JANUARY 1, 1992, marked the second anniversary of the introduction of a pro-capitalist reform programme in Poland, drawn up by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Known in
Poland as the "Balcerowicz Plan" after the Finance Minister of the time, it has focussed on slashing workers' living standards and liquidating public sector industry in an attempt to pave the way for privatization and the imposition of the rule of private capital.
JAN SYLWESTROWICZ*
HE results of two years of IMF
T austerity policies have been dis-
Average incomes are some 40% lower than two years ago. Industrial production has fallen by almost half. Savage cuts have been made in the social services: around 2,000 nursery schools and day care centres have been closed, school hours have been reduced, class sizes have risen by 50-
100%, huge price increases have been for medicines and fees imposed for basic health care services, while thousands of essential capital construction and modernization projects have been abandoned.
The number of jobless had reached
2,156,000 by the end of December
-with one quarter of that number benefit and announcing another 263,000 redundancies in the coming weeks. Official forecasts speak of 3-4 million unemployed by the end of 1992: this would give Poland the highest unemployment rate in Europe.
Elite steps up attacks
In fact, everything indicates that
Poland's ruling elite intends to step up its attack on living standards in 1992. Faced with a huge fiscal deficit, a deepening recession and the total fiasco of plans to attract Western capital, government economic policy for the coming year boils down to mass factory closures, further social spending cuts and a virtual wage freeze in the public sector (still employing well over 80% of the urban labour force).
Proclaimed as the most advanced and ambitious project of "market restructuring" in Eastern Europe, the Polish programme of capitalist reform has proved a complete disaster.
It is in this context that the beginning of January saw the beginning of a mass fightback by Polish workers, directed
6 against the economic policies imposed by
The first signs of a new radicalization in the Polish workers' movement were already apparent in mid-December when a new rightwing coalition government was finally formed after almost two months of infighting amongst the 26 parties elected to parliament in the elections of October 27, 1991 (characterized by an abstention rate of almost 60%).
The new government of Jan Olszewski, supported by the right and the extreme right, was sworn in at a time when militant struggles were beginning in many parts of Poland. In Lodz, Poland's second city and the centre of the textile industry, factory occupations were under way in two major plants. The aviation industry was also the scene of protests, with an occupation of the huge WSK Mielec helicopter factory. More limited protest actions were being undertaken by shipyard workers, teachers and car workers.
Government hopes for "grace period" government, declaring that it intended to "amend" the economic policies of the last two years, believed it would be granted the same "grace period" the two Solidarnos governments that preceded
In particular, it laid great stress on its policy of "de-Communization" hoping to capitalize on the anti-Stalinist sentiments overwhelming majority of the Polish working class that had allowed the previous two "Solidarnos" governments to push through viciously anti-worker policies by masquerading as the conquerors of Stalinism.
The new government made a series of miscalculations. Firstly, it believed that it could still legitimize itself by reference to the Solidarnosc mass movement and opposition to "Communism".
As regards the Communization" this now holds little
- it was the main plank in Lech water Walesa's presidential campaign over a year ago, yet nothing has actually been done to break the power of the ex-Stalinist apparatus in the army, police and civil service, and still less to challenge the new economic power of the former Stalinist economic apparatus, today by far the most influential group of private capital in Poland, and a major bulwark of capitalist restoration.
The new government's second mistake was to commit itself immediately to continuing the most unpopular economic measures planned by its predecessor, in the name of "deepening" the market reforms - this represented a gross miscalculation of the popular mood and dispelled illusions that the new government's "amendments" to economic policy would reverse the trend in plummeting living standards.
### Enormous price rises declared
Specifically, the government declared an enormous rise in electricity, gas and heating prices, to take effect from January 1,1992. The effect of this price rise will be to increase the price of most consumer goods and foodstuffs by 25-40%.
Finally, the new Olszewski government chose first to ignore the most important single struggle which erupted at the close of 1991, the hunger strike at Poland's biggest industrial plant, the Nowa Huta steelworks (see accompanying article) and then, as support for the steelworkers mounted throughout Poland, to surrender frantically to their demands in an effort to appease public opinion.
In reality, the government's backtracking on the issue of the Nowa Huta steelworks was recognized as an indication that mass action could win, that the time for determined workers protests had returned, that the tide of the last two years could, after all, be reversed.
The Nowa Huta steelworkers, fighting to prevent planned mass redundancies, achieved their victory on January 6, after a 15-day hunger strike, supported by classic strikes in the steelworks itself and solidarity strikes in other plants. In the final days of the hunger strike, it had become the major domestic news item in the Polish media - and the effects of the workers' * Jan Sylwestrowicz is a member of the Revolutionary Left Current (NTS) and an editor of the Warsaw-based Trotskyist paper Dalej! ("'Onwards!").
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POLAND struggles
February 3, 1991 • #221 International Viewpoint victory were immediate.
Two days later, on January 8, the Solidarnosc trade union commission for the textile industry met in Lodz, attended by delegates from 46 textile plants throughout Poland.
The situation of the Polish textile industry is dramatic — in Lodz, the biggest textile centre in Poland, over 90% of plants are already technically bankrupt. Unemployment in the city is soaring, and in the first week of January Lodz saw the first spontaneous mass protest march of the unemployed.
Following the example of Nowa Huta, the Solidarnosc textile commission supported the decision of local textile workers to declare a hunger strike, demanding government intervention to guarantee wage payouts in insolvent factories and check unemployment. In the next few days, the Lodz hunger strikers were joined by textile workers from several other towns.
The example of the Nowa Huta strikers and the popular outrage at the energy price rises triggered individual strikes and factory occupations at many plants in the following days. For the first time, this also included factories owned by domestic or foreign private capital.
### Workforce takes owner hostage
In one privately owned clothing plant in Lower Silesia, the female workforce not only occupied the factory, but also took the owner hostage — he had to be freed 36 hours later by local Solidarnosc bureau-
Meanwhile, the government decision to raise energy prices was also condemned by the leaderships of all the Polish trade union federations. Aside from the economic hardship caused by the price increases, the new government, in its arrogance, had also broken the law - Polish law still declares that all price rises of this kind must first be subject to a process of consultation with the trade unions, a point government had blithely
Under pressure from the spontaneous wave of strikes, the leaderships of both Solidarnosc and the OPZZ unions called for protest action. Coordinated action was
• The first major protest took place in Gdansk, where the regional section of Solidarnosc organized a one-hour stoppage on January 8;
• Beginning on January 9, teachers held a series of one-day strikes in various
• On January 13, a national one-day strike was organized by Solidarosc, which was supported at factory level by
The strike was a huge success in many plants, the one-hour lasted the whole day, demonstrations were held and many local demands were added to the general demand for the rescinding of the energy price increase. It is estimated that 90% of Polish industrial enterprises took part - for example, only four of the 84 coal mines did not stop work:
• On January 15, an additional one-day strike was held in all Polish aviation fac-
• On January 16, a national day of action called by both the OPZZ and Solidarnosc-80 federations resulted in strikes, demonstrations (20,000 at a Solidarnosc80 demonstration in the port city of Szczecin) and protest marches in most Polish cities — in some, this strike was also supported by local organizations of
At the time of writing, the result of the protest against the energy price increases is not known. The Solidarnosc trade union has threatened a national general strike if the price increases are not revoked, while also suggesting that negotiations with the government could perhaps yield a compromise solution.
Local strikes are continuing and multiplying. Nevertheless, the Polish trade union movement as a whole remains divided and incapable of coordinating systematic protest action.
With very few exceptions there has been no attempt to generalize the lessons of the last few weeks and organize inter-union structures committed to fighting for a general rejection of the government's restorationist policies.
Need to protect the state
This is despite the fact that workers in more and more factories are raising more general demands that could serve to unify and give direction to the movement — in this respect, a particularly notable feature of the new workers' movement has been the frequent emphasis on the need to protect the state sector of industry against attempts to kill it off by discriminatory taxation and pressure to sell off assets at rock-bottom prices to any buyer that can
While the bureaucratic leaderships of the union federations attempt to concentrate attention on the "illegality" of the most recent price rises, a general theme running through workers' demonstrations has become opposition to the government programme of privatization, seen as a policy that serves only to enrich the combined elites of the old Stalinist bosses and their post-Solidarnosc successors, while leading to a dismantling of large sectors of Polish industry and mass unemployment. So far, however, these sentiments have yet to find the political and organizational expression required.
Nonetheless, the organizational weakreflecting the overall political disorienta-
POLAND tion that has resulted from the last two years of "Solidarnos" governments, is one that may rapidly be overcome as mass struggles develop against the concrete effects of the government's restorationist
Moreover, the possibility of victories being won that would aid the rise of a newly conscious workers' movement is strengthened by the growing division and disarray of Poland's ruling elites.
The government, visibly stunned by the scope of workers protests over the last two weeks, has only been capable of declaring that the strikes are "pointless" and warning that, if they continue, it will be forced to resign.
• Walesa, who several times over the last months that, if mass workers' protests were to break out, he would "take his place" at the head of them, now seems completely at a loss.
### Walesa senses new radicalization
Walesa was in fact the first of Poland's leaders to sense the beginnings of the new radicalization, at the end of November. His response then was to propose a series would greatly increase the powers of the presidential palace allowing example, to appoint the prime minister and cabinet) and permit the government to
These amendments are still being discussed by a special parliamentary commission. Since then, Walesa has come into sharp personal conflict with the key partners of the new government coalition over the respective powers of the president and the government, and has been hinting that he may be forced to launch a new political formation (up until now, he has tried to manoeuvre between the existing parties and is not himself directly connected to any). Meanwhile, opinion polls show that if the 1990 presidential elections were to be rerun today, Walesa could expect only 20% of the vote.
An even more interesting result was that of a poll organized even before the one-day protests held by Solidarnosc and the other unions. Given a choice of various measures that could be taken "if things do not improve over the coming period",
30% of respondents selected "organizing a general strike." * 1. There are currently three main union federations in Poland: Solidarosc, which claims a membership of 2,500,000; the OPZZ (the official union movement set up under martial law, still controlled by its original Stalinist leadership), which claims a membership of 4,500,000; and Solidamosc-80, a radical split-off from Solidarosc ("80" is a reference to the old Solidamosc union established after the August 1980 strikes) which claims a membership of 250,000, and is the only one of the three that claims to be still growing. All of these figures are most probably substantially inflated. By comparison Solidarose had over 10 mil lion members in 1980-81.
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Steelworkers score
International Viewpoint #221 • February 3, 1992 bureaucracies of both unions (among other things, Solidarnos officials branded the strikers as "revolutionaries", "anarcho-syndicalists" and so on).
The strike was also denounced by the local Catholic hierarchy in Cracow, with priests refusing the invitation of Catholic participants in the hunger strike to visit
AN Important role in triggering January's wave of protest action in Poland was played by an exemplary struggle at the
Nowa Huta steelworks in Cracow. Although the number of workers at Nowa Huta has declined by several thousand over the last few years, it still remains Poland's single largest
Industrial plant, with a workforce of 26,000.
However, government plans to streamline the Polish steel
Industry, with the abandonment of pig Iron production at
Nowa Huta, would mean the loss of 6-10,000 jobs almost
Immediately, and of around 15,000 when the restructuring process is completed.
JAN SYLWESTROWICZ
P
ROTESTS began at the steelworks in early November, organized by the local branch of the Solidarnosc-80 trade union.
On December 7, two of the plant's largest shops struck for three days, the strike finally being sabotaged by activists from the "official" Solidarnosc union, whose leader at the plant, M. Gil, is also a parliamentary deputy and one of Lech Walesa's closest associates. Nevertheless, stoppages of one to two hours duration continued throughout December.
On December 23, faced with the pointblank refusal of management and government to discuss changes in their plans for the steelworks, the leaders of the strike committee decided to launch a hunger strike to last throughout the Christmas period and beyond
- until the threat of mass redundancies was lifted.
No official reaction to hunger strike
Initially, the hunger strike provoked no official reaction, although workers' support gathered quickly.
Inside the steelworks itself, a "rolling" system of work stoppages accompanied the hunger strike, with at least one or two shops refusing to work on each shift.
Solidarity strikes were held by several other plants in Cracow. Moreover, the steelworkers' determination was apparent, and as hunger strikers were hospitalized, other workers left the shop floor to take their place.
By the beginning of January, messages of support were coming in to the strike committee from various parts of Poland, and union activists from other plants were visiting the Nowa Huta steelworks to fast themselves for two to three days to demonstrate their sympathy. By January 4, a number of mines and steelworks in Upper Silesia had threatened to stop work or hold hunger strikes of their own if the Nowa Huta workers' demands were not
At this point, the government finally took fright, and Prime Minister Jan Olszewski met the national leader of Solidarnosc-80, Marian Jurczyk, on January 6, acceding to the strikers' main demands and guaranteeing that pig iron production at Nowa Huta would continue, while the government would provide official guarantees for credits to purchase new process plant for the steelworks.
A victory of tremendous significance
The workers' victory at Nowa Huta is of tremendous significance. It represents the first time the government has given in to workers' demands in over two years of
It also represents the first victorious redundancies, which is of particular importance in Poland today. Small wonder, then, that the strike has had such a broad effect on workers' combativity throughout Poland.
One reason for the strike's success lay in its democratic organization cutting across union lines, with strike committees being elected in shops by all the workers employed regardless of union affiliation. Thus members of "official" Solidarnosc and the OPZZ took part in the stoppages and also in the hunger although the strike was denounced by the them over Christmas.
In the context of the tasks today confronting the Polish trade union movement, which faces major difficulties in recapturing the militancy and mass democracy which characterized Solidarnosc at the time of the Polish revolution of 1980-81, the Nowa Huta struggle offers many les-
It is symbolic in this respect that the chairman of the hunger strikers, Andrzej Szewczuwaniec, also led the strike at Nowa Huta in May 1988, which was the first of the wave of strikes that finally forced the Stalinist government to organize the Round Table and re-legalize Solidarnosc (Szewczuwaniec is also Cracow correspondent of the Polish Trotskyist paper Dalej!).
Thus, those who led the struggle for the recognition of Solidarnos at factory level are now, after two years of brutal austerity implemented by "Solidarnosc" governments, taking action against the old leaders that betrayed them.
Workers draw lessons of
The steelworkers themselves are drawing the lessons of the strike. The strike committee has been kept in place to monitor the fulfillment of government promisand organize further action if
The strike bulletin is also being continued, and the January 16 day of action held by Solidarnosc-80 saw a march of 2,000 steelworkers from the plant gates into the centre of the city. Delegations from the Nowa Huta strikers have also been touring other plants in Poland to explain the course of their struggle and discuss the next steps to be taken by Polish trade
In an interview for Dalej!, the spokesman for the Nowa Huta strikers, Marek Kucia, assessed the strike thus: "The fact that we resorted to such a dramatic form of protest should be seen in a more general context — our struggle was part of the general struggle to force the government to abandon its anti-worker policies. We won and this is a sign that Polish workers are now overcoming the apathy of the past two years."
Another hunger striker, steelworker Krzysztof Jez, echoed a feeling which is being expressed more and more often throughout Poland: "The fact is, nothing has changed. The Round Table talks were a sell-out. The same people are still running the country, with the same policies in their own private interests; they've just
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POLAND victory
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