Reflections on the State of Poland

Karpinski, Jakub

THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR VOL. 16, NO. 2 2 FEBRUARY 1983 Jakub Karpinski REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE OF POLAND Martial law or no, Solidarity lives. A s 1 write, a full year of martial law has not yet...

...On December 13, 1981, the authorities staged an unprecedented communications blockade and thus introduced a quasi-class division of society-between the owners of the means of communication (the militarized state) and those with no access to these means (the atomized individuals subordinated to the state...
...The state of war demonstrated how Communist authorities can tame a society even under unfavorable conditions, after a period of what by Communist standards had been an unusual degree of self-organization by society...
...to students of War Communism...
...The restrictions on free access to consumer goods-the rationing system-will not be abolished soon...
...sent...
...The union was being appeased, the government's intentions falsely presented as peaceful, and Solidarity was thus unprepared for the state of war...
...But by the time this article appears in print, the "state of war" in Poland will most probably have ended, the authorities having decided to grant some concessions (such as the release of the internees) but not to return to the "prewar" situation (before December 13, 1981...
...Severe penal sanctionsfor crimes not well defined but considered dangerous by the authorities-constitute further drastic limitations on freedom...
...The Polish authorities would like to minimize any concessions and introduce "normalization"-a Polish mutation of the Hungarian and Czechoslovak patterns-in hope of consolidating fear and strengthening the feeling that revolts are futile, that there is no need to do anything jointly and independently, and that one should submit to the (sometimes stern) tutelage of the authorities...
...Above all, this system protects the state from citizens' coalitions, from agreements independent of the state, from the exchange of information without the authorities' con Jakub Karpinski is author of Countdown: The Polish Upheavals of 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976, 1980...
...The "parasite law" of October 26, 1982 made it mandatory for men between the ages of 18 and 45 to be employed...
...We all want to learn from history, even though we know it does not repeat itself in every detail...
...In Poland, the martial-law decrees militarized many enterprises and even whole-branches of industry (e.g., mining), making work at these enterprises compulsory...
...Karz-Cohl Publishing...
...After all, the juxtaposition of war and Communism is not new...
...A s 1 write, a full year of martial law has not yet passed...
...The martial-law decrees reinforced these features of the Communist legal system, and the new trade-union law of last October 8 together with the "parasite" law have not only limited freedom of association and freedom in the labor market, but also extended penalization into new areas, such as unlicensed union activities and "parasitism...
...At the same time the authorities were openly conducting negotiations with the union, they were secretly preparing lists of future prisoners, putting final touches to the decrees on militarization of industry, on banning assembly, travel, and publications, and were planning such actions as the cutting of telephone lines and the distribution of military and police detachments...
...Solidarity's advisers seem to have disregarded this essence when in 1981 they told workers that the state power had collapsed, that Solidarity and the Party were in the same boat, that the Communist authorities wanted an agreement as much as they did...
...The state of war brought far-reaching limitations on freedom-in a way well known...
...Such sanctions prove that the protection of the state from its citizens is one of the principal aims of the Communist legal system...
...The preparations for, and subsequent introduction of, martial law in Poland in December 1981 might be seen as the largest (so far) military-police maneuvers of the Warsaw Pact forces...
...The system is changing, but has existed long enough to show where it is most resistant to change, in other words, to show its very essence...
...War Communism in the Soviet Union provided a model Communism, a system in which society as a body independent of the state does not exist, and in which the people act as an army of producers subordinated to the party-state rulers...
...Certain ingenious innovations introduced during martial law will no doubt be preserved and consolidated by those regulations that will have become law in December 1982...
...It proved possible to impose martial law precisely because of the characteristics of the Communist system: the state and party controlled virtually all industry and means of communication (radio, television, tele 8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1983...
...Will "normalization" succeed...

Vol. 16 • February 1983 • No. 2


 
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