New advances by Solidarnosc
Jacqueline ALLIO "For a regime that has declared war on its own society, May 1 will be a day of apprehension and fear. What the regime has to fear is that once again it will be seen to be surrounded only by opportunists, careerists, and members of the apparatus of terror. What it has to fear is that our celebration will show the world the truth about Poland....
"We call on the society to demonstrate under the following slogans:
"Freedom for the political prisoners!
"Stop the price increases!
"To the society belong the fruits of its
"Peace and solidarity!
"Restoration of trade-union rights!
"Restoration of civil liberties!"
This is the appeal launched by the underground leadership of Solidarnosc after the meeting between five members of the TKK (Provisional Coordinating Commit-
Coming out of his attitude of reserve, the national leader of Solidarnose decided to support the TKK. In turn, the TKK has called on all the clandestine structures to make public what actions they intend to carry out on May Day, the routes of the sites of meetings and other forms of demonstrations.
This was a stinging rebuff to the primate, Glemp, who only a few weeks ago condemned any idea of demonstrations
"artificial initiatives that would not have the support of the people."
To justify such statements, Glemp argued that it was necessary to "maintain a realistic attitude toward General Jaruzelski." He claimed also that Solidarnose was no longer a "united" movement. He even said: "An underground movement with a program of frontal attack on the regime seems to me to be divorced from reality."
The attitude of open defiance adopted by the TKK and by Walesa and the determination of all those who took part in the counterdemonstration commemorating the Warsaw ghetto uprising - who in fact were headed up by representatives of the Catholic church - led Glemp to lower his tone.
In fact, everything indicates that the conditions are developing for a very large The scenes shown by Western TV of Polish workers clashing with the "forces of order" in several cities on February 13 and March 13 reminded those who might have forgotten that the resistance movement is very much alive and capable of initiatives, even if its appearance has partially changed in the last 15 months.
This is something that even the bureaucrats are obliged to recognize. teen months after Jaruzelski clique seized power, the daily Rzechpospolita that they created, has had to
"The normalization process is proving complicated and is running into problems."
THE REGIME HAS NO ANSWER
BUT REPRESSION
It is clearer than ever that the regime has no recourse but repression, arrests, firings, and even tanks and bayonets.
"As always, the Polish people can continue to count on the organs of the state as a guarantee of the established legal
Their mission is to assure that it is respected by firm and effective action."
This scarcely veiled threat was raised in the government communique that followed the TKK call for mobilizations on May 1. Once again, a scare campaign has up around "adventurists," and "foreign manipulations." The threat to cancel the pope's visit is being used as a means of blackmail to persuade the workers not to come into the streets on May 1. known leaders (such as Janusz Onyszspokesman of Solidarnosc, who is accused of taking part in the preparations for the May 1 demonstrations) and in particular the severe penalties being trials against Solidarnosc leaders are the main methods the bureaucrats are using to try to disarm the underground move-
Such national leaders of Solidarnosc as Andrzej Slowik from Lodz, Wlady-
Wroclaw, and Romaszewski have already been sentenced to terms of prison for taking part in the activities of the underground
Now, new trials are underway against the leaders of the MRKS (Inter-Enterprise Coordinating Committee of Solidarnosc in Warsaw) and Janusz Palubicki, a released internee and member of the TKK for the Poznan region, who was arrested
In particular, the military wants to make an example of the five leaders of the KOR who were "arrested" in September 1982 in the internment camp where they were being held and seven members of the national leadership of Solidarnose who were "apprehended" in similar circumstances on the eve the "suspension" of the state of war.
are charged "conspiracy the Solidarnosc leaders of seeking to "overthrow the regime by force
The fact that all of them had been behind barbed wire since December 13, 1981, made no difference to the government.
What is goading the dictatorship to fury against all those who are seen to represent Solidarnosc and who, each in their own way, represent those currents that were most militant when Solidarnosc was legal is the junta's total failure to achieve the "normalization" that it talks so much about.
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Despite the frontal assaults on the working class, reflected by a 35% drop in the workers standard of living, productivity has not increased. To the contrary, it has declined in almost all industries, with the exception of coal mining.
The government's new unions have brought in only a tiny percentage of the workers, despite the bureaucracy's attempts to buy the workers off by offering all sorts of material inducements. In fact, even less than half the party members have joined the new unions.
The bureaucracy's very assiduity. in playing up Glemp's calls for calm and social peace in the press reveal its inability to regain any mass base whatsoever in the working class. In order to accomplish that, it would have to have something more to offer the workers than blows over the head from a policeman's club.
SOLIDARNOSC REORGANIZES
After a difficult phase following the failure of the November 10 general strike, a deepgoing reorganization of Solidarnosc was undertaken in most areas of the country. The slogans put forward for May Day, in fact, attest to the increased political maturity of the underground movement.
Up until now, the demands mainly dealt with the fight against repression and the issues of democratic and trade-union rights. Now for the first time, rejection of the price increases and the demand for workers to have control over the fruits of their labor have come to the fore as central objectives in the struggle that is to be waged. This reflects the concern, already expressed in the TKK's programmatic statement (see IV, No. 27) to offer concrete perspectives for mobilization around immediate economic objectives.
This concern is also reflected in various strikes that have taken place recent-
One example is the action by the proposals that they accept reemployment in jobs lower on the scale than those they almost total victory.
An example of the slowdown is the struggle waged by the FADROMA work-
They resorted to this method to force the management to rescind the political layoffs it had announced. For a week, the 6,000 workers employed in this enterprise, most of whom are on piece work, cut production by the equivalent of eight workhours, thereby losing a considerable part of
Given the success of this type of action, the regional leadership of Solidarnose called on all workers in Lower Silesia to follow suit during a week of action from March 21 to March 26 to demand amnesty for all the political prisoners, rehiring of the fired workers, and to protest against the price increases. Such struggles are an example for the other plants, and can initiate a process of well-organized and successful limited actions that will play a decisive role in giving concreteness to the program put forward by the TKK, and prepare the way for the general strike.
GROWTH OF THE
UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT
Another important element tending to strengthen trade-union activity is the decision by various plant commissions to take charge of providing the social benefits traditionally provided by the unions.
Such tasks are now supposed to be the responsibility of the "official" unions. The authorities are counting on this as a means of pressuring hesitant workers, as well as those who need these benefits to make ends meet, to join the unions that they have set up from above.
from having secondary imporeral enterprises in Wroclaw, Warsaw, and Cracow in deciding to set up aid funds and provide loans for those who regularly pay their dues to Solidarnose is an important step forward. It bolsters the credibility of the union and strengthens the ties between the underground leadership and the mass of workers. Since the announcement of the decision, the payment of dues has increased enor-
All these elements testify to the continuing combativity of the Polish workers. Moreover, despite the government's boasts that it has made 1,310 seizures of printing equipment, the bureaucrats cannot conceal the fact that the volume of the underground press has not diminished. In most major cities, between ten and forty bulletins appear regularly.
Fifteen clandestine radio stations have supposedly fallen to the police. But the overall number has increased. gions are able to maintain regular broadcasts. In Lower Silesia, for example, one such broadcast went on for fifty minutes without being jammed.
The authorities' crowing over the seizure of a big transmitter in Warsaw on April 13 did not prevent Radio Solidarnose from broadcasting the TKK's appeal for May Day demonstrations in the Polish capital only forty-eight hours later.
All this gives a picture of a movement that is far from "running around in a blind alley, mad with hostility" or one whose "influence is waning day by day," as the army daily Zolnierz Wolnosci claimed in the wake of the broadcast of the TKK appeal.
Nonetheless, the fact that the junta's position is increasingly difficult does not mean that the underground movement is united on what strategy to follow.
As pointed out in an article in the April 18 issue of IV, the TKK's programmatic statement represents a real step forly. workers at the Gdansk refinery, who rejected the introduction of a new wage scale that set up differentials that they Jozef Pinior arrested considered unacceptable. Another is the strike by workers at a plant in Warsaw to get boots that the management refused to issue them, in violation of the most elementary requirements of security.
There has also been a variety of forms of mobilization. Listing the possible different forms of limited strikes, Bogdan Lis mentions slowdowns, sitdowns, organized absenteeism, and even certain forms of active strikes (that is, where production is maintained but on the basis of decisions made by the workers and not the could add the "mass resignation strike," an example of which was carried out by the workers in the FADOM homebuilding enterprise in Biezanow, where 105 persons were fired after the November 19, 1982, national strike.
All the workers threatened to resign if their mates were not rehired, and the fired workers rejected for seven days tance, the example already given by sevJozef Pinior, chairman of the Lower Silesia Strike Committee, member of the Provisional Coordinating Committee of Solidarnosc (TKK) and one of the five signers of the TKK's call for demonstrations on May 1, was arrested by the Polish bureaucracy's security forces on April 24, according to the official Polish news agency proving that he (Pinior) devoted himself to antistate activities" were found in the Solidarnosc leader's apartment.
also allegedly proved that Pinior "had control of considerable sums of
Pinior is the third chairman of Lower Silesian Solidarnose jailed by the dictator-
In February 25 in an interview, Pinior commented on the arrests of his predecessors:
"You know that the chairman of the union in our region, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, and his replacement Piotr Bednarz have been arrested. They were my closest ward toward combining the results of the friends. They now have been condemned to severe prison sentences. I think that it is very important that it not be forgotten that these workers were democratically elected by their fellow workers. third member of the presidium of the regional leadership, Karol Modzelewski, is still in prison. He got the largest number of votes at the first regional congress of derstand what this election to the leading bodies of Solidarnose meant for us. was the first time that our representatives were elected in a genuinely free election. The workers elected Frasyniuk, Bednarz, and Modzelewski and these elected representatives of the workers have now been put in prison."
now apply to Pinior, who, moreover, was one of intransigent defenders of the principle that only masses of ordinary working people could defeat the dictator-
for action of the various sections of the movement. But it has not conjured away poverty that is getting worse and worse...
A lot of people are afraid that a general strike will touch off military intervention
Solidarnosc demonstration in Gdansk (DR)
general strike to be kept from becoming a repetition of December 13, 1981?
In the spring and summer of 1982, the differences over strategic orientation by the USSR. The only way we have to in the discussions that took place on the and tactics that have existed up till now among the leaderships of the various re-
For example, the Lower Silesian Solidarnosc is concentrating on building a clandestine trade-union organization the plants. Its objective is to construct organization that can lead mass struggles today around limited objectives coordinated from the big plants, to prepare the way for overthrowing the military dictatorship by a general strike.
The Warsaw Solidarnosc, with the Social Resistance Committees (KOS), puts the emphasis on passive resistance. It has concentrated on setting up a network of clandestine bulletins and publications, educational programs, and in general, on developing an independent social consciousness. objectives are presented as ends in them-
In Gorzow, Solidarnosc calls for a centralized organization of professional
In particular, it is clear that the ap.
ward this off is to prepare the action
The less well prepared we are, the more chaotic the strike will be, and the greater the chances will be for a direct aggression."
The proposals for action put forward by Bujak and the KOS with the aim of developing independent cultural activity and raising the social consciousness of the masses, are not in themselves contradictory to the systematic organizing of structures in the plants and their preparing the way for a general strike.
Carrying out the sort of plans for independent publishing and education that they propose and setting up education circles can only reinforce the capacity for political thinking of broad sections of the
Likewise, the workers universities or "flying universities" functioning today in several cities are helping to dispell the distorted views and totalitarian ideology dispensed by the such activity will only be question of the general strike, those in the TKK who supported this perspective foresaw that such an action would have to be combined with active defense of the
Today, this is no longer being
Before his arrest on December 28, 1982, Janusz "The only possible armistice is one based on a real relationship of forces." More precisely, this means a situation of dual power, that is, the continuation of the revolution after the overthrow of the military dictatorship through a general
Whether or not the regime continues to wear a military uniform, it will remain, totalitarian, even if it is hard hit by a general strike. Janusz Palubicki was correct to point out: "Before December 13, our fundamental error was to think that it was possible to cultivate a little democratic garden in the midst of a totalitarian state."
While the programmatic offers no clear answers on this point, the supported by Walesa, proach of Zbigniew Bujak (the Warsaw useful if it serves the self-organization of TKK's decision, leader) differs markedly from that of the masses, if the content of the inde- to call the workers into the streets on Jozef Pinior (leader of Lower Silesia) and from others in the TKK. not exclude "the possibility of slow and mild reforms" that would offer an opportunity for rebuilding the trade-union movement, that is an independent moveone different from what Solidarnose was. He counterposes this possibility to a general strike, although he agrees that the general strike has to be
For their part, the KOS -which identify with Bujak's ideas - see "neither the possibility nor the usefulof organizing a mass confronta-
In contrast, Pinior says: «To count on the good will of the government, "deals' on somebody intervening on our behalf is naivete. We can only count on ourselves. This is why the regional committee of Solidarnosc envisages resorting to a general strike when society reaches the point where it can no longer bear the pendent press and publications corresponds to the concerns and needs of the workers and those of their trade union organizations in the plants. That is, this activitv will only be profitable if the line that predominates is "the line of the fac. tories," which is upheld most consistently by the Lower Silesian leadership.
These differences of approach show how far the movement has yet to go before it achieves unity on the essential objectives and especially on the question of the general strike and preparing for confrontation with the regime. INCREASING POLITICAL MATURITY
However, nothing is said in the programmatic statement about the means the workers have to face machine guns with nothing but their fists? How is the
May 1 despite all the regimes's threats reflects the growing awareness that any perspective of a "national accord" not on a relationship of forces is
"Here in Poland we are not fighting simply for ourselves," the TKK writes in its appeal to the workers of the world. "We are profoundly convinced that our struggle has a universal dimension. It widens the area of liberty and justice in today's world. We need your support. This May Day demonstrate your solidarity with the struggle of the Polish work-
Everywhere, in all the marches, in every city, in every country, let us show the Polish resistance that we have heard its internationalist appeal, that we are supporting it in its struggle, and that we also are convinced that its struggle is part of the fight of all workers for liberation.
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Revolutionary unity their responsibilities. They have succeed- the International Monetary Fund. It ed in achieving the necessary unity to establish an electoral coalition based on a program of fighting back against the crisis and the right. The objective is to combine the vote of the people's camp and elect