POLAND: WHAT NEXT IN POLAND?
Kuron, Jacek
The following article, slightly condensed, is taken from Information Bulletin, Warsaw, no. 6, 1980. Its author is a leading figure in the Polish democratic movement. The article has been...
...We can observe the same phenomenon in other areas of social activity that have been spurred by the creation of the independent trade unions...
...But trade union leaders must resist this pressure...
...5 It is hardly surprising that 37 the trade unions have been subjected to this kind of pressure from the authorities, which see them as the bridgehead in the society's attempt to organize and manage itself and thus determine its own fate...
...Hence the achievement of independence must be the sole, supreme, and immediate objective of the opposition...
...During the strikes on the Baltic, the authorities did whatever they could to disseminate rumors of an impending Soviet invasion...
...It is true that we Poles are cognizant of the danger of Soviet intervention...
...Democratic relations help to bring differences into the open and then to resolve them...
...We have entered an era of a mass movement...
...The Dynamics of Social Movements THE PUBLIC, FOR YEARS DEPRIVED of its rights, for years intimidated and humiliated, now constitutes a powerful force yet is not fully conscious of it...
...In the Lublin strike, which had not yet generated any political demands, the threat was used openly and to a considerable extent successfully...
...They cannot ask society to desist from evolving a program that will facilitate autonomy in cooperatives and in the countryside, in the country's economic system, and in the scientific and cultural areas...
...the Free Trade Unions of the Baltic Seacoast...
...2 This is why we must formulate specific and thus far limited goals, based not only on what our society regards as ultimately desirable but also necessary at this time...
...They can only resort to the use of armed force...
...I know of apartment cooperatives whose members, in order to govern themselves cooperatively, have begun to make use of their statutes [officially guaranteeing autonomy—A...
...The Ursus tractor factory near Warsaw was the scene of the first strike on July 1, '80, as well as of the first workers' protests against price rises in June 1976...
...I magine for a moment that our railway system, whose timetables all are determined by one central authority, suddenly has to cope with an influx of trains whose schedules are to be worked out jointly by passengers and railway workers...
...Trade unions can play a decisive role in the giveandtake between the various representatives of society...
...No one is now devoting any serious attention to this problem, but eventually an economic plan will have to be evolved that is acceptable to the whole society, or there will never be a workable plan...
...Edward Gierek, First Secretary Polish United Workers' Party August 18, 1980 the student solidarity committees, and so forth...
...How long was the path it traversed—from the timid formation of the Workers' Committee (whose name would not even be mentioned) at Ursus, 3 all the way to the splendidly formulated demands regarding organization, freedom of speech, the freeing of political prisoners, and the like...
...While all other oppositionist groups have demanded his release, they have emphatically dissociated themselves from the views of his conspiratorial "party," which may well consist of no more than a handful of people...
...As for the trade unions, they should address themselves to such matters of everyday concern as the occupational and health conditions for workers...
...One is the concept of professional "miniparliaments" [sejmiks] , which the unions would help to create or, more accurately, whose activities they would help bring about...
...The first solution is improbable...
...as a result the central authorities come forth with a plan that altogether ignores this criticism...
...Is it possible to define the limits of the movement's dynamics...
...Each contributes to the disintegration of the centralist system...
...And if that fact is not taken into account by the program of the democratic social movement, a defeat of the greatest magnitude is bound to ensue...
...On July 20, the representatives of all peasant self-defense committees and publications addressed a letter to the striking workers, fully supporting their demands, outlining their own grievances (old-age pensions, which are not ony significantly lower than those offered to city workers but are also predicated on the recipient's transfer of his land to the state...
...Each successive step, all threats notwithstanding, weakens the perception of danger...
...Since 1978, ROPCIO has organized three huge mass demonstrations to commemorate Polish independence and the rout of Soviet armies by Marshall Pilsudski in in 1920, and their publications have given considerable prominence to patriotic and national themes...
...Yet they would be right only if the analysis presented here were clearly incorrect...
...the peasants' self-defense committees...
...This is vividly illustrated by the Gdansk Agreement, which after all constitutes a compact between the rulers and society, and which in effect pertains to almost all aspects of public life...
...The weaker the central authorities, the less capable they are of adapting their policies to the new situation, the quicker the movement's radicalization...
...The second proposal is even more interesting...
...Either it will be willing to accept the democratization of Poland—to be sure, within certain limits—or it will send its tanks across the border, whatever words we employ...
...Both possible and necessary...
...Analogous actions now are underway in medical cooperatives—to be followed in the very near future by autonomous organizations of consumers, peasants, and others...
...Can the apparatus change its character and system in a short time...
...In the long run, these efforts should expand so as to include eventually the activities of the whole state administration...
...but why engage in ceaseless prognostications...
...Yet if it proves incapable of changing quickly, will it not resort to the suicidal attempt of arresting this movement by force...
...36 The proposal for open and clearly defined programs and their limitations will no doubt meet with the objections of those who are convinced that it is dangerous to pronounce certain words, as well as the names of those who voice them...
...I think that today the Soviet Union will come to terms with the democratization of Poland from below, in order to avoid the necessity of military intervention...
...not by rejecting it altogether, for that is impossible, but by assuming co-responsibility only for the determination of matters expressly relating to the interests and demands of the working people...
...But the authorities, as well as some segments of the liberal intelligentsia, have exaggerated and misused it...
...Eds...
...First: We must clearly and explicitly define the tasks of the newly emergent trade unions as organizations defending the interests of the working people...
...They would aid and defend it—yet, to repeat, not replace it...
...It is important that the unions refrain from playing any role in the organs of administration, that they not be involved in initiating or elaborating the economic reform program, or in any other similar activities...
...and surely it cannot operate according to two mutually contradictory principles...
...Even those who are involved in various activities are not confident that success is within their reach...
...they will only encourage rumors and intrigues...
...Yet one cannot possibly assume that the threat is completely empty and unreal...
...The most extreme position has been taken by a Polish journalist named Leszek Moczulski, who left ROPCIO to set up, on September 1, 1979, a clandestine "party" called Confederation of Independent Poland (KPN...
...The strikes were successful—regardless of whether or not the rumors had any substance—because, in the consciousness of the workers, the threat lost much of its meaning...
...and under the present conditions, it would be that of an alien power...
...If we were to put forward far-reaching slogans, such as complete state sovereignty and parliamentary democracy—which no doubt are the deepest aspirations of all Poles—these slogans would 35 not elicit mass support, if only because in the opinion of most citizens they are simply unrealistic...
...abysmally low prices for produce sold to the state...
...The strike leaders who had formulated these demands were subsequently elected to the new Works Council...
...In order to halt this process of disintegration, the party-government apparatus must either subordinate these autonomous social movements to its own directives, thus depriving them of their essential meaning, or alter the whole system in the direction of democracy— and do so as swiftly as possible...
...The peasants' efforts to organize themselves constitute an important link in the chain of agricultural self-governing institutions whose program has now been formulated by the various new peasant organizations.' The program facilitating autonomy for higher educational institutions—and thus in the areas of scholarship and science in general—is advanced by educators forming their own trade unions, as well as by the emerging independent student movement...
...Each of these movements—and I have by no means mentioned them all—aims at the radical curtailment of the central authorities' spheres of activity...
...The palpable advantage of such an arrangement would be that of easing the burden on the young trade union officials, and by sparing them the numerous administrative functions to preserve their working-class character...
...Such an attempt could well end in Soviet intervention, and the regime is invariably inclined to use this threat...
...This point of view is shared by KOR as a whole, but not necessarily by other oppositionist groups...
...The responsibility for the decision would be shared by the members of these "mini-parliaments" and by the ruling authorities with whom they would negotiate—but not by the trade unions themselves...
...The time has come for open formulation of democratic programs and, simultaneously, for public discussion of these programs...
...The interests of society will emerge from discourse and compromise, which are endemic to the democratic process...
...As the strike waves spread, the threats lost their potency...
...Ambivalent statements and political arrangements or discreet negotiations will have no effect on the movement...
...It is a fact...
...Every fall, between September and October, the managers and employees of our enterprises are presented with a meticulous economic plan for the forthcoming year...
...Our society has already—for the first time in 35 years— organized itself without depending on the government authorities, thus providing democracy with a measure of real insurance...
...EDS...
...And if elections had been held, they would have certainly not redounded to the benefit of the strike leaders...
...The programatic as well as analytical papers issued by the anonymous Polish Independence Accord (PPN) also have stressed that attainment of national sovereignty should not be postponed until the distant future but should be regarded as an integral part of the gradual democratization of Poland...
...The accommodation of different interests and divergent points of views can be accomplished only by social movements...
...But trade unions represent only one point of view, and only through negotiations can that point of view be accommodated with others...
...Moczulski's political past is suspect: in 1968-69 he was a "Moczar man," contributing regularly to the weekly Stolica (Capital), at that time one of Interior Minister Moczar's vulgar nationalistic mouthpieces...
...In addition to the need of autonomous activities of workers and peasants, of people engaged in scientific, scholarly and cultural More Information For readers who would like to have more information about the struggle in Poland, we recommend Survey, a quarterly published in London (write to Oxford University Press, Press Road, Neasden, London NW10 ODD...
...It concerns the works councils and the social-welfare funds, which hitherto were dispensed by the old [official] trade unions.6 According to this second proposal, the funds should be at the disposal of a council, 'a "mini-parliament," elected by all the employees of any given enterprise, and it would not be formally connected with the trade unions but its members would be chosen from lists proposed by trade unions and other organizations...
...38 work and economic management, it is necessary to bring about the concerted defense of legality, of an independent judiciary and of independent lawyers...
...I regard this as a utopian and indeed as an adventurist notion...
...But this is not enough...
...In the face of this pluralization of social movements, any attempt to centralize and control them from above is doomed to fail...
...Yet the only path open to this movement is to go on developing while also being fully conscious of its limitations...
...In 1956, it received the serious attention of economists and of enterprise managers as well as workers' selfgoverning bodies...
...This is precisely why the leaders of today's trade unions cannot under any circumstances formulate a program designed to limit the exercise of democracy only to the area of wages and working conditions...
...Shouldn't we, therefore, try to stem this movement in time, so as to lift the threat of intervention...
...It is a program of social self-defense, and it has been concerned primarily with the organization of trade unions, professional and local self-governing bodies, the autonomy of people working in the scientific and cultural fields—in a word, democracy at the lowest primary social level...
...The trade unions cannot presume to speak for society as a whole...
...Yet neither then nor since has it been successfully resolved...
...Is there another, possible solution...
...We are witnessing the rise of an autonomous peasant movement...
...z Both Kuron and Adam Michnik have consistently maintained that the oppositionist movement must concentrate on immediate economic, political, and social goals rather than on the achievement of full independence and sovereignty, lest such demands precipitate a Soviet invasion...
...Such councils would in effect constitute a marvelous school of democracy...
...Its Autumn 1979 and Winter 1980 issues contain a great amount of authentic and interesting material translated from Polish sources, much of it from the Samizdat or semi-Samizdat publications issued by the Polish opposition...
...They now are deprived of a social base, for they can no longer count on and appeal to the support of any social groups...
...How long it took that movement to formulate the demand for independent trade unions...
...This problem indeed is fundamental to 34 our system, and there have been many attempts to solve it...
...This, I am afraid, is not very likely...
...On this fundamental issue, no one may count on concessions, compromises, or even hesitations...
...Tomorrow it may consent to further democratic developments, in exchange for a guarantee of its military interests...
...But now this scenario can no longer be repeated...
...We have started on a road of no return...
...The Movement for the Defense of Human and Civil Rights (ROPCIO), for instance, while positing independence as the eventual goal, has nevertheless put greater emphasis on it even in its regular activities...
...Our citizens do not believe they can attain their objectives, the more so since they are frequently unable to articulate them...
...The central authorities are helpless in the face of organized society...
...representatives from Bureaucrat's Voice It is our duty to state most firmly that no acts aimed against the basis of our political and social order in Poland can or will be tolerated...
...We are confronted with the colossal task of constructing a democratic order...
...I don't think that the Soviet regime would take such propositions seriously...
...The problem can perhaps best be understood in terms of our national economic plan...
...This chance is the elaboration of a program of democratization, consonant with the people's aspirations, yet one that also will not overstep those boundaries...
...Now that the people have created their own organizations, they are conscious of their strength...
...Nothing whatever is to be gained from silently passing over the problem of disintegration of power...
...Will the authorities, then, be able to work out a plan that will be effective as well as truly consonant with the demands of the society...
...Urgent Tasks WHAT, THEN, are our immediate goals...
...Now, at meetings of the workforces at various enterprises, the plans for the following year are being seriously questioned and rejected...
...It can only be attained through democratic means...
...That is to say, they could ask people to desist —but no one would listen to them, and their authority would quickly evaporate...
...I am referring here to the concerted efforts of managerial experts, scholars, economists to work out a program of economic reform and to create various self-governing bodies that will bring about these reforms...
...Before we answer this question, we must realize that every social movement has its own dynamic, one that is not susceptible either to arbitrary direction from within (its leaders) or even more so from without (its advisers...
...After all, the peasant movement must adjust its own interests to those of the interests of industrial workers and of the national economy as a whole...
...And here radicalization means to turn explicitly against the regime and its political structures...
...I The efforts of peasants to organize themselves in defense of their rights and in opposition to official discriminatory policies—as ruinous to the welfare of the peasants as to the state of Polish agriculture in general— began in 1978 with the formation of a number of peasant self-defense committees, the appearance of a number of periodicals, the creation of the Farmers' University near Warsaw (modeled after the "Flying University" organized by scholars connected with KOR), and of the Interim Committee of the Independent Agricultural Labor Unions, which on September 24 applied for official registration in a Warsaw court...
...inability of private farmers to obtain loans for land equipment, new buildings, and stock, and thus to increase their productivity...
...To this movement falls the task of pressing for agricultural reforms, and it is up to various experts in that field to provide this movement with the widest possible support...
...Until we have succeeded in elaborating a common program we are bound to differ, and it is most important that everyone be clear wherein these differences lie...
...The general direction of this program has been worked out some time ago by various groups working with KOR: the people around the periodical Robotnik...
...Again, the trade unions would not replace the works council— they would merely participate in and monitor the electoral process and, through their representatives, would exercise an influence on the activities of the council...
...That is, if we could assume that the process of democratization could be limited to trade union activities in the areas of wages and working conditions, and that, moreover, these unions would be able to restrain the people's wage demands despite the decline of the living standard and without a realistic program of economic improvement or, more accurately, with a program formulated—not for the first time—by the central authorities...
...In that case, the trains, governed by conflicting timetables, will inevitably collide...
...Surely, a social system, even of a totalitarian nature, is never as perfect as a timetable...
...The article has been translated and annotated by Abraham Brumberg...
...This plan usually invites considerable criticism— some of it severe, some less so...
...This movement cannot possibly aim at removing the ruling authorities but by its very existence it will present them with specific demands...
...5 Kuron is referring hereto the attempts by the authorities to "co-opt" the unions, rather than to grant them genuine autonomy...
...Much the same problem will arise for a social system all of whose institutions are directed by a party-government that suddenly has to deal with independent trade unions...
...At the time this demand corresponded to the actual aspirations of the workers regarding genuine representation...
...The Interim Committee now has its own paper, Rolnik Niezalezny (Independent Farmer...
...6 The old trade union councils administered a network of rest homes, vacation resorts, and medical facilities, all of which will now presumably be transferred to the jurisdiction of the independent unions...
...4 The works council was the basic enterprise organization of the (now defunct) official trade union structure...
...From this point of view two of the Gdansk unionists' proposals seem to me of special importance...
...On the other hand—and this is of crucial importance—it will also help the authorities in implementing these demands...
...A day after tomorrow...
...In Moczulski's view, no serious changes can possibly take place in Poland as long as it remains under Moscow's control...
...They simply rebel against existing conditions, and against the authorities whom they hold responsible...
...If, however, during the strikes on the Baltic coast, the local strike committees had restricted themselves to the demands made previously in Lublin, their leaders would shortly have been displaced, and the whole movement might have suffered an irreparable blow...
...Those who participate in these social movements should come together to work out a common program, to differ, share, accommodate and unite...
...In a telephone interview with the West German weekly Der Spiegel on September 15 of this year, Moczulski asserted that the attempts to set up independent unions were doomed to failure and restated his aim of struggling for "an independent, sovereign Poland, free of Soviet supremacy and of the totalitarian dictatorship of the Polish United Workers Party" (CP)—for which he was promptly put under arrest...
...Only those who clearly and publicly define their objectives, as well as their fears, have any chance of success...
...We can see this process most clearly in the development of the enormous strike movement of this past July and August...
...This past July, during the strike of the Lublin locomotive engineers, its employees disbanded the old Works Council,4 and they demanded new elections...
...Second: I regard as the most urgent task of the moment the creation of a movement aimed at bringing about national economic reforms...
...In these "mini-parliaments" employees would consider numerous problems in their capacity as co-managers of the enterprise or perhaps even of a given branch of their industry as a whole...
...Therefore it is necessary to formulate minimalist goals and to mobilize society around them...
...complete lack of democracy in managing their own affairs, with the peasants being "completely at the mercy" of the local party and government authorities)— and urging that workers and peasants work together for the good of "the whole nation...
...Hence accords—not of an organizational, but of a programmatic nature—are absolutely necessary...
...in other words, that they do not take the place of the powers that actually run the country...
...What is important is that Polish society be ready to utilize every real opportunity—that it continues to organize itself into self-governing movements...
...There is a chance social movements can follow a path that will enable them to voice and realize their demands within the boundaries that safeguard national security...
Vol. 28 • January 1981 • No. 1
