The Polish Example
Puddington, Arch
THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR VOL. 1 5 , NO. 4 / APRIL 1982 Arch Puddington THE POLISH EXAMPLE Communism's ongoing war against humanity. ~,~ ommunism, Leszek Kolakowski has written, "would be such a...
...Although workers had no free trade union, their collective influence over economic decisions was considerable...
...complain about the mess and incompetence of your supervisors...
...10001...
...After the arrest of tens of thousands and the deaths of scores of others, any reasonable person would have concluded that t h e r e is no serise in pursuing an open form of resistance...
...Nonetheless, the 10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 persisting myth that American irresponsibility was largely to blame for needless bloodshed has produced an extreme, and in the case of Poland, unwarranted cautiousness in relations with democratic movements in Eastern Europe...
...They also observed that failure to develop " a vision of socialist revolution distinct from the realities of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe leads to an embrace of American imperialism itself...
...In the statement in which he described the Church as the only reliable ally of the people, Zbigniew Janas specifically excluded the West...
...There are exceptions, of course...
...To this already substantial list we must now add all those who have been killed, interned, imprisoned, or who have lost jobs on political grounds since the imposition of martial law on December 13...
...Given the Church's immense authority, its opposition to the martial t a w - - o f t e n expressed, to be sure, in language as oblique and elliptical as that employed by the Communists--must be a source of considerable worry for the regime...
...But more import a n t , even had we envisioned suc.h a development, ours was not an organization capable of conducting a struggle against an armed adversary...
...To this regime, normalization means bringing all segments of society under s t a t e / p a r t y control, with the possible exception of the Catholic Church...
...Military commissars have been assigned to oversee the administration of schools, and the regime, as part of its educational " p o l i c y , " has called for "ensurance of staffing to guarantee a proper realization of the didactic and educational process," by which they mean the removal of Solidarity sympathizers...
...ultimately they came to despise its government and political system...
...Another practice dredged up from the Stalinist era is the use of schoolchildren as informers...
...More recently, the U.S...
...Milewski was cheirman o f t he Solidarity section of the Polish Academy of Sciences...
...Pretend you are a moron . . . . if you are instructed to carry out mutually contradictory rules, demand written orders...
...Flood them with questions and doubts...
...One can only assume that many, many more among the Polish ruling class share similar sentiments...
...That more did not take the opportunity to witness Poland's revolution firsthand probably has something to do with lingering feelings of guilt over American conduct during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956...
...Interested readers can reach the Committee at 275 Seventh Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...It was a peaceful manifestation of the desire to be free...
...The regime has no constituency, save party careerists and the dregs of society who see a bright future in police work...
...Repellent as such views are, they at least have the advantage of intellectual consistency...
...There, the reality is "a regime at war with its own people," in a Solidarity supporter's words...
...b) those shipped off to Soviet labor camps during and after the war (again estimated in the hundreds of thousands...
...Clearly, however, the p r e f e r r e d tactics are a form of passive resistance bearing a number of similarities to those of the American civil rights movement...
...We can only assume that the t e r r i b l e irony in this inane formulation has eluded Professor Thompson and his fellow promoters of peace...
...The bond between the union and the Church is genuine and organic, in striking contrast to the transparently contrived relationship between religion and the various Marxist guerrilla groupings so beloved by the World Council of Churches...
...But the fact is that while statements issued by U.S...
...Indeed, the regime has reached back into the Stalinist past in a crude effort to wring more productivity out of the work force...
...In the east, a movement for freedom, in the west, a movement for peace...
...Solidarity was not an organization created to do battle...
...Over the long term, of course, the economy poses the greatest challenge to the new regime (which will probably turn out to be not that much different from the _9 Not every relative of Communism's victims qualifies as a victim himself...
...Some apologists for the regime have pointed to the relatively few casualties as evidence that the authorities are patriots first, and functionaries of the Warsaw Pact second ("a Pole, surrounded by Poles" is how George Kennan described General Jaruzeiski...
...According to an account smuggled out of Poland, the colonel assigned to a high school in Poznan explained events thus: Solidarity had been plotting a violent seizure of power...
...These men had devoted their lives to the loyal service of People's Poland...
...However, I believe that the resistance is far from crushed...
...The following excerpt from the union's Basic Principles of Resistance points to the union's stress on seeking a disruption in the normal routine of economic life: Work slowly...
...The Siec, an ad hoc association of the 17 largest workplaces in Poland, played a central role in developing a socioeconomic program for Solidarity and spearheaded the movement for decentralized worker self-management...
...a stronger statement, but one which avoided direct reference to the Soviet Union, was eventually adopted...
...Such remarks do not go unnoticed in the Communist world...
...Although Solidarity appeared thoroughly unprepared for the initial blow, its broad, democratic structure--with second, third, and fourth line officials capable of providing direction in times of crisis--has enabled the union to mount an increasingly effective underground opposition...
...tapes had been discovered with messages prepared for broadcast when the overthrow occurred...
...There are some indications that the regime was counting on at least nominal cooperation from the Church when the coup was launched...
...ommunism, Leszek Kolakowski has written, "would be such a splendid idea if only there were no people...
...tt was her concluding remarks, however, which have drawn the most subsequent attention: I would contend that what the recent Polish events illustrate is a truth that we should have learned a long time ago--that Communism is fascism, "successful" fascism if you will...
...An electrical engineer and specialist in laser technology, Mr...
...The leadership of the Independent Students Association has been jailed, and the organization itself abolished...
...That there have been fewer deaths in Poland than in, say, Argentina or El Salvador is due largely to Solidarity's conscious decision to counsel against violence and terrorism...
...Because of the imposition of martial law, however, preconditions have been set for an organized movement of action directed against the existing system...
...A more accurate understanding of the reality of life in the Soviet Union, she said, could have been gleaned from the pages of Reader's Digest than from the Nation or the New Statesman...
...old one), and here J a r u z e l s k i ' s initial moves point to the t r u t h of a Solidarity leader's comment that "Communism is unreformable...
...The weak response of the West to Polish events indicates that the Poles can count only on themselves," he said...
...its telecommunications shut down...
...All the evidence suggests that the Gierek years may be remembered as a golden era of liberalism compared with what lies ahead under General Jaruzelski...
...Rather than propose an answer to this much-debated question, I would urge that we step back a bit from the issues of the Polish debt, the Reagan Administration's waffling, and the discouraging reactions of our allies, and take a long look at exactly what's happening inside Poland itself...
...Milewski's friends and colleagues...
...officials and one or two broadcasts on Radio Free Europe may have played a minor role in encouraging Hungarian resistance, it was a burning hatred for Communism and the Soviets which caused the revolution, and no amount of American prudence could have prevented it...
...Let us hope that, in charting the future direction of American policy, we do not bear out these pessimistic conclusions...
...The reason is simple enough: No one takes the business of social control as seriously as do totalitarians...
...f) the thousands upon thousands who have been denied jobs, promotions, university admissions, the right to publish, exhibit paintings, perform on stage--in other words, all those whose Arch Puddington is Executive Director of the League for Industrial Democracy and editor of Workers Under Communism, a new journal...
...While there is considerable sympathy for Solidarity, many Leftists are r e l u c t a n t to take the logical step and embrace an anti-Communist position out of fear of giving nourishment to the forces of reaction, by which they r/aean the United States...
...There are, however, indications that the attempt to destroy Solidarity is provoking a long overdue reevaluation of the Soviet Union's global role and even of the fundamental nature of Communism...
...d) those jailed on political charges during the 37 years of Communist rule...
...The Communists can't run anything else so why should they be able to run a police force," was the usual response...
...Referring to Administration pressure on our allies to cooperate with a trade cutback, Donald Kendall, chairman of the business group, said: "I certainly question whether the U.S...
...We do not foresee any substantial change in the attitude of the Western countries, which will not engage in any determined political or economic actions...
...An uncensored underground press published everything from labor bulletins to the works of Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, and Milosz...
...If, miraculously, a non-Communist Poland somehow succeeded in freeing i t s e l f from the Soviet Empire, Cockburn and Ridgeway would probably see the enhancement of American imperialism as a more important and dangerous consequence than the resulting gain for human freedom...
...In other words, the United States will continue to be treated as the world's greatest t h r e a t to peace and human r i g h t s . As a consequence of this a t t i t u d e , p r o t e s t s against the martial law in the peace movement's strongholds have drawn pathetically small crowds--10,O00 people being considered a s u c c e s s - - e s p e c i a l l y when compared with the huge throngg mobilized for disarmament rallies last fall, including a massive t u r n o u t of up to 500,000 in Amsterdam...
...Predictably, the broad liberal-left audience to whom S o n t a g ' s words were addressed has responded with wounded indignation...
...Since somewhere between five and ten p e r c e n t of adult Poles are Communist Party members, these figures suggest that even most Communists would prefer some other form of political arrangement...
...Almost without exception, its leaders have refused to cooperate with the authorities (in one notable case, a regional union leader recanted his e a r l i e r criticism of Solidarity before a group of astonished Western reporters...
...the idea of Greece as some sort of American vassal state is as absurd as the notion of the Soviet Union's acceding to Poland's independence...
...Lech Walesa " i s a. leader of below average standard, incapable of making decisions by h i m s e l f . . . . When he calms down a bit, he will be given a trial and will sit in prison for a while...
...e) those workers killed during the protests of 1956 and 1970...
...Thus the perennial dilemma for the Left: Only committed radicals are conceded the right to criticize Communist regimes, but only so long as they do not provide ammunition to the forces of imperialism...
...One can certainly conceive of situations where Solidarity might abandon its nonviolent course, particularly in the event of a Soviet invasion...
...At the moment there appears to be no significant degree of overt protest or resistance...
...The faith that Ambassadors Spasowski and Rurarz expressed in the West's commitment to the values of freedom is not THE AM ERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 11 universally shared by their democratically minded countrymen...
...A number of prominent party moderates, most notably Tadeusz Fiszbach, party chief in Gdansk, have been purged since December 13, and thousands sympathetic to the Solidarity experiment have turned in their party cards...
...Q: The military junta's crackdown against the Polish people, and against Solidarity in particular, has been remarkably effective...
...Milewski in a groundfloor tenement apartment on New York's Lower East Side--a community with a substantial Polish population...
...University and school curriculum is being readjusted...
...Shove all decisions, even the most minor, into the laps of commissars and informers...
...private automobile travel banned...
...This is unfortunate, since it is now evident that contacts between Solidarity and the West have acted as a restraint on the Polish regime's treatment of the interned union leaders...
...I believe that General J a r u z e l s k i can now be regarded as one of the greatest criminals in our history...
...And when a student posed the obvious question of how the party could continue to lay claim to the "leading role" in society after having kept the facts about the economic crisis from the people for so many years, the colonel responded: "Not everyone has to know everything if he is not a party member...
...As Zbigniew Janas, one of the most important Solidarity leaders to have eluded the government d r a g n e t , has declared: "The Catholic Church is the only organization on which we can rely in this critical period...
...This bitter observation is particularly appropriate in the case of Kolakowski's native Poland, a Communist country where, a 1980 poll informs us, about two percent of the population would vote Communist in a free election...
...Further, it confirms their view that the democratic capitalist societies are incapable of sustaining sacrifice, inconvenience, or profit losses in the services of principles we proclaim...
...More to the point, labor conscription is a useful weapon to wield againstSolidarity sympathizers...
...Fascism with a human face...
...No Latin American dictatorship, no matter how ruthless, couJd have subdued a mass, highly popular workers' movement with the rapidity and thoroughness that marked the Polish military's actions...
...It was also a month to the day that Jerzy Milewski, in the United States to attend a conference on lasers, had become an exile...
...Until now, this would have been impossible: Had Solidarity been perceived as something akin to a paramilitary group it would have lost the support of most of its members...
...The real struggle is over the beliefs of people, over their hearts and minds, if you will, This is a struggle the authorities cannot win...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 9 But netther these developments nor the prospect of a final break with the Soviet Union by the Italian and Spanish Communist parties can obscure the reality that the response from most of the Left has been weak, evasive, and occasionally scandalous.~ The most conspicaous offender has been the European "peace movement...
...To take the most prominent current example, the father of GeneralJaruzelski is reported to have been executed by the Soviets during World War If...
...c) those killed by Poland's own Communist-controlled security forces in the immediate postwar period...
...Lech Walesa's visits to France and Japan, his audience with the Pope, his speech before the International Labor Organization, the numerous Solidarity delegations dispatched to various Western countries--all helped create a global Solidarity constituency whose opinions must be taken into account by General Jaruzelski as he decides on the fate of the detainees...
...The challenge of subjugation and regimentation is a fulltime, ongoing enterprise for all Communist regimes, and even the most destitute regime devotes an immense amount of scarce resources, creative thinking, and long-range planning to organizing the mechanisms of control...
...It is the first such instance in Poland's history...
...He likewise served as a member of the Executive Committee of the union's Gdansk Region and was a delegate to Solidarity's First National Congress, where he was elected chairman of the Program Committee...
...Practically overnight, a modern industrial society was cut off from the outside world and, in a sense, from itself as well...
...Here an important factor is the influence of Roman Catholicism...
...Throughout Polish society, a procedure known as "ideological verification" is currently underway, meaning that pro-Solidarity workers are being fired or forced to sign humiliating statements of loyalty to the regime as a condition of empioyment.t Journalistic and academic institutions have been especially hard hit by the ideological minesweep...
...The entire work force is then rehired on the basis of perceived political loyalty...
...So it was that Poland, with its morally bankrupt and seemingly impotent political leadership, could still mobilize one of the most efficiently exee~ted military operations of recent times...
...a s p i r a t i o n s have been thwarted for no reason other than their political "unreliability...
...As matters have unfolded, it appears that everyone underestimated the capacity of even the most inept totalitarian apparatus to revive the machinery of repression when challenged by its own people...
...He has written on Soviet and East European affairs for the New Republic, National Review, the New Leader, Commonweal, and other journals...
...By contrast, in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, where there was little popular participation in the reform movements, high level officials of the party-led reform regimes collaborated with the Soviets almost immediately upon invasion...
...one certain casualty will be the Polish people's hopes of recapturing their history...
...I met with Mr...
...The occasion was a New York rally in early February sponsored by American Workers and Artists for Solidarity...
...the son's career seems not to have suffered...
...Although we did anticipate various possible attacks against us, attacks launched by the ZOMO [the elite militarized secret police] and militia, we never expected such a widescale offensive...
...It was one month to the day that General Jaruzelski had proclaimed a "state of war" and imprisoned Jerzy Adrian Karatnycky is Research Director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and a member of the editorial board of a new quarterly journal, Workers Under Communism...
...d e s p i t e the t i t l e , the tone of the evening was reflected by Gore Vidal's assertion that America, too, was an "occupied" country, occupied by a "militaryindustrial-political complex...
...Don't do their thinking for them...
...What should the American response be to all this...
...Solidarity's conduct under the extreme pressures of martial law indicates why it was so successful at capturing the loyalty of the Polish people during its sixteen months of legal activity...
...What we have called fascism is rather the form of tyranny that can be overthrown and that has largely failed...
...shortwave radios confiscated...
...Other developments reinforce the conclusion that it is the regime's intention to transform Poland along the lines of Husak's Czechoslovakia rather than Kadar's Hungary...
...In recent months, support for the Siec program had grown rapidly and hundreds of factories and workplaces were participating in its conferences and activities...
...In effect, it was the principal outlet for society's democratic tendencies and as such it was a regionally based, highly decentralized organization...
...Already, a special commission headed by Rakowski has recommended that trade unions be reestablished "on the basis of the constitutional principle of the socialist political order" in the Soviet bloc, meaning a return to their previous status as Communist Party fronts...
...Of course, the initial battle has been won by the authorities...
...The one prominent radical to have broken ranks with the prevailing wisdom is Susan Sontag...
...In fact, Poland in the pre-Solidarity days under Edward Gierek enjoyed rather substantial freedom for a Soviet satellite...
...We thought of Stalinist tyranny as if it were an aberration, and we praised other regimes--other regimes outside Europe in particular--which had essentially the same character...
...made just prior to the imposition of martial law: "The logic of our movement was moving to a more political phase--challenging the hegemony of the united States in Western Europe and that of the Soviet Union in E a s t e r n Europe...
...One reason for labor c o n s c r i p t i o n ' s potentially widespread application is that the regime has decided to close down many of the most unprofitable enterprises, in the process casting aside the fiction of full employment as a basic right under Communism...
...Instead, the union has urged its followers to engage in various forms of passive resistance, especially at the workplace...
...Chamber of Commerce has denounced the Reagan Administration's efforts to delay or prevent construction of the Soviet natural gas pipeline...
...Sooner or later the commissar will want to be left in peace...
...In some cases, entire factories have been shut down to give military and party officials an opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation of workers' backgrounds...
...Writing in the Village Voice, Alexander Cockburn and James Ridgeway denied that Communism and Stalinism were identical, implying that there were good Communisms (presumably Cuba and Vietnam) and bad Communisms (the Soviets...
...To her everlasting credit, she chose to denounce the Left's refusal to acknowledge Communism's failure as a system at a forum where her views were guaranteed to meet with considerable hostility...
...Sontag, on the other hand, said that the principal lesson of Poland was "the failure of Communism," and accused "the people of the Left [of having] willingly and unwillingly told a lot of l i e s " about conditions in Communist countries in order " n o t to give comfort to reactionary forces...
...Perhaps even more importantly, the Church has held out the possibility of a more open break with the regime should the repression be stepped up...
...Not only is fascism and overt military rule probably the future destiny of all Communist countries, especially when their populations are moved to revolt, but Communism itself is a variant, the most successful variant, of fascism...
...Until recently, the apartment had served as a studio for an expatriate Polish artist...
...whose organizers have made clear that whatever happens in Poland will have no effect on its direction, goals, or strategy...
...Try to prolong such games as long as possible...
...Outside, the snow blanketed the quiet street...
...Those who dismissed the point about the distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian systems should take a careful look at what has happened in Poland...
...Polish radio broadcasts have praised the "restrained" attitudes and "calmness" with which Western financial circles have accepted martial law...
...The regime's initial success in abolishing Poland's independent culture does not extend to actually convincing people that a better future lies ahead...
...With the party maintaining a low profile, military officers have been dispatched to explain the coup's rationale before schools and other institutions...
...Jaruzelski has indeed been successful in pacifying the e n t i r e nation...
...Thousands of workers, and not merely a handful of shirkers, may be caught up in what can be called, with only slight exaggeration, a form of slave labor...
...The only test we care about is: can they pay their bills...
...After Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Cambodia, the boat people, Afghanistan, the Cuban freedom flotilla, the assorted horrors of Stalinism, and now Poland, the Left clings tenaciously and against all evidence to the view of a world menaced in equal degrees by the Soviet Union and the United States...
...Although the similarities between Poland under Jaruzelski and traditional Latin American juntas have been overdrawn somewhat (as an elderly Polish woman commented, "You c a n ' t have Communism without t a n k s " ) , the fact is that Poland today, and particularly that part off-limits to the prying eyes of Westerners, resembles an armed camp, where sections of factories are separated by barbed wire, workers are escorted in and out of workplaces by armed members of the security forces, the unemployed are " d r a f t e d " into work brigades, those refusing to work are treated as "deserte r s , " and colonels run the schools...
...Organized resistance, however, may be less a factor in Poland's immediate future than overt rebellion, reflecting a people's fury at being handed an indefinite s e n t e n c e to a system which provides neither bread nor freedom...
...As Tom Kahn, an AFL-CIO official, has observed: The attitude of business "conveys to the Soviet Union that important elements of what they would call the American ruling class are indifferent to human rights, or to the system of political democracy required to sustain them...
...That the Communists are returning to their bungling ways should in no sense detract from their one signal achievement of the entire postwar era: the coup itself...
...The dignity and commitment of the imprisoned trade unionists is largely a tribute to Solidarity's democratic character...
...Now it is a makeshift headquarters for Solidarity International, which Mr...
...Susan Sontag was one of the few Americans of any political stripe to have actually visited Poland in recent times...
...Any such a t t e m p t would have been labeled a preparation for 12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982...
...the sale of writing paper and rucksacks prohibited...
...Th.at perception of us can only embolden them...
...Poland has also provoked the first public rift within the Socialist International since Willy Brandt began positioning the organization as a neutral mediator between the "two superpowers...
...and, finally, (g) the p a r e n t , husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and children of the above...
...Above all else, it requires the resubjugation of the working class, and an end to any vestige of trade union autonomy...
...A number of socialist parties, the French and Italian being the most prominent, publicly rejected a statement issued in the SI's name by Brandt which declared that "strongly worded declarations will not help the people of Poland" and urged "continued cooperation with and assistance for Poland...
...e r z y Milewski, "47, is the highest-ranking Solidarity official outside Poland today...
...This is because, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, General J a r u z e l s k i has fallen well short of his primary initial objectives: the total d e s t r u c t i o n of Solidarity and the "normalization" of Polish society through r e s i g n e d acceptance of the martial law government...
...The victims of what one Solidarity member has described as " a n occupation by our own army" number upwards of 50,000, with the most recent developments suggesting that there are many more to come...
...While the regime presents its most sophisticated face to the West in the person of such functionaries as Rakowski and Wieslaw Gornicki (both of whom have worked in the West), its explanations to its own people of why martial law is necessary are couched in a language that, in Czeslaw Milosz's words, is "subject to the derision of the entire nation...
...Milewski's most significant role within the trade union involved his organizing of the ~iec--the Network of Leading Enterprises...
...It should be noted that the leaders of the peace movement are by and large neither pro-Communist nor unmoved by the repressive nature of Soviet society...
...Industrial workers are also subject to the verification process...
...Communist Party influence in the universities was substantially diminished and, of course, the Catholic Church functioned with a degree of independence unprecedented in a Communist society...
...Under the new order, there will be no reassessments of who was responsible for the Katyn massacre or reevaluations of the non-Communist Home Army's role in the struggle against Hitler...
...Many, in fact, are only too well aware of the Soviet Union's role in discrediting the name of socialism in the West...
...Are you not surprised at how quickly resistance has vanished...
...tOne such declaration of loyalty reads: "Taking into account the fact that, in the course of recent months, many of the executive organs of the free trade union Solidarity have openly spoken out against the constitutional organs of the government and the administration, attempting from a counter-revolutionary standpoint to overthrow the socialist state, I hereby declare my renouncement of my membership in that u n i o n . ' ' $ THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982 The introduction of labor conscription should be kept in mind the next time we hear Deputy Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski or some other putative party "liberal" pledge that Poland will not be returned to the bad old days of MarxistLeninist orthodoxy...
...government should put its long arm into another sovereign country and force it to accept these sanctions...
...Special bulletins are published throughout the country: They provide advice on resistance tactics, pass along declarations from interned union officials, and offer accounts of the strikes, riots, and government repression which are increasingly the order of the day...
...In Torun, party leaders who last summer launched an abortive campaign for party reform were reportedly among those interned during the coup's first weeks...
...Milewski: None of us expected so total an attack against society by the e n t i r e Army and security apparatus...
...And no wonder...
...In this hope Jaruzelski has been sorely disappointed...
...The educational system in general has been a prominent object of the regime's attention...
...Here, for once, is an example of East-West people-to-people contact paying important dividends...
...Many of the union's better-known figures, Lech Walesa among them, take quite seriously the Church's teachings on such questions as nonviolence...
...in the words of Saul Landau, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies' Transnational Institute...
...gallows had already been set up, and lists of party, military, and police officials slated for execution had been drawn up...
...Treading on even more dangerous t e r r a i n , she said: "We tried to distinguish among Communism...
...all but a few reliable newspapers shut down...
...This article is based in part on material provided by the Committee in Support of Solidarity, an organization established to disseminate information about developments t'n Poland and organize support for political prisoners there...
...E r much of the Western Left, crises in the Communist world have seldom been welcome events...
...On the American Left, similar attitudes prevail...
...For some, the Soviet Union's military might and its demonstrated willingness to employ brute force in the pursuit of its global ambitions represent "the one insurance of [Third World] revolution...
...Q: Why, i f as you indicated, Solidarity anticipated some form of confrontation, were no contingency plans made for widescale passive resistance ? Milewski: Even if we had been absolutely certain that such a frontal attack was imminent, no resistance could have been properly organized...
...The most hopeful signs are in France, where the entire non-Communist Left has adopted a forthright position against both the Polish and Soviet regimes, where the "spheres of influence" mentality has come under attack, and where the Mitterrand government's decision to proceed on a business-as-usual course in its commercial dealings with the Soviets has been criticized from within Mitterrand's own Socialist Party...
...Milewski has helped found in an effort to build supportfor Solidarity's cause...
...Leftist positions are guided by an unspoken rule: Criticizing the sins of individual Communist regimes is permis~ sible...
...When the Polish ambassadors to the United States and Japan defected to the West, many were startled at their impassioned embrace of our democratic values and the urgency with which they appealed for a firm position against the Polish government and the Soviets...
...Thompson, much r e v e r e d as the f a t h e r figure of the Euroneutralist movement, t.Although not as scandalous as the response of the business community: The ink was hardly dry On the martial law decrees when Thomas Theobald, senior vice-president of Citibank's international division, commented: "Who knows which political system works...
...criticizing Communism as a system is not...
...Nursery school directors have been asked to inquire discreetly of their students whether, for example, their parents made regular use of a typewriter...
...By contrast, we have the following s t a t e m e n t by E.P...
...Even before Solidarity, veterans of the Polish democratic movement held the security forces in disdain...
...Solidarity was a mass social movement which functioned as a trade union...
...A brief survey of Communism's Polish victims would include the following: (a) those killed by the Red Army during and immediately a f t e r World War II (in the hundreds of thousands, mainly veterans of the anti-Nazi underground...
...176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176176 Adrian Karamycky SOLIDARITY IN EXILE: AN INTERVIEW WITH JERZY MILEWSKI Next year in Jaruzalem...
...This p r e s e n t s a real dilemma for the regime, since a further clampdown, and possibly even outright terror, might be required to maintain control over Polish society...
...One of the first decrees issued by the ruling military council called for compulsory labor conscription for all unemployed males aged 18 to 45...
...Communism has been a more thoroughgoing failure in Poland than in any other East Eurol~ean country, and the human costs of maintaining a system in which few prosper and no one believes have been awesome...
...let Poland be Poland, let Greece be Greek...
...If the Polish crisis proves anything, it is that for Communists control of the means of production comes second to controlling the levers of social domination...
...By its statements and actions--clerics, for example, have passed messages from imprisoned Solidarity members to the West, have organized relief efforts, and protested conditions in the detention camps--the Church has in a sense endorsed Solidarity's passive resistance course...
...the staffs of some newspapers have been decimated by the dismissal of the politically "unreliable...
Vol. 15 • April 1982 • No. 4
