offices, the Jewish file (a file on all persons with Jewish ancestry or a Jewish sounding name had been kept since 1945), files on the deportation of Ukrainians and so on. According to Gazeta Wyborcza (July 24, 1990), the destruction of compro mising files is continuing. 15. Several of Solidarosc' union commissions in big enterprises in Wroclaw not tied to the Centre Alliance have demanded Frasyniuk's resignation union post. Frasyniuk is accused of misusing his man16. Before the founding of ROAD Adam Michnik, one of its moving spirits, explained during a debate in the Citizens' Committee: "If I am the secular left and a crypto-communist, then you, my dear opponents, are pigs." Jacek Kuron stated: "I would like to be a man of the moderate left in a respectable capitalism. But we don't have such a capitalism, thus I want to take part in building it — which is certainly not a leftist pro17. Gazeta Wyborcza, August 6, 1990. 18. While the Centre Alliance deputies signed a motion for Jaruzelski's resignation, ROAD's deputies decided to put an amendment to the constitution in favour of a presidential election by direct suffrage, explaining that the election of a new president by the present parliament would contribute to "preserving the
(with 39 abstentions). On July 26, the Senate followed suit (60 votes to 7 with 2 abstentions). Jaruzelski signed the laws on
Privatization is to take place in two ways. Some enterprises will be transformed as a whole into share companies to be sold off by the state, others, especially small and medium enterprises, would be liquidated and sold either as a whole or in parts, even turned into the property of their employees. The workers would have one third of the seats in the controlling council of such a firm. Up to 20% of the shares could be sold at a reduced price to the enterprise workers or to peasants connected to it by cooperation agreements. All Polish citizens resident in the country will receive treasury bonds that they can use to buy shares in the privatized enterprises. It is also proposed that shares can be bought on credit or in the framework of leveraged buyouts.2 In the privatized enterprises the wage freeze will be lifted. The second letter of intent from the government to the IMF announces the privatization of at least 10 large and 200 to 300 small and medium sized enterprises before the end of the year as well as 70% of the retail sector.22
Napoleonic analogies
In June, during a meeting with foreign investors, the industry minister, Tadeusz Syryjczyk, presented the government's difficulties in an imaginative way: "We have a problem like that faced by Napoleon. In France the revolution killed the aristocrats, but when it turned out that the state could not function without them, Napoleon began to create new ones. In Poland we have to create capitalists. "23 The process has already begun, in sub-legal fashion, through the growth of "nomenklaturist limited companies", formed by erstwhile Stalinists.24 communist structures" and would go against the desire for "acceleration". 19. Gazeta Wyborcza, August 6, 1990. 20. Conable writes: "The per capita national income of Peru....Poland has to repay $40b in debt — five times What it cams in exports; if the debt was repaid on schedule it would eat up 45% of export earnings.... we are all interested in the success of the Polish reforms "The repayment and the effective use of credits will take years, the limitation of the weight of the debt on the economy needs only months." (Gazeta Wyborcza, 21. In this framework, after the payment of the first buyer's property and the debt becomes the enterprise's debt. 22. Gazeta Wyborcza, July 16, 1990. 23. Gazeta Wyborcza, June 21, 1990. 24. The Parliament, after having voted through a law radically opposed to enterprises of this type on the initiative of deputies connected with the unions in February, finally amended it on June 21 on the initiative of the Senate. The new law only allows the liquidation of these flagrant cases of abuse of social wealth when a complaint is made and the final decision is to be made by a tribunal. Private property, however come by, must be protected! It should also be noted that reports are starting to appear in the press about the misuse of public positions by personalities near to the govemment.
Despite the fact that these changes got overwhelming support in parliament, they still met with hostility from workers. The notion of privatization has had widespread support amongst the working class, owing to the evident need for investment in the enterprises, where the stock of machinery is only being used at 70% of capacity -