The mass movement the death of Przemyk, a high school stu- can take part in all our activities.
dent battered to death after an identity check. His burial on May 19 gave rise to
Warsaw the biggest demonstration in since December 13, 1981.
At Powazki cemetery there were tens of thousands of in Poland today people on that day, dignified and deter-
But, over and above this human mined.
outpouring and what was more striking, was the attitude of those who did not go, either because they could not, or they
The misfortune of Father Virgilio Levi came at just the right time to illustrate the contradictions of the pope's triumphal tour of Poland.
Levi was fired from his job as editor of the Vatican organ after writing an editorial that commended Lech Walesa for sacrificing himself on the altar of social peace in
The commendation was evidently at least premature, and disastrously inopportune for the pope.
The masses who came out to hail the pope were clearly not looking for mediation with the regime but for a chance to express their hatred of the dictatorship and their support for Solidarnosc. A slogan that characterized the mass rallies was "Come out, they're not beating up people today!"
The Catholic church has, moreover, not won its prestige in Poland by its success in mediating with the regime, although that is its underlying strategy.
The mass support for the church reflects the fact that it is seen as the only institution in a totalitarian system that defends human values, that stands for decency and dignity, for national honor. It also reflects the fact that many members of the
Polish clergy have taken chances to defend people against totalitarian repression.
That is not true of the Catholic clergy everywhere in Eastern Europe. And where they have not stood up against the regime in defense of human and national rights, the church does not have the same prestige.
The dilemma the church faces in Poland in particular is that it needs the support of the people, since its traditional aristocratic and bourgeois base has been destroyed.
But at the same time, it does not want to risk identifying itself completely with the struggle of the masses, and it has no interest in seeing them win - far from it.
The dilemma of the Marxist political tendencies in Poland that consciously seek to complete the socialist revolution and establish democratic control of the working people over all areas of society is that up till now the only organization able to survive under Stalinist repression has been the church.
That is both because the bureaucracy cannot stamp it out and, to a certain extent, because the Stalinist regime finds it useful to let the church function as a safety valve for mass discontent.
society, the differences in program between the church and fighters for workers democracy remain unclarified.
On the other hand, every time the church has tried to pull back the mass movement against the bureaucratic dictatorship, as in the case of the primate's appeal for an end to the August 1980 strikes before the workers won, this has created havoc not only among the believers but also among the clergy.
That sort of experience undoubtedly prompted the pope to move quickly when the unfortuante Father Levi gave the game away.
It was clearly hypocritical for the pope to speak as an advocate of trade-union rights in Poland, whereas he notably failed to do that in Central America, where trade-unionists are systematically murdered, often in the most atrocious ways. This hypocrisy reflects two realities, however:
Poland; second, the interests of the Catholic church as an international institution.
Internationally, the church still has a reactionary social base and has to continue to prove its value as a conservative force.
In a short-term way, the support of the masses for the pope and the church in
Poland undoubtedly strengthens the Vatican's hand to play its conservative role elsewhere.
But it is caught in powerful contradictions, as the case of Father Levi illustrates.
following article gives an indication of the sort of mass movement the
The
Vatican has to try to maneuver with.
Mary BLOTNIKY
Although people no longer talk 'politics' in the street or the bus, it is not the same once you are within the four walls of an apartment. What strikes you first is the complete rejection, indeed the hatred, for the ruling team.
If I had a submachine gun I would put them all up against the wall and shoot them.
And afterwards I would go to bed with a completely easy conscience, with no remorse
That was blurted out by a forty at all', year old engineer, a member of the Polish
Communist Party (PUMP)
for twenty who has little connection with years,
Solidarnosc.
8 first, the power of the movement in
In the courtyard children about 10 years old were squabbling. They had a particularly rich vocabulary of insults. However, after a time they found themselves running out of epithets. It was then that one shot at the other, 'You, you general!' The supreme insult.
Many more examples could be given. The unanimous rejection of the generals and entourage round Jaruzelski is as great now as the credibility they had within broad sections of the population two years ago, before the coup. This massive rejection shows itself every time the dictatorship comes into too sharp a conflict with the feelings of the masses.
This, for example, was the case after they said with pride when talking about dared not. "There were a lot of us there', the burial at Przemyk, that evening and the following days. They all identified with the demonstrators.
However, the unanimous rejection of the order imposed by Jaruzelski masks a tremendous diversity of opinions and levels of organisation. This diversity can be seen travelling through the different regions of Poland. There are those, like Lower Silesia, the regions of Lublin and Cracow, and Bielsko, just to take the best known examples, where clandestine Solidarnosc today organises 30 to 45 per cent of the members it had before the coup. Here the clandestine trade-union commissions (TKZ) exist in all the big enterprises.
There are others, like the mining region in Upper Silesia, where the workers resistance to the coup was stronger, where repression was heavier, and the police are thickest on the ground. In this region, none of the activists I met would hazard a guess at the numbers organised in the clandestine union. In many factories and mines there are no TKZs, or they exist as a mere skeleton in others.
But there are also big differences within the same regions, between the major concentrations of workers, which were and are the strongholds of Solidarnosc, and the small workplaces and offices where, in the smaller places with very few exceptions, there is only a tiny percentage of activists compared with the number of Solidarnose members before the coup.
SOLIDARITY WITH A SMALL 'S'
A worker from a factory with more than 10,000 employees explained how Solidarnosc organises today. 'In our place more than 70 per cent of those who were card-carrying members before December 13, and that was 90 per cent of the workforce, are still paying their union dues. They do this more or less openly, even with a hint of defiance to the sneaks who are in every workshop, on every line. These dues are to pay for the factory press, which is distributed free in the work-shops. They are also for the official funds that Solidarnose was encharged with running as the legal union organisation, plus others made necessary by the new situation - the mutual aid funds, the birth and death allowances, the funds for those who have lost all or part of their wages because of repression.
'Of course, not all those who pay dues
The
'we all thought that the state of war would be a passing phenomemon. Not because we really believed the slogan raised by the youth "The winter is yours, the spring will be ours, but either we underestimated our adversary's strength, or we overestimated our own forces, or we had a naive belief that a compromise could be reached with the regime.
•We looked to the future with serenity, thinking that a space for democracy, although very limited, was opening up before us. The official dissolution of Solidarnosc, the fact that none of the mass
SOLiDAR OSE conditions of the repression itself force a selection of cadres. But we know, and this has already been proved in practice, that if we are arrested others will take our place, and the trade union's activities will not be affected. And what is even more important, and what allows us to keep going, despite all the strain of a 'double life', is to know that if we are arrested our families will receive aid and support, that our comrades will do the impossible to keep us from being isolated.'
This aspect of Solidarnosc's activity is all the more important when you realise that the period of legal investigation can go on for three months, during which time the accused can meet neither family nor even a lawyer.
This solidarity goes well beyond the organisational limits of Solidarnosc. A worker from a small enterprise told me proudly that he had collected 15,000 zlotys (more than the present average monthly wage) for a sacked worker in two days among 'colleagues and neighbours'. Another person who arrived in an apartment building where the police had just arrested several of her friends, told how a stranger stopped her pressing the lift button for the floor she wanted, saying, "You don't live here; there are police on that floor, come to my place. We've been friends for a long time, haven't we .... That way another arrest was prevented.
Thus, 'solidarity with a little "s" ', as it is called in Poland, is becoming part and parcel of daily life. This is very important for all those who, without organisational links to the regional co-ordinating bodies of Solidarnosc, without support in the workplaces, and sometimes working in great isolation, resist, produce often ephemeral bulletins, and are striving to rebuild Solidarnose where repression has hit hardest. That is, in areas with a low concentration of workers, in regions where, from the beginning, arrests disorganised the union structures and where it is now difficult to rebuild the links
Underground Solidarnose spreads its roots (DR) which have been broken for a long time.
This is also important for those thousands of young people that the Polish revolution had not been able to organise in a sustained way before December 13, 1981, and were only thrown into the struggle as a result of the crackdown by
School students and young students often act without organisational links with Solidarnosc, though they identify completely with the struggle in the
It is these young people who form the base of hundreds independent of the trade union, formed around numerous bulletins.
These are the ones who 'decorate' the streets with graffiti that is cleaned off in the early hours of each morning by special teams of militia. And these are the ones who still pay a heavy tribute to the repression, partly because of their lack of experience, but also because of the disorganised and activist character of their
It is from this milieu that the 'ephemerals' come from, the bulletins that can be counted in hundreds if not thousands, and which disappear after one or two issues.
AND SOLIDARITY WITH A BIG 'S'
And what about Solidarity with a big "S"? What is the situation of the union Solidarnosc today? Again the situation is quite diverse. But there is a general tendency — a regional reorganisation around the coordinating structures of the TKZ. These are more and more often taking over from the former regional leaderships organised around one or more of the well known leaders, who escaped the round up of December 13, 1981, and went under-
What is still more interesting is that this reorganisation is not a result of repression removing the clandestine activists, but of a conscious choice; based on a more realistic appreciation of the rhythm of activity and future events.
"A year ago', one union leader told me, actions aimed at forcing the regime to negotiate succeeded, made us realise that we had to envisage more long-term
"The failure of the call for a general strike last November made us understand how far we had to go in our own organisation before we could say "We are ready the tendency you see in my region, but which I think is more general. concentration on reinforcing the organisational structures, an attempt to develop the inter-enterprise co-ordination, and establish regional leaderships on this more solid foundation, not on the basis of ideas but on material strength — the organisation of tens of thousands of workers.'
When I asked him what was new in this, and whether the workplace bodies had stopped functioning he replied, December 13, the daily difficulties and were an excellent test. people got to know each other in the workplaces, they could assess each other. Today, in my place for example, I know almost everybody. I know who's who, what I can say to one, what I can ask another.
I think this is the main difference. And it's not a transitory difference, compared to the situation before August 1980. The state of war managed to destroy our structures, but on this basis they can be immediately rebuilt. The difference is in the fact that after the coup our activity was centred on help for the interned and imprisoned, on the distributing of information, activity oriented towards repeating what I would today call symbolic actions, because they do not get anywhere.
"This period gave us the opportunity to consolidate the union where there was the objective base for solidarity - above all in the big factories. Elsewhere we were hit hard. You must have noticed that now we no longer live waiting for the 13th of the next month. We have given much greater importance to what is the function of a trade union - not just the general strike but also, and above all, the defence of each worker as an individual; Although we often can't stop a sacking or other harassment, like changing a worker from one post to a worse paid one, we can on the other hand give the victim sufficient aid that such measures lose their dissuasive effect. And that's a victory, not necessarily obtained through
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struggle, but struggle is only one of the forms of workers solidarity, not the only
While it is true that it is more difficult today to talk about long-term perspectives with Solidarnose activists, this is not necessarily a sign of political regression. It is often the sign of increased maturity, increased understanding of the present relationship of forces.
One woman militant explained it thus, *Previously, a lot of people were for a general strike in the short term. But this perspective had very little to do with their day-to-day activity. for the general strike as one waits for the
"Today a lot of people will tell you that they are against this perspective, because they have realised that it is not easy to organise, and that there won't be a victorious general strike without organipreparation. often they don't know how to set about
"This could be interpreted as a regression, but I think that would be mistaken. The people have realised the strength and determination of the Among some this could bring about a fall back on organisational work, but this is not negative. This means strengthening of all structures, which were too weak when we wanted to go towards a general
On the other hand, others are engaging in deeper strategic reflection, from reality as it is, not what they would have liked it to be
The most marked feature of this turn is undoubtedly the development of co-
Instead of the previously very tenuous links between the regional leaderships of Solidarnose and the workplace unions - links that, with the notable exception of Lower amounted essentially to networks for distributing the underground press - there are now more solid organisational links. In one region the TKZ have built a coenterprises. The delegates meet regularly to discuss the main political and organisa-
This sort of 'workers parliament' elected an executive that replaced the former leadership set up after
This sort of organisation has made it possible, for example, in collaboration other regions and with to organise summer holidays for ten thousand families. practical response to one aspect of the bureaucracy's blackmail, Put up with things, or there won't be room for you in the factory summer holiday centres At the present prices, individual summer holidays are beyond the reach of the workers. And the region in question is far from being the only one where such activities are being organised.
Another new element, the strategic scope of which could turn out to be decisive, is the reconstitution of the Network (siec in Polish) linking the big enterprises. "The starting point', explained one of those who is involved in this 10 the same as that which existed when the MKO (Inter-Regional Commission for the Defence of Solidarnosc was set up. (1) That is, that it was necessary to have an instrument for co-ordinating union activity based on the strongholds of Solidarnosc, the big factories. Such a structure could effectively help the TKK (Provisional Co-ordinating Committee) and facilitate an exchange of experiences, which the TKK had not been able to do satisfactorily.
addition, only this sort of body effectively lead a general strike, even though today this perspective does not seem to be uppermost in people's minds. But, and this is the big difference with the MKO, it is a co-ordination of the TKZ in the big enterprises, and not of in-
This Network is beginning to take its first steps. A statement announcing its first meeting has been published.
The same militant explained to me
"We wanted to avoid all bluff or self-proclamation. For the moment the Netbeen able to include all the enterprises which were part of the Network before
But it is clear that there won't be a continuation of some of the manipulatory aspects of the previous
We want a co-ordinating body, not a tendency, a faction, or the base for some sort of Polish Party of Labour! [This idea had been developed before the coup by the then co-ordinator, Milewski, an intellectual from Gdansk. And, contrary to the MKO, we don't want to create a parallel leadership to the TKK We think that the unity of the movement is the precondition for its functioning.'
The appearance of the Network and its future development will probably be an important element in the reorganisation of clandestine Solidarnosc that has been taking place over the last few months. Because while the step forward is immense - everybody says so — as far as the organisation of the union at the regional level goes, the national co-ordination and even the liaison between regions, is still
The leader of a region which presently has about 50,000 dues-paying members went so far as to tell me it was easier to meet a Western journalist than to find the TKK. It is true that in his region the press published elsewhere is almost unknown, and that the new leadership -elected after several other leaders were arrested - has no contact with the TKK and only learns the content of its resolutions through the Western radio. This shows how necessary the national coordination is.
SOLIDARNOSC IS STILL ALIVE
What can we say about the situation after these various meetings, which undoubtedly do not give a complete picture?
The first factor, and undoubtedly the most important, is that Solidarnosc exists and has a mass organisation even if - and it would be surprising if it were otherwise — it is no longer a trade union organising ten million members. On the other
West European unions, despite their legal existence, are far from having as many activists as this organisation, which has been buried so many times by the Western press
This second factor is that clandestine Solidarnose today is far from reaching the whole of the working class either through its press or its organisation. sult of this can be a differentiation in level of consciousness, the appearance of signs of weariness, indeed despair among
Trade-union involvement is not an easy thing today. Big risks are involved. The possibilities of success in mass struggle are slight, because bureaucracy rarely concedes on even min-
There is also exhaustion. One union leader who has already been in prison said difficult to insist it one of our comrades 'You know, sometimes I find it such or such a task, because we are all in a state of extreme nervous ex-
We have to continuously act as if we are leading normal lives, while feeling ourselves unceasingly watched. Undoubtedly it is easier psychologically to function with false papers, even if the risk of being caught is no less. very hard when no one, neither workmates nor family, must know what you are doing, and what gives a meaning to your life. But if you relax for a moment, you are caught soon afterwards.
When I asked one of the people I spoke to what he thought of the situation and possible perspectives, he replied, 'You know we have taken a terrible blow. Solidarnose has undoubtedly been partly destroyed. But the union is reforming in the big factories and reviving in a number of ways. Elsewhere - even if this could appear small, and at this level without future - solidarity links exist, as well as different initiatives around bulletin And, aid for the victims of repression. even today, if the regime committed a
- what is decisive is not whether the regime thinks it is making a provocation, but the people take it for that - and a few big enterprises in various regions went on strike, we could very quickly see a general strike. We were a hairbreadth from that last October when the Gdansk shipyard went on strike to protest against the dissolution of Solidarnsoc by parliament. Then, only the intervention of the TKK prevented a generalisation of the movement. also think that today, in the present state our organisation, a general strike would have small chance of success.
'On the contrary, it is very likely that would not recover from another failure. So, what we have to do now is to work patiently to strengthen our organisation, and prepare the ground - particwithin the repressive forces - so that a general strike could have a good chance of success.' 1. On this subject see International Viewpoint No 17, November 15, 1982.