POLAND
Brumberg), Bronislaw Geremek (Introd. A. & Bratkowski, Stefan & Clark, Joseph & Brand, H. & Howe, Irving
Even in this hour of defeat when thousands of its militants are held in concentration camps, Solidarity remains the most promising social movement to have arisen in Europe since the Second World...
...But the minority of the Polish CP In our Winter 1981 issue we published "A Revolt of the Possible," an article by the Polish journalist Stefan Bratkowski in defense of the uprising of the Polish people...
...The American people were then given a tax bill of $75 million, payable to the American banks...
...Abolition of such privileges is implicit in the proposed economic reforms...
...It seems to me that this is precisely what is lacking in our partners and in the official propaganda...
...It has ruined our economy and the prospects for rebuilding it...
...Second: Solidarity went too far...
...There are some who advise the Poles that they shouldn't expect anything better than a Hungarian goulash type of solution...
...How does Solidarity respond to the growing demands of the public...
...Poland faces bleak days in the foreseeable future...
...Translated from the Polish by ABRAHAM BRUMBERG q Solidarity's policies were formulated in a series of statements, agreed upon at its October 1981 convention...
...Nevertheless, there is still a need for new, independent institutions enjoying the confidence of the public and capable of telling the truth...
...GEREMEK: As is usually the case with controversial issues, it is not the words that are important but the substance that lies behind them...
...It was held to be essential to its independence, freeing it from the control of governmental bodies...
...Some members of these groups came to function as key advisers to Solidarity during the crucial Gdansk negotiations in AugustSeptember 1980, which led to its official recognition as an independent trade union...
...THE SUPPRESSION OF SOLIDARITY by the Polish generals does not lessen the significance of its program...
...These groups, which do not share the concerns of the majority, are more interested in supplementing existing privileges and acquiring new ones than they are in improving any aspect of public life...
...the Brandt statement was inexcusable...
...In 1956, 1970, and 1976 there were popular uprisings against the detested regime— by workers, by students, but not the two together...
...The ungrateful Poles are not likely to understand the tender feelings of the junta either, now or later...
...The enterprise managers would be appointed by the workers' council, be "subservient" to it, and be obliged to carry out its resolutions on a day-today basis...
...The social enterprise was to be "the basic element of the national economy [with] full independence, autonomy of its workforce, and . . . self-financing...
...And here was the exhilarating spectacle of a young and inexperienced working class asserting itself with strength and spirit...
...The same dread, of course, kept the popular revolution from fulfilling itself by sweeping aside the enfeebled regime...
...But in one respect they are unsurpassed—in their use of the threat of invasion...
...at the Institute of History in Warsaw, author of several works on "marginal" social, ethnic, and professional groups in medieval and Renaissance Europe, and former director of the Centre de la Civilisation Polonaise at the Sorbonne (1962-65), Geremek deliberately eschewed any involvement with politics ever since he had turned in his party card after the sordid factional and anti-Semitic campaign of March 1968...
...Yet one must also have a sense of realism and know what and when anything can be achieved...
...second, the population must pledge not to take strike action or stage political demonstrations for the duration of the armistice...
...Solidarity may have erred, not as Western cynics say, by "going too far" but by being too innocent, too ready to suppose that its own good faith would be matched by others...
...Unfortunately, the Sejm [Poland's parliament] does not enjoy this authority—though I must stress that the recent development in the Sejm, the fact that the truth is finally being heard there, is as impressive as it is astonishing...
...Facts are facts and no words can conceal them...
...GEREMEK: The Front of National Unity has become thoroughly discredited...
...Underlying the conception of autonomous planning is an assumption that each enterprise, being subject to market and social forces, will always plan so as to improve its operations...
...But the question is, which structures...
...In Poland there is a mass movement of all the social classes and the nation's basic forces, and backed by its highest moral and intellectual authorities...
...Behind it apparently lay the expectation that segments of the CP might still be open not 153 just to the argument that some form of cooperation between government, Solidarity and the Church was essential to national survival, but that such cooperation was a path of patriotism...
...After each revolt was crushed, the party recognized that it had to put a new face on its shabby dictatorship and there followed a shake-up in leadership...
...Part of society continues to live with lower than the social minimum income, while another segment, consisting of the privileged, has incomes several or even dozens of times the average...
...What, under those circumstances, was Solidarity to do...
...Q: If it's not Solidarity's task to propose institutional changes, how do you explain the proposal for a Social Council on the National Economy...
...Even those who favor a real easing of tensions between the superpowers must know that appeasement of aggression is no path to peace...
...Enterprises would be monitored by a state agency to prevent such practices— to be specified by law—and sanctions would be imposed on violators...
...But it would be deprived of the vast authority it now possesses...
...But what has that to do with saying, "Helpless as we may be, we still want to cry out our solidarity with Solidarity...
...Q: It is always easier below, but the higher you go, the more complicated it gets...
...The key to the answer is the proposal that "instruments incoherent with the logic of economic market relations should be replaced by instruments operating via income-and-demand basis...
...One rubbed one's eyes: for this we need a Socialist International...
...We must gather and popularize knowledge of territorial, local, agricultural, and professional self-management systems both in Poland in the past and in other countries...
...In the same sense Hitler had to gas six million Jews if he wanted to remain faithful to his ideology, and the Cambodian liberators had to exterminate a third or so of the population if they wanted to build a happy Communist society as they conceived it...
...On the other hand, a polity of self-managed enterprises, as in Solidarity's proposals on employee councils, and legally owned by the nation, points to a future of "socialist democracy," of which such protagonists as Roy Medvedev, Branko Horvat, and Mihailo Markovic have written...
...This is bad business, bad policy, bad morality...
...A mass movement arising spontaneously in opposition to a despised dictatorship—how could there not be some hotheads along the edges...
...Solidarity surely had the right to expect support from workers of all lands...
...One doesn't play chicken at times like that...
...The self-managed enterprise as conceived by Solidarity does not resemble the entrepreneurial firm in Western countries...
...As a signer by now of hundreds of statements, I think I know how limited their impact is...
...It draws upon the work of such outstanding indigenous thinkers as Oscar Lange and Wlodzimierz Brus...
...This program was the result of years of thought and debate among Polish intellectuals and workers...
...that the state budget would be the only financial plan of the state, and would not provide funds outside the state's purview...
...We must learn the old rules governing the functioning of the economy...
...It is an obsessive concern, so much that the function of the state is barely explicit and must be surmised...
...This is both possible and vital because a "cold" or "hot" civil war in Poland is a threat to peace throughout the world...
...Employees' councils could readily control the pay and other compensation of appointed managers...
...Q: How do you expect the authorities to demonstrate good will when pistols are so frequently pointed at their heads...
...For that matter, any programmatic vision that provides a direction for human aspirations must be radical...
...but the intellectuals, especially through the group called KOR, provided help, sometimes in harmony, sometimes with friction...
...Elections are approaching...
...It had to send to concentration camps and prisons thousands of workers and intellectuals...
...Existing inequalities would have to be mitigated, poverty attacked...
...The extent of privilege and inequality in Poland has been well summarized in a few passage of the Experience and the Future Group's Report on the State of the Republic: The seventies were a decade when incomes rose rapidly, albeit most rapidly in the highest income brackets, the end result being a widening of the income differential to a ratio of 1 : 20...
...The idea of the state as service state does not enter...
...For a state without democracy will not be a Polish state but a Quisling state...
...Our discussion is essentially based on two documents...
...One or the other side must triumph, and "dual power" thereby is brought to an end...
...The] . . . taxes included in the liabilities of an enterprise would regulate the total financial balance in the economy, and also regulate the amount and distribution of income into production and consumption funds...
...Then the Administration took some steps to stem the flow of militarily useful articles to the Soviets, while making exceptions for firms such as International Harvester that might be inconvenienced...
...1981...
...The other, Position on Social and Economic Reform of the Country, was issued by Poland's Network of Solidarity Organizations in Leading Factories...
...31, 1981...
...22, 1946), now urging continuation of the bad loans to the Communists Too many good friends of Solidarity in this country have been blaming the Polish victims of oppression for the deeds of their oppressors...
...But this is the one area where there is mutual interest, indeed imperative need: the avoidance of nuclear war...
...Its scope would be restricted to the "indispensable, leaving the remainder to the self-controlling mechanisms"— not least because experience has taught "that planning covering all spheres of social and economic life becomes the way for developing a totalitarian system that attempts to predict and control everything...
...After all, the Union firmly rejected the idea of joining the Front of National Unity...
...Profits" are not defined in the program, however, and it is not clear whether they can be generated under the conditions proposed—conditions that include the regulation of prices by the market, bolstered by competitive imports...
...Certainly, there might have been circumstances under which the Red Army would have marched as they had to Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968...
...But you must turn the numerical superiority-99.5 percent against 0.5 percent— into an overwhelming moral advantage that will render billy sticks, gas, and tanks useless...
...And ironically, one of the reasons that the idea of "shared power" proved to be workable was the weakness of the CP...
...One need only glance at the basic values embedded in Solidarity's program—equality, justice, and freedom— to realize that they spring from the inspirations of socialism as well as of Christian thought...
...Of course it did...
...Let us rely mainly on ourselves...
...Poland has become a graveyard: grim, silent, fearful...
...In a country like Poland, with its centuries of romantic nationalism and heroic defeat— how could there not be some inflammatory language...
...When there are two mechanized Soviet divisions stationed permanently in Poland...
...The blitzkrieg of December 13, 1981 started the strangest of civil wars in Poland, declared by the government against its own population...
...At Solidarity meetings, both leaders and the ranks took a delight in the interplay of democracy...
...No objective observer has supposed that in a free election during the past 30 years the Polish Communists could have gotten as much as 10 percent of the vote...
...We are proposing social councils not only for the country's economy, but also for culture, education, radio and television...
...In a sense, Solidarity attempted, and indeed was compelled to attempt, to extend that evolution— nearly 200 years after the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Man...
...However, profits could not be derived from monopoly practices...
...For those whom disappointment, destiny, hope or fear have placed in the government's service, I have only one warning: the nation, now silent, is watching you with thousands of eyes...
...This was one, though not of course the only, source of that extraordinary solidarity—so often invoked, so seldom achieved—between working class and intelligentsia that enabled the meteoric rise of Solidarity...
...Fortunately, at the initiative of the French and other socialist parties, the Socialist International issued a second statement, quite clear in its support of Solidarity and forming a tacit repudiation of Brandt...
...On the one hand, civil liberties and the rule of law are rooted in the evolution of bourgeois society...
...Serves him right...
...Or is the logic of Communist rule and Communist ideology so inexorable that a CP in power cannot accept any modification of its rule, so that even if it does, out of weakness, make concessions to other forces it will try to regain total power...
...The one notion that pervades Solidarity's thinking is decentralization...
...that Jaruzelski—despite his meeting with Walesa and the Primate on November 4—was playing for time, and that the party hard-liners, with the blessing and collaboration of Moscow, were preparing the grounds for a final showdown...
...We can above all develop the mutual aid movement, with the support of the Church, taking care that charitable activity cannot be suspected of having a political nature...
...Nor can the function of employees' councils be compared with that of a board of directors in Western countries...
...Did Solidarity make mistakes...
...This dilemma—there is ample documentary evidence—was clearly understood by both the Solidarity leaders and its intellectual advisers...
...Several months ago, at a Dissent board meeting, we had a visitor from Poland who told us, in absorbing detail, about the way small groups of intellectuals began to form committees to provide help to families of workers who had been fired or punished after the actions of 1976...
...In the months that followed, Geremek—a man of impressive erudition, moral integrity, and enormous personal charm—became known preeminently as a moderate, tirelessly opposing the efforts of the 157 radicals within the Union to mount a direct political offensive against Warsaw and the Kremlin...
...It is in this spirit, it seems to me, that one must read this interview...
...The program, then, grew out of a concern for realistic grounds, for a pragmatic grasp of the needs and possibilities of the moment...
...I am convinced that the new model of relations between the state and society, proposed by Solidarity, is a socialist model...
...As investment banker Felix Rohatyn put it, "The West has been relieving the Soviet Union of what may be its greatest shortage—capital—at the cost of making bad loans while pretending to oppose Communism...
...WHAT WE WRITE HERE, several of us, can only be preliminary responses to the tragic events in Poland...
...4, 1981...
...By the late '70s, then, the party's reign was still monolithic but no longer quite in the heavy totalitarian style...
...The abysmal economic situation, partly a consequence of bureaucratic muddle, drove people to desperation...
...The leadership groups are weak: no honest people enjoying the nation's respect supported the coup d'etat...
...yet they still had to work within sharply defined limits...
...This dismantling would spell the demise of a vast state bureaucracy, as well as of the patronage base of the ruling CP...
...Yet such terms are conspicuously absent from the program...
...If "nothing is done," he says, "if painful problems remain unresolved . . . then demands are bound to escalate...
...At the time of the interview, it was becoming increasingly clear that those elements in the party that were still hoping for an accommodation (and there were such forces) would not prevail...
...Today the population, which regards the government as an occupation government, is already drawing up lists of "overzealous people...
...By asserting that if the government fails to honor its promises, we shall call for the creation of a public tribunal— which is to say that we shall ask society to pronounce judgment...
...This was intended not merely to ensure the democratic control of the enterprise, but also to sever the link between enterprise management on the one hand, and the central administration and party hierarchy on the other...
...As such, we must have a general vision of what we strive for, of the kind of country in which we wish to live and for whose fate we feel co-responsible...
...160 all, areas whose needs cannot be fulfilled by social ownership...
...A physical confrontation—that is to say, a possible bloodbath—was something Solidarity was anxious to avoid...
...Perhaps...
...Our ancestors had to persevere through the lifetimes of several generations...
...Here was evidence that men and women would not simply crumble into passivity under the weight of dictatorship...
...Institutional reforms evidently take precedence over current policy problems...
...Some of the pertinent proposals: direct, legally protected contract relations between suppliers and customers to replace directed distribution...
...We wanted to make those ideals into something more than fine words concealing a totally uncontrollable government and chaos...
...It is not clear but appears doubtful if, in Solidarity's conception, the central planning or banking authorities would have sufficient power to influence the flow of investment funds so as to compensate regional imbalances...
...Conflicts as those engendered by the Soviets in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland raise questions about peace in a nuclear age...
...so that Polish democracy and the Polish economy can be set in motion quickly when the right time comes...
...While Lech Walesa and thousands of other Polish trade unionists were still imprisoned, the Reagan administration moved in secret to save the Polish military junta from default...
...that the various offers of new political coalitions (for instance, the "Front of National Accord" and others referred to in the interview) were probably little more than delaying tactics...
...Do not be afraid, my brothers, your ability to survive may depend on it...
...The tradition of struggling heroically, vainly, for independence has taught the Poles how to chip away at the dictatorship even as they also understand that so long as the Soviet regime remains what it is, Communist rule in Poland cannot be destroyed, it can only be modified...
...Then comes an interesting sentence: But before the competing classes and parties will go to that extreme—especially in case they dread the interference of a third force—they may feel compelled for quite a long time to endure, and even to sanction a two-power system...
...Now, as for the question of who is responsible for the present state of affairs, it was posed even more sharply at the party congress [in July 1981] than at our own [Sept–Oct...
...The "essential matter" was to eliminate "the dictatorial and distributional mechanism of management . . . [This] mechanism is responsible for decrease in economic effectiveness, lack of balance, negative social effects (falsification of information, bureaucratization, disappearance of self-management...
...Over the past few months we did what we could to solve our country's difficult problems, which had built up over years, by means of accord and without tension or the use of coercion...
...Since his arrest, Geremek has been portrayed in the official Polish press as the evil genius of Solidarity...
...The problem of rampant inflation in the current, supposedly administered price system also is not satisfactorily dealt with in the program...
...To be sure, the program approved by the Solidarity Congress presupposes the dismantling of certain structures of the system...
...But the damage had been done...
...The advocacy of the market as price regulator (with a few exceptions) was not a matter of ideology...
...This may be my last public statement, but that doesn't worry me...
...Such a state of affairs cannot be stable [for] society needs a concentration of power...
...All must do what they can in this sphere...
...The program corresponded to profound social needs that, of course, will persist and, if postwar history is any guide, will reassert themselves in political action...
...At least some of the Polish Communists did prefer to share power rather than serve as satraps of the Russians in a government hated by the bulk of their compatriots...
...In January of this year, while under arrest, Geremek—together with a number of other political prisoners—went on a two-week hunger strike...
...We must work for the future...
...What awaits us...
...161 A new social accord, if it is to emerge, must provide for the full autonomy of its partners...
...At a time when Jaruzelski's thugs were beating up our friends in Warsaw, Brandt called for . . . "restraint...
...What can we do now...
...As for joining the [proposed] Front of National Accord, it is up to our National Commission to define Solidarity's position on it...
...Yes, we are helpless before the powers of the world, but at least we must say, their fish stink And while no 156 statement from the Socialist International could have changed the situation in Poland, still, one wonders whether Willy Brandt asked himself what people like Lech Walesa and Adam Michnik and Jacek Kuron would think if, in the jails and camps where they are now held, they happened to hear about his statement...
...But the use of coercion, fear, lies, and slander is not a sign of strength...
...This included the most important item—grain...
...Young people and children are feverishly devouring the literature of war conspiracy and minor sabotage...
...The continuation of the repression will provide new heroes and martyrs and strengthen the resistance...
...As in any war, we should first aim to conclude an armistice...
...Self-financing was conceived to be a condition sine qua non of the self-managed enterprise...
...On January 4, Jaruzelski's paper Zolnierz Wolnosci added a few choice details: Geremek, it said, had come by his diploma through the same fraudulent means as the members of Gierek's "team," has an uncontrollable appetite for personal power, had only "pretended to be a Communist" in the past, being in fact an inveterate "enemy of socialism...
...To avert them, people must be allowed to participate in the management and determination of their own affairs...
...Remember, these were people who had long been caged and now were suddenly grasping a bit of freedom...
...On the contrary, the program articulated the threat Solidarity ultimately 165 posed to the "New Class" and to its monopolistic control over social property...
...THE POLES have a long tradition of fighting for independence against the giants of East and West...
...However, differences in historical origins should not be ignored...
...I phrase these questions with deliberate crudeness, for they are of a piece with the views by some of our Western political commentators, who claim that Solidarity should "have rested on its laurels," that it was being deliberately and witlessly provocative, that, in short, it was responsible for its own downfall...
...Cannibals have to eat...
...The employees' council would, however, determine the direction of the enterprise's operation...
...that economic enterprises plan autonomously...
...So they looked for a formula that might enable a sharing of power...
...The contrast between the Reagan and Carter administrations was startling...
...There are, after 2 The party is estimated to have absolute control of over 100,000 jobs...
...Could he really believe that "a public tribunal" designed to mete out justice to those responsible for Poland's catastrophe did not amount to a political threat...
...If we assume that these statements have been made in earnest, it follows that the creation of this new model—the relationship between the rulers and the ruled—should be a joint undertaking...
...If pressures on the governments of Western Europe and in our country had been stronger, more effective sanctions might have been imposed...
...Recall that Solidarity demanded that all administrative bodies charged with resource allocation would be eliminated...
...Solidarity saw the central administrative system of the Polish economy as shackling the natural energies of the country's workforce...
...Poland is the only part of the Soviet empire where the Catholic church maintains an independent status and some 90 percent of the people adhere to that church...
...And then came an incredible sentence: "The Socialist International is aware that unwanted advice or strongly worded declarations will not help the people of Poland...
...But we want the U.S.S.R...
...At the same time, I think it would be a mistake to create a body that would devote itself principally to the forthcoming elections...
...However, for at least a year before December 13, the Soviets and their Polish agents were preparing their coup—the institution of martial rule...
...If Brandt had put out a strong protest against the suppression of Solidarity would that have changed anything...
...However, if it is even possible to discuss it, those who might be the population's deputies must be released, and freedom of action must be restored to the democratically elected bodies of the social organizations, primarily to Solidarity...
...When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan President Carter, saying he had finally learned what the Russians were up to, embargoed most American exports to the Soviet Union...
...The recent evidence throughout Europe— from Spain to Italy, from Czechoslovakia to Poland—indicates that within large Communist parties there are many different kinds of people, from thugs to opportunists to halfidealists...
...This is why a self-governing republic must be built from below—and our program speaks first of all about how the principle of codetermination is to be applied where people live and work...
...Solidarity knew that it had vast popular support and this gave it a high sense of elan (perhaps also an excess of self-assurance...
...We must always bear in mind that the situation in our country is dramatic— and that the solutions to it must therefore be equally dramatic...
...In his statement, hoping that no foreign power would intervene in Poland, Brandt failed so much as to mention Solidarity by name, let alone express solidarity with it...
...We must waste no time...
...Willy Brandt is a good man...
...In one month it has caused losses of more than Z200 billion and has destroyed the chances of cooperation with foreign countries...
...Introduction The interview reproduced below appeared in Kurier Polski, the daily organ of the "Democratic party" (one of the groups constituting the "Front of National Unity," controlled by the Communist party and ostensibly the country's highest political body since 1956), barely two weeks before General Jaruzelski's armed forces occupied the country and sent thousands of people to jail and detention camps—among them Dr...
...Taxation is recognized as a policy instrument, in addition to financing the state budget...
...On the contrary, it seems to me that it is precisely this vision that may make it possible to realize the socialist principles of public life, the coexistence between the citizen and the state . . . . A system that for over 30 years deprives society of its power and sets so much store by appearances is bound to breed frustrations and catastrophes...
...And most remarkable, sections of the Communist party were caught up in this new spirit of outspokenness, some remaining in the Party out of hope to transform it and others leaving for a whiff of fresh air...
...Yet the vision of a "Self-Governing Republic" has been drawn up with remarkable precision, and as it is approved by Solidarity's congress, it cannot be a subject of negotiations or compromises, at least not until the next congress...
...From the detailed exposition of this point one infers that these consist by and large of taxation and credit...
...They could institute personnel policies based on competence rather than party membership...
...We have experienced a year of Soviet pressure and threats...
...The idea of selfmanagement in the factories was discussed not only among Solidarity militants but in other circles throughout the country...
...Yet such efforts must give rise to imbalances, and it is the task of central planning to deal with them, "to determine basic dynamics and structural proportions," including the location of new capital investment...
...They have less attractive traditions too: there was in recent months a touch of antiSemitism on the edges of Solidarity, firmly repudiated by Lech Walesa, and there was a poisonously deliberate use of anti-Semitism by the Communist bureaucracy...
...This system had in no way increased supplies and, more important, had fostered bureaucracy...
...Again, it seems to me wise not to rush to conclusions...
...In the absence of any meaningful quid pro quo from the authorities, in the face of mounting pressures of a society that had put all its trust in Solidarity and had lost any confidence it had ever had in the government, in the light of the burgeoning 158 sense of despair and impatience, the role of Solidarity—Geremek's role—could only be to display and affirm its good faith and good will, to cling—malvi tout—to the hope that its warnings would be heeded—and if not, to go down in defeat, bloody but unbowed...
...that no administrative links exist between the planning authorities—at the top there would be at least two of them—and enterprises...
...By contrast, state enterprises were to be created "only in exceptional cases, inspired by national interest . . . verified by Parliament...
...The Sejm would have an economic planning staff of its own, to avoid a "central planning monopoly...
...There were now centers of partial autonomy, secondary institutions forming barriers between people and state—the Church, intellectual groupings, independent journals...
...What would take the place of this system...
...Had Geremek perhaps forgotten that the Czech reformers too had proclaimed their loyalty to "socialism with a human face"—and that it was precisely this loyalty that proved their undoing...
...And as some people have pointed out, that is no mere formality...
...It had to order its executioners to pull wounded miners from ambulances and hospitals and finish them off on the street...
...GEREMEK: For the sake of realism one should not ask whether the word is employed, but whether the program is consonant with the values and ideological premises of socialism...
...Censorship crumbled...
...What else, given the new breath of freedom, could they be...
...it provoked the government...
...at least insofar as the Solidarity leaders seem to have thought the government was negotiating in good faith...
...We must not squander what is perhaps our final chance—that is, for an authentic and genuine national accord—on a current problem such as the elections...
...This is essential— let me put it this way—for the very health of society...
...participation in the Moscow Olympics...
...GEREMEK: This is because of the nature of Solidarity, which is both a trade union and a social movement...
...Q: Certainly, "what" and "when" are subject to negotiation...
...Foreign Broadcast Information Service (Daily Report, Eastern Europe, Nov...
...That will make it easier to create new and good rules...
...On the other hand, the New York Times correspondent in Warsaw, John Darnton, cabled (Jan...
...To achieve it, the present system, in which the means of production are in the hands of an all-powerful state, will have to be changed...
...We are aware of the role of Soviet decisions in the coup d'etat, and the participation of Soviet officials...
...There exists in Poland a very large group of people who live in poverty, quite often near the subsistence level...
...And national independence, or that fraction of it attainable in the present circumstances, was a tacit, underlying hope for almost everyone...
...There was really no other choice...
...For more than 16 months the world watched in amazement a Communist country where workers were organizing, striking, and winning concessions from the government...
...In doing this, we would realize one of the fundamental tenets of socialism...
...How, in Solidarity's conception, would central planning be implemented...
...It would stimulate efficiencies, and penalize the inefficient enterprise...
...Large numbers of people without any previous experience in citizenship now tasted the pleasure of opinion...
...For many years my colleagues and I have called for reforms...
...Since at this time we do not have an authentically representative system, and since the society will have to bear the enormous costs of the necessary reforms, it is imperative to proceed at once with the creation of certain provisional bodies invested with representative functions and with moral authority...
...But only if Solidarity had remained the great autonomous social movement it was would the future of Polish social democracy have been assured...
...It is easy enough, with the abundant wisdom of retrospect, to see that this was a desperate hope...
...But we believe that the historical greatness of the Solidarity movement will remain in the consciousness of the Polish people and that by one or another name Solidarity will rise again...
...In this sense too our program is an open one...
...Certain modifications to encourage long-term invest163 ment should of course be introduced, such as subsidies, low-interest loans, and compulsory reserve funds...
...You may ask: Do statements matter so much...
...The draconian restrictions show that our authorities were really afraid of everybody—workers, students, journalists, communications workers, painters, hunters, and actors...
...And then, to almost everyone's astonishment, the farmers started organizing their Solidarity— everyone, it seemed, wanted to join in the outburst of animated expression...
...But the leadership groups would not hear of a reduction in their monopoly of power and rejected all constructive proposals...
...It is not true that the Solidarity leaders wanted to seize power...
...Solidarity would assign this task mainly to territorial bodies...
...We are using the term "axes" deliberately, for we are speaking of one coordinated system in which efficiency and equality are not tradeoffs but indispensable to each other...
...They wanted to guarantee the 99.5 percent majority of the nation the right to participate in government...
...For a time chairman of the Polish Association of Journalists and a member of the Communist party, Bratkowski was a leading spokesman for the liberal wing of the party, which proposed to work out a truce with Solidarity...
...The present occupation will not last long...
...In the same sense blacks who want equal rights in South Africa go too far: the government cannot accept that...
...We have paid a heavy price for the absence of social control over the media, as well as for the omnipotence of the nomenklatura system2—and we are bound to go on paying it for a long time to come...
...Whoever followed the trials of the guardians of Nazi concentration camps has heard these pleas of innocence ad nauseam: "Other SSmen would be much worse in my place...
...This government, which is so stiff, slow, and indecisive in its actions for reform and justice . . . has had no hesitation in killing and torturing its fellow citizens who were defending democratic rights...
...Do nothing of which you may be ashamed or of which you may be afraid when the situation is reversed...
...The same goes, finally, for the problem of economic organization...
...Solidarity's attitude on this matter seems to be both reasonable and moderate...
...Bronislaw Geremek—Chairman of Solidarity's board of advisers and the man probably most responsible for fashioning its remarkable programmatic document—first acquired international renown not as a political leader but as an academic historian...
...And yet one can readily understand why Solidarity and KOR had to choose the strategy of "shared power" in one or another form...
...Here was the man who described with uncanny precision the proclivity for aggrandizement of the Soviet Union, and who had outlined a sensible way to stop them without Lovers of the Polish junta among politicians and journalists keep repeating three irrefutable arguments: First: The junta had to impose the military dictatorship in order to avoid something worse...
...They might be able to seize power, but they surely could not keep it...
...Social ownership of the means of production is at the very heart of the program...
...For socialists the recent Polish events hold a special drama, a high significance...
...GEREMEK: It is time that is pointing the pistol, not Solidarity...
...GEREMEK: We are not concerned with how the government is fashioned, but with how best to organize a representational system...
...The latter document does not have quite the official status the former has, but it is much more specific on economic and institutional reform, and I have therefore drawn on it more heavily (the two documents do not diverge in essential respects...
...In sum, then, the question of whether or not the program is socialist can be answered only if one reads it in a spirit of good will...
...I appreciate his reticence as a German who knows the record of his country in the Second World War, especially the mass murder of Poles and Jews, and now does not wish to preach from afar...
...by the Experience and Future Group, more inclined than KOR to reform the system "from within...
...What followed, as we all know, was a massive rebellion of society against the state...
...Gradually, trust was established between these committees, nonpolitical in character and intention, and important segments of the Polish working class...
...I know that you will be there and that honor, common sense, and the Polish sense of humor cannot be destroyed by force, money, or slander...
...That hasn't been done yet, because we don't know what this Front is supposed to be...
...Civil liberties and the rule of law are in both theory and practice indispensable to a society of self-managed social enterprises for, in Solidarity's conception, these enterprises could only operate in a nonauthoritarian environ162 ment...
...Among the most important is that minimum wages be fixed at one-half the average wage level, but no lower than the social minimum...
...DECENTRALIZATION and the self-managed enterprise directed by a workers' council is one of the axes of Solidarity's program: the abolition of privilege and social inequality is the other...
...We live in a dispirited moment, petty in aspiration and bleak in sentiment...
...Here was reason to call into question theories that hold totalitarianism invincible, at least short of nuclear war...
...The aim of the armistice would be to take the first steps toward a peaceful and constructive solution to the problems among the various parties in conflict in our country...
...People in Argentina who ask about the fate of those who disappeared go too far: the rulers cannot tolerate that...
...During the 1970s, these privileges were extended to relatively large groups in society...
...Yet those who pronounce these obiter dicta never bother to examine the political climate that prevailed in Poland in the weeks preceding the coup...
...Dozens of outspoken periodicals appeared...
...All the past attempts to break up private farming have produced the most disastrous consequences...
...Would such an organization be compatible with Solidarity's membership...
...I don't see how this amounts to a political threat...
...but that in no way justifies the terribly short-sighted mistake made by the leadership groups...
...55, 65.] Solidarity's program features many proposals dealing with poverty and deprivation in Poland...
...Geremek attempted to steer Solidarity's activities in the direction of accommodation and dialogue—while also imbuing its programmatic aspirations with what he calls in the interview "the values and ideological premises of socialism...
...Q: Professor Geremek, the most serious charge leveled against Solidarity's program thus far is that it constitutes the ideological platform of an oppositional political party, one whose aim is to dismantle the structures of the socialist state and gradually to take over power...
...And if painful problems remain unresolved, if instead the public is subjected to unending provocations—for that is precisely what our television has been engaged in—then demands are bound to escalate...
...They had even to avoid the appearance of creating parties that would threaten the monopoly exercised by the CPthough it would seem that many of the committees formed in the major Polish cities were embryonic political parties...
...Indeed, the Italian CP's statement was unexceptionable from a democratic or socialist point of view...
...Sharpe, 1981), pp...
...Furthermore, the planning authority of the Council would not be inherent in but delegated by the Sejm, for "socialized planning should be operated on the principle that the final decision belongs to representative, not executive, bodies...
...There is no point in terrorizing them, because they will ensure that every death is paid for with a death...
...But no one wanted Brandt to propose a war, or even an end to détente...
...GEREMEK: Yes—in order to strengthen and improve the present system...
...the division of profits...
...A national social fund would be created to shift means to needy regions...
...When the crackdown came on December 13 the Reagan administration sputtered along for several days, just fuming...
...Even if there is little (though surely there is something) we can do to affect the events in Poland, we might at least grasp the historic fact that we have been witnesses to a great outburst of human freedom...
...27-29, 1981...
...Expelled from the party last October, Bratkowski has recently issued the following appeal, here somewhat abridged: My friends, readers I know and do not know, Facts are facts, regardless of intentions or interpretations...
...The abolition of privilege is considered inseparable from the creation of a more productive economy...
...Nevertheless, despite the clamor for action, nothing has been done...
...Even in this hour of defeat when thousands of its militants are held in concentration camps, Solidarity remains the most promising social movement to have arisen in Europe since the Second World War...
...It was elementary solidarity on the part of the AFL–CIO when it raised its voice against saving the Polish junta from default...
...Solidarity quickly grasped that if its immediate demands were to be realized, it would have to insist upon universal political freedoms...
...The banking system would be autonomous, although accountable to parliament— as it is not, or to only a tenuous degree, in the United States or Great Britain...
...Yet there are times when there is nothing one can do but cry out in protest...
...GEREMEK: Yes, because these are two problems of fundamental importance...
...And the proposed abandonment of the system of allocation and directed distribution would also eliminate many jobs to which privileges attach...
...Whoever in whatever despotic country is not quite satisfied with the despotism goes too far...
...Inefficient enterprises would close...
...But Reagan, who had made a campaign 166 issue of Carter's desire for mutual limitation of nuclear arms, refrained from decisive action after December 13...
...Yet the knowledge that if it brushed aside the tottering government there would immediately follow a Soviet invasion forced Solidarity to brake its energies and hold back its enthusiasts...
...You spoke, for instance, of a "socialist Poland...
...The interview does illustrate, however, that the leaders of this astonishing mass movement had an exquisite sense of its historical importance—an importance that, I feel certain, history will yet bear out...
...It was the rank and file who realized that their unions could be safeguarded only under freedom...
...Why invade—when the Polish security police are under KGB direction...
...Profits would indeed "become the main stimulus of economic activity of an enterprise," and they would determine the amount of wages above a certain fixed floor...
...Now we are told on all sides that the coup d'etat merely forestalled a Soviet intervention...
...Poland Today: The State of the Republic, compiled by the Experience and the Future Group (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E...
...I hope we will return to them, trying to understand more fully what has happened...
...It is not up to Solidarity to do it...
...Briefly, everybody has to do what he is doing: whatever is, is right...
...Enterprises would be free to avail themselves of 164 credit, subject only to criteria of solvency and interest rates...
...He had already lifted the grain embargo, though there had been no reduction of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and there would be martial rule in Poland...
...168...
...These people can be subdued for a short time, but they cannot be broken and forced to capitulate...
...It did so from the first day of its existence and by the sheer fact of its existence...
...Q: It is a very radical vision...
...The question of credit policy is much more complex than Solidarity's relevant proposals suggest...
...The European members of the Atlantic alliance gave every indication that they favored appeasement rather than sanctions...
...Taxes on enterprise income, furthermore, would be graduated so as to regulate increases in profits...
...The occupation regime that has been introduced has paralyzed economic, social, political, intellectual, and cultural life...
...At another point, the Report states: "The mere fact of belonging to the Polish United Workers' party does not automatically yield benefits...
...During all that time the brainpower of Alexander Haig and the other anti-Communist experts in the Administration (including President Reagan, who again broke the news that Communists don't believe in God) was concentrated on the threat of a Soviet invasion of Poland...
...Everybody— and that includes the authorities, Solidarity, and all other forces in our society— fully acknowledges that the elections can no longer be held under the old dispensations...
...My friends, let us not rely on other people...
...They were at the head of a great popular movement aflame with feelings of hope, anger, impatience...
...On the other hand, Solidarity, speaking in behalf of its multimillion membership, maintains that it is in the interest of the country to spell out the consequences that flow from the constitutional principle of the leading role of the party in the building of socialism...
...The basic principle underlying economic reform is to provide safeguards for independence, selfmanagement, and self-financing of enterprises, which implies the abolishment of the directiveallocative system and the structures associated with it...
...But those who predict a Czech type of terror and somnolence in Poland may not be reckoning with the significant differences between Poland and other East European countries...
...We were not and are not aiming to liquidate the system's socialist foundations...
...GEREMEK: Whatever is inscribed in the chapter on the "Self-Governing Republic" is in no way at odds with the constitutional principles that determine the character of a socialist Poland...
...Their privileges extend to almost all spheres of life: access to status positions, real incomes, easier shopping, health, education, and foreign travel...
...155 • WE MAY NOW EXPECT to hear the question debated endlessly: Was there any realistic basis for this perspective of an extended "dual power" that might be mediated into "shared power...
...For at least a year Poland experienced what Marxists used to call "dual power...
...Yet the Solidarity leaders had to keep pressing their demands: that was why they had been chosen as leaders...
...Despite that, we do not want to regard the Soviet Union as our enemy, because we cannot regard as an enemy a country that will always be our main neighbor and Poland's main natural economic partner...
...It assumes that human and civic rights will be attained, that the sovereignty of the nation will be assured, and that the society will become the permanent subject of the activities of the state...
...We hope that the nations of the world will be capable of doing something to bring about talks among the superpowers and other states whose interests are affected by the situation in Poland, so that the future democratic system in our country can obtain international guarantees for the U.S.S.R.'s military and political interests and for the West's financial interest...
...Obviously, moves such as the invasion of Afghanistan and the suppression of Polish freedom create a difficult climate for any sort of negotiation...
...It is possible that if the Russians had not been bearing down so heavily, the fraction of the Polish CP that favored accommodation with Solidarity would have won out...
...When the Polish army is subservient to the Soviets...
...Solidarity conceived of workers' councils not merely in terms of democratic values but as an institution to perform essential functions, such as legislating the operations of the enterprise, selecting and appointing managers and holding them to account...
...Controls over foreign exchange or foreign capital investments, for example, are not discussed in this context...
...the intellectual ambience in which it emerged was also created by KOR (the Committee for Worker Defense), established in 1976 to free workers from jail...
...The whole of Polish society—from city to country, Catholic to secular, worker to student—began to speak through free and autonomous institutions...
...and those concerning economic conditions...
...Please note that we do not insist on deadlines, for we believe that it is precisely in the process of negotiations with the authorities that we shall determine when to realize any given 159 goal...
...That would be vested in the Sejm—Poland's parliament...
...Q: At the same time, the program envisions a considerable extension of the private sphere, particularly that of private farming...
...Only members of the active political core of the party, its allied political groupings, and the administrative apparatus enjoy a privileged position in society...
...The management authority of the self-managed enterprise would reside with its employees and their elected representatives, assembled in the employee council...
...those concerning selfmanaged enterprises and their relation to the economy at large...
...A strange kind of revolution...
...People would lose jobs and income...
...An associate professor The interview was conducted by Janina Paradowska...
...Taxes on the enterprise's wage expenditures would be assessed so as to eliminate excessive differences in personal incomes between groups of employees...
...This might well include a considerable slimming-down of the state bureaucracy, and increased authority for enterprise management...
...gram of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarity, adopted by the First National Congress of Delegations and translated by the U.S...
...Credit policy would function as it has been intended in Western countries: to protect the purchasing power of money, and help stabilize the economy...
...We must learn about all past cooperative experiments for the future of the cooperative movement and all the self-managed councils...
...From Kurier Po!ski (Warsaw), Nov...
...154 that did want some version of "shared power" was unable to withstand the pressure of both the Russians and those old-line Polish apparatchiks nostalgic for the days of the whip...
...Self-financing, regulated by taxation and credit, to supersede centrally controlled funding...
...Job assignments, plant layout, establishment of work norms and wage rates and similar matters to be within the competence of the self-managed enterprise...
...In the long term they cannot guarantee anybody anything, not even the obedience of the army companies under their command...
...This is a normal psychological phenomenon...
...I state, taking full responsibility for my words, that if this question is not settled, we will face the danger of a physical threat to our national existence...
...A triple revolution occurred in Poland: a democratic revolution, a national revolution, and a working-class revolution...
...Similarly, the demands for citizens' participation in public life reflect the concerns that have been central to the socialist movement since its inception—namely, the primacy of the individual and the struggle for human rights...
...Central planning would be drastically reduced under Solidarity's proposals...
...Above all, they neglect to ask the question: what could Solidarity do, what were its real options and realistic alternatives...
...Extended "dual power" came to be envisaged as an improvised "shared power...
...We do not propose one-sided solutions that are apt to precipitate conflicts...
...These councils are not designed to exercise supreme power...
...The reform would imply "public costs," not further specified in the program...
...Appropriate tax measures can help somewhat, but it has been the experience in Western countries that central authority must actively intervene (as in federally sponsored area redevelopment, certain kinds of urban aid), however limited in value such intervention may turn out to be...
...167 risking war (see Kennan's "Long Telegram," from Moscow to Washington, Feb...
...What should we aim at today...
...Among those who have berated the Polish workers for "going too far" has been George F. Kennan...
...When it comes to agriculture, Solidarity does indeed proceed from the very simple proposition that our national economy can be developed only and unqualifiedly on the basis of family ownership of land and family farming...
...The main action was of course in the 152 factories, where the Polish workers showed astonishing capacities for democratic initiative...
...But the principle of self-finance should be "unconditionally observed," and the granting of bank credit would accordingly no longer be automatic...
...If Geremek's words seem (as they may, with the benefit of hindsight) somewhat naive, it is only because he felt that he had little choice but to make his final, desperate appeal to wisdom and the sense of national self-preservation...
...Jaruzelski and his clique, it turned out, would rather stay in power through the exercise of terror than share power with Lech Walesa...
...And they must have unrestrained access to information and to the public media...
...In certain cities and factories it suffered a virtually complete collapse, leading the Politburo to conclude that it could not risk any sharing of power because its own share would necessarily decline...
...Bronislaw Geremek...
...It can count on support only from permanent officials of the government apparatus, and not even all of them, and it cannot count on the young people (two-thirds of the nation...
...The alliance of Solidarity and the Church was a source of strength and although the Church will put its own interests first, it could continue to be a decisive factor in the future...
...A radio broadcast (subsequently "bolstered" by a campaign of anonymous leaflets and posters) pointed out his Jewish origin (as a child, he spent several years in the Warsaw ghetto, and was later brought up by his Gentile stepfather who gave him his surname...
...Carter stopped shipment of high-technology items and canceled U.S...
...These comments by the distinguished Polish philospher in exile are excerpted from his article in the Wall Street Journal, Dec...
...The proposals in these documents can be divided into those concerning civil liberties and the rule of law...
...There would still exist the Council of Ministers, whose responsibilities would include the formulating of economic policies, and to which a staff of economic planners would be attached...
...This system will nevertheless inevitably explode...
...I agree with Brandt's emphasis on the need for detente in Europe as a barrier to nuclear destruction...
...Its purpose is to abolish the privileges of the bureaucracy and to rule out the possibility of their restoration...
...These initial steps should include: (1) The creation of a social council for the national economy, including representatives democratically elected by the population, especialily Lech Walesa...
...Q: The program, however, is probably less concerned with the general framework than with how to break the party's monopoly in two areas—mass media and personnel policy...
...And especially humiliating was the fact that the Italian Communist party, by contrast, issued a denunciation of the Jaruzelski coup far stronger than Brandt's statement...
...This war was started to defend the monopoly of power held by groups of leaders who now represent less than 1 percent of the population...
...we do not insist on unconditional prescriptions...
...So there was Washington caught without a semblance of an idea, let along measures to take against the violation of the Helsinki accords by the Soviets and their Polish satraps...
...The population will adapt to the conditions of this specific war...
...the extent of cooperation with other enterprises, of foreign trade, and so forth...
...His present whereabouts are unknown, and his future in the hands of Jaruzelski's jailers can only be a cause for profound concern...
...That this is regarded as a normal process is borne out by the various statements made on this subject at the Ninth PUWP Congress [in July 1981] , 1 as well as by the highest-ranking government officials...
...Socialists who have spent years talking about a working-class upsurge ought to recognize one when it finally emerges before their eyes...
...The reward for these efforts has been calumny...
...Under the surface of official life, a new, underground Poland will develop—the Poland of diverse communities, the Poland of democracy...
...I think it absolutely necessary for everyone to realize how crucial a genuine accord is for our country and for our society, and what tragic consequences would result from an attempt to erect yet another fictitious institution...
...But that was low on the list of contingencies...
...Solidarity, a truly independent trade union, reached a membership of 10 million, almost the entire working class of the country...
...Walesa and his associates knew how cautious one has to be about demanding the right to choose one's government...
...No central authority would be established to cope with such problems...
...This council will draw up a program of rapid reforms and short-term measures and will form a competent "structure" adapted to the needs of the situation—an economic committee of the Council of Ministers—with the proviso that the economic sphere will be treated as a politically neutral sphere...
...It arose from experience with the system of rigid prices...
...Third: The direct Soviet invasion and occupation would be worse for the Poles than the occupation by Polish security forces...
...The nation's main forces, especially Solidarity, undoubtedly made a mistake in treating the government as a paper tiger and underestimating the risk of civil war...
...if they tried merely to contain these popular sentiments, they might be displaced as leaders of the movement...
...Two premises can be posed as preconditions for an armistice: first, the government must release the political prisoners or at least guarantee them prisoner-of-war status...
...But they must provide the people with truthful information, and they must be completely independent of everybody—including Solidarity...
...Trotsky, in his History of the Russian Revolution, writes that dual power arises when the hostile classes are already each relying upon essentially incompatible governmental organizations— the one outlived, the other in process of formation, which jostle against each other at every step in the sphere of government...
...it takes a position on almost all areas of our life...
...It does not provide the answer to the question—and it is a legitimate question—whether Solidarity, aware of the forces arrayed against it, could not have prepared itself better for the impending denouement...
...A naive perspective...
...For example, the program declares that "the Union will resist the growing differences among enterprises and regions...
...Nothing reveals the prevailing smallness of spirit more than the weary sighs with which a good part of the West responded to the crushing of Solidarity...
...It is not unthinkable that Solidarity's adversaries will adopt those parts of the program that promise to raise the efficiency of Poland's economy...
...The Hungarians were reproached for the same thing as were the Czechs during their peaceful effort to give "socialism" a human face...
...The record shows that Solidarity's leaders were urging moderation before the military crackdown...
...But right now, for whatever it may be worth, our first obligation is to express unconditional solidarity with Solidarity, our comradeship with our friends—we have not met, but friends they are—in KOR...
...Of course it had to...
...New electoral laws have not been devised, and the longer we wait for them the greater is the danger of conflict...
...apparently you don't need Jews to exploit hatred of Jews...
...labor and training policies...
...to be a partner and ally, not a policeman...
...The payoff came, literally, when Reagan bailed out the American bankers who had been making unsecured loans to Poland...
...The trouble is, however, that no one has outlined the institutional forms of this new 1 PUWP: Polish United Workers party, the formal name of the Polish CP relationship as yet...
...the decade also witnessed the inheritance of privilege...
...But here was the Reagan administration moving less than decisively in the face of the December 13 coup, while threatening to halt negotiations on nuclear disarmament with the Soviet Union...
...The ambivalence on this and related points represents another instance of Solidarity's profound distrust of the state as it has experienced it...
...The directors' authority is usually nominal...
...The monopoly over the mass media, which is grounded in the formula of the leading role of the party, is something we cannot accept...
...This argument is irrefutable, and it is bound to be true always and everywhere simply because we do not know yet the absolute hangman and we can always imagine a worse one...
...and by the Flying University...
...Q: There has been much talk recently about a Council of Accord, or a Front of National Accord...
...It will not be possible to repeat the Hungarian or Czechoslovak scenario...
...OF ALL the Soviet-imposed dictatorships in Eastern Europe, the one in Poland has rested on the narrowest popular base...
...It came as a shock, therefore, when a few days after the Jaruzelski coup I read a statement by Willy Brandt, president of the Socialist International, on the Polish tragedy...
...they are not intended to govern...
...It is left implicit at best and usually ignored...
...Could a person with Geremek's political experience and acumen really believe that the Polish party apparatchiki and Moscow would ever be dissuaded from their lethal hatred for all that Solidarity stood for by any assurances of the Union's commitment to socialist ideals...
...GEREMEK: Yes, because it is there that we come face-to-face with the principle of "the leading role of the party," which, though affirmed by the constitution, has never been clearly defined...
...One represents the official ProI wish to thank Tadeusz Kowalik, an adviser to Solidarity and participant at the Gdansk negotiations in 1980, for his comments on this article, for whose contents, however, I alone am responsible...
...Solidarity distinguished several types of enterprise—"social," state, cooperative, private, mixed...
...In these circumstances, it seems reasonable to suggest that stronger sanctions by the Western powers and moral and material solidarity by the world's trade unions could have helped to redeem the promises of Polish Solidarity...
...2) The creation of a social council for the mass media, in the same way...
...That there were many different strands of opinion and sentiment within Solidarity seems obvious, unavoidable, and even desirable: that's what democracy is about...
...The union calls for reform...
...The ungrateful Europeans, for some strange reason, failed to understand the humanitarian motivations of hangmen...
...It is true that they are not mistaken on one point: there is no possibility of a return to the situation as it was before December 13, 1981...
...In its place must come a new relationship of forces, in which truth will occupy pride of place...
...The party, which has killed Polish workers for a third time to defend its power, has committed political suicide...
...So is the Polish junta...
...GEREMEK: True, it is a very radical vision...
...That is the sense of Solidarity's program...
...By demanding independent unions and a relaxation of censorship, by protesting against police arbitrariness, by denouncing the institutionalized lie, by trying to get some time on TV to limit the Communist mendacity, by thinking of asking its members what they thought of free elections, by restoring human dignity in an enslaved society, it went too far...
...I have in mind such things as the call for setting up a public tribunal if, by the end of the year, the former [party and government] leaders are not brought to justice, and the electoral rules drawn up by Solidarity—all to be ratified and implemented by a specific term...
...It had to do all that and a thousand similar things if it wanted to avoid a society with free workers' unions, that is, a society in which the Communist party would not be in full despotic power over all areas of life...
...The interview itself deals with the part of the Solidarity program (adopted at the Union's congress in October 1981) that is devoted to Solidarity's ultimate goal—the creation of a "self-governing republic...
...How could it not...
...In reading Geremek's explanations and comments, it may perhaps be tempting to wonder whether we are dealing with a mind manifestly intelligent and subtle yet also victim to its own illusions...
...Gomulka, Gierek, Kania: the bureaucrats changed, the bureaucracy remained...
...The existence of Solidarity is compatible neither with the Stalinist system nor with its successor...
...Q: In the course of our conversation, you have used the word "socialism" a number of times...
...This is the famous "I-will-be-a-milder-hangman" argument: we have known it in Poland for decades...
...And here I fear lies the source of many conflicts...
...Not a detail was omitted, down to every mimeograph machine in the country...
...Q: Nevertheless, the program goes far beyond what are considered to be the normal concerns of a trade union...
...But in 1979 he joined the famed "Flying University" and in August 1980, he assisted Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a prominent Catholic lay writer, in setting up a committee of experts to advise the Gdansk strikers in their negotiations with the government...
...The program's point of departure, therefore, is the assumption that a new relationship between the state and the society is slowly evolving in our country, a relationship in which society is regaining its prominence and its sovereignty...
...So great was Solidarity's revulsion from bureaucracy that it opposed rationing unless great scarcity of essential foods made it inescapable...
...The efficacy of the Soviet armed forces has not been tested in recent times...
...13) that the Solidarity experience "raised the vitality of the country to a fever pitch in all its arteries, and it is difficult to imagine them freezing up again...
...I have italicized a key clause in Trotsky's passage, since in fact it was the dread of "interference of a third force" that kept "dual power" in place for a relatively long time in Poland...
...But while this "secret" was being kept from the American public, the Administration was informing the American banks that had made the loans, the West German bankers who had made even more loans, the Polish junta, and obviously also the Kremlin...
Vol. 29 • April 1982 • No. 2
