Poland: State and/or Society

...The relentless campaign proved effective...

...Young workers in their early twenties, few of them with any real memory of the 1980-81 period, walked out, but this time the old leaders came forward right away, offering their skills and experience...

...The first goal would presumably be attained through "the second stage of economic reforms" —that is to say, the implementation of policies ratified in 1982 and then left on the vine...

...Statements demonstrating Michnik's and Kuron's abiding hostility to the communist system were promptly dug up...

...The two theories, it seems to me, are not mutually exclusive: The second helps to explain the origins and rise of a powerful bureaucracy...

...The ruling party elite has been fully aware of the magnitude of the country's economic catastrophe and of the danger of yet another outburst of discontent...

...In the area of political changes, opinions have also differed...

...His new team included a genuine Polish millionaire, Mieczyslaw Wilczek, who assured the Sejm that as minister of heavy industry he would spare no efforts to phase out deficit enterprises, provide incentives to private initiative, eliminate crippling taxes, and encourage joint ventures with the West...

...On the other hand, the creation of genuine political space for a "loyal opposition" strong enough to shape legislation yet recogniz * According to a survey conducted by Jerzy WertensteinZulawski and several of his colleagues from the Polish Sociological Association (as related to me by Zulawski), the young workers who sparked the strikes last spring and who remain the single most important catalyst of possible new upheavals do not necessarily enjoy the support of their older colleagues, especially skilled workers and foremen...

...Indeed, even the most "proreformist" or "liberal" members of the Establishment, such as party secretary Stanislaw Ciosek, whom I interviewed in December 1987 and again in July 1988, would bristle at the very mention of the word Solidarity...

...To accomplish the latter, the government must emasculate the so-called "energy, coal, and steel lobby" (or, in Khrushchev's memorable phrase, the "metal eaters")—the vast and powerful bureaucracy supervising industries (many of them unprofitable) that have claimed the lion's share of the country's investments.* Just as important as some of these remedies, however, is the principle—firmly advocated by nearly all the government's critics—of linking economic with political reforms...

...In the months following the referendum (November 1987), the government made it possible for Polish citizens (with some salient exceptions, such as prominent Solidarity leaders) to travel abroad and for former Polish citizens (including Jews who had left the country after the anti-Semitic orgy of 1967-68) to visit their one-time homeland...

...As Ryszard Bugaj, an adviser to Solidarity and a quintessential moderate, was to write several weeks later: Trade union pluralism should be accepted, first because it constitutes an indispensable institutional framework for resolving labor conflicts...

...WINTER • 1989 • 55...

...According to many people in Poland, the "round table discussions" broke down because of Rakowski's enmity towards Solidarity...

...According to one of the most outspoken deputies, Professor Mikolaj Kozakiewicz, many deputies were no longer willing to tolerate a situation where the party controlled 53 percent of the seats and could thus "railroad through any law" without paying heed to criticism...

...Walesa agreed, but only if General Kiszczak, the minister of interior, would see to it that those strikers who had been dismissed from employment or threatened with induction into the armed forces were reinstated and that the charges against them dropped...

...So have its leading economists...

...Although Solidarity was still organized regionally and nationally (with a National Executive Commission occasionally meeting semi-legally), activities of the local bodies were uncoordinated and sometimes even at loggerheads with one other...

...A new arrangement will make the government responsible not to the party, but to the freely elected representatives of the public...

...DECEMBER 1, 1988 Again, the euphoria—such as it was— proved short-lived...

...On October 30, the government suddenly announced that it was going to close the Gdansk shipyard...

...Work proceeded on the draft of a new bill that would legalize even outright political clubs...

...Over the past few years, and especially since spring 1987, when the government unveiled its draft of the "second stage" for public discussion, the press has been flooded with articles about the urgent need to overhaul the country's economic structure...

...The government had just announced a course of action designed—or so it would seem— to set Poland on the road to economic and political well-being...

...About the one activity that Solidarity could be rightly proud of was its underground press, yet here too competing underground groups, some of them sympathetic but some hostile to Solidarity, could claim as much if not more support...

...I don't know whether Res Publica, whose contributors include many Catholic intellectuals, has consistently exercised its right to bypass church censorship, in no way less rigorous than that of the state...

...With the exception of some underground radical groups, no one—certainly none of the leading economists—has questioned the special (or "leading") role of the Communist party as the only political force acceptable to the "socialist camp" (read Moscow...

...Despite official mea culpas, no perceptible measures replaced the now abandoned "wage and price" policy...

...As of now, the "round table discussions" have been suspended, even though both sides insist they want them...

...Will the existence of a legal opposition—if one comes about—make the necessary sacrifices any more palatable or acceptable to the public...

...In the meantime, would Mr...

...The notion that Solidarity still represents not only the opposition, but society at large, has alienated many of its own supporters and independent intellectuals...

...I write these lines two months after the events...

...52 • DISSENT which after all has lost any sense in the light of the conspicuous social and ideological changes [in Poland...

...If not, won't the opposition inevitably find itself sharing not only power, but the odium that power brings in Poland...

...To be sure, Thatcher has been rhapsodized by some party leaders, such as premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski, who said upon her arrival in Poland last October that he would be "proud to be a pupil in Mrs...

...the interest of society...

...Res Publica was the first journal founded in 1986 under private, that is to say neither church nor state auspices...

...After 1986 membership figures became unavailable...

...He delivered a speech promising decisive measures in the areas of agriculture, food production, consumer goods industries, ecology, and housing...

...But nowhere was its behavior more clumsy and calamitous than in connection with the "radical economic recovery...

...This time there would be a national referendum to determine whether the populace was in favor—and if so, at what price—of "a full government program for radical economic recovery" and "democratization of political life...

...Let Solidarity clean up its act," he added in a more conciliatory voice, "and we shall talk to them about reinstatement...

...As for the political program, it was to mark a quantum leap from palliative measures devoid of constitutional and legal guarantees to full-fledged structural and institutional changes.* * For details, see my "A New Deal in Poland...

...There are other possibilities...

...Yet the timing of the announcement, and the choice of precisely that enterprise (among the 150 targeted by Rakowski for closure), could only be seen as a deliberate provocation...

...And since instant cure is not in the offing, each of them is likely to produce more hope and disenchantment...

...Three years ago, Solidarity claimed a dues-paying membership of one million...

...1987...

...Romania, of course, is worse...

...Each of these scenarios raises new questions...

...Rakowski's assurances that he could "solve" Poland's problems by his tough economic policies were welcomed by party hard-liners, always opposed to any negotiations with the opposition, as well as by the leadership in tow, clearly discomfited by the prospects of having to give in to Solidarity's now widely supported demands and to risk the eclipse of the official union federation...

...The Shape and Conditions of Poland's Restructuring," Tygodnik Powszechny, Krakow, November 13, 1988...

...and although some organizations dissolved during the martial law period, such as the Polish PEN Club, were still in limbo, new ones were allowed to register...

...After a year, with only a few of the promises fulfilled and many an expectation dampened, the regime set the stage for another surge of wary optimism...

...The PEN Club was legalized in August 1988...

...Decapitalization, inflationary spirals, lack of elementary consumer goods, medicines, food, and housing (the average waiting period for apartments is thirty years), an abysmally low rate of productivity (why work if money is virtually worthless...

...Kadar, despite fierce party and apparat Kalecki and Lange are dead, Brus (a victim of the 1967-68 witch-hunt) is at Oxford, but others, equally gifted, have taken their place...

...won't the next generation prove even more independent-minded...

...The old Solidarity leadership cannot claim to control the militant young workers...

...Just as repeatedly, their efforts (particularly in 1957-58 and 1964-65) had been thwarted by an apparat fearful of the political price it would have to pay for the reforms.* * Other countries in the East European bloc have also produced their share of brilliant economists, whose advice—unlike the Poles' —had not gone altogether unheeded...

...The "abjurement" is to be exercised by something called "the Polish civil society" —a vague and undifferentiated entity repeatedly conjured up by the author: "from the point of view of the society...

...Nearly every worker or cab driver I have talked to over the past few years, however contemptuous of the regime, said that Solidarity had needlessly antagonized the Polish authorities and its "eastern neighbor...

...The economic situation is desperate, and few economists believe that it can be turned around in less than ten years...

...The more so since Wilczek had said just days earlier that although he wasn't sure whether the shipyard would be slated for the axe, a decision on this matter would in any case be "free of political accents...

...In December 1987, I asked the venerable editor of the Krakow weekly Tygodnik Powszechny, Jerzy Turowicz, why he had failed to publish a letter by about forty prominent intellectuals protesting Cardinal Glemp's silence on a Warsaw parish bookstore selling vile anti-Semitic WINTER • 1989 • 51 Poland's Nam= Both were revealing less for their general views than for the terms in which they were couched...

...Censorship was further relaxed to the point that virtually no area seemed sacrosanct, except such touchy subjects as certain aspects of Polish-Soviet relations...

...In August, they gladly accepted the help from seasoned activists, but they remain suspicious of Solidarity's intellectual advisers, and their support of Walesa is predicated on whether he "delivers" on his promise not to negotiate unless the authorities agree to Solidarity's reinstatement...

...In fact the Solidarity leaders, caught by surprise, had no cause to rejoice...

...and "Poland: The New Opposition," New York Review of Books, January 15, 1987 and February 18, 1988...

...After all, only a fraction of the working force had joined in the walkouts...

...Back" because it is just as undeniable that over the past few years its size and popularity had drastically declined...

...both in May and in August), where workers discussed matter-of-factly how to get more members...

...After the August strikes, however, public support for Solidrity went up by a few percentage points...

...A month later, a new government came into being...

...They were voiced by some of Solidarity's "moderates," as well as by nonSolidarity moderates such as the editor of Res Publica, Marcin Krol...

...It is safe to assume that it is precisely this step that is likely to exert a positive influence on the social climate in Poland as well as on foreign opinion vis-à-vis Poland.** On September 11, Solidarity's National Executive Commission met in joint session with representatives of several union chapters and about eighty prominent intellectuals and issued a statement demanding the immediate reinstatement of the union...

...Warsaw in early September 1988 was a city swept by an air of excitement, hope, and nervous anticipation...

...As for trade unions, he observed blithely that in principle he was not against them, but that in his experience a wellfunctioning enterprise could easily do without them...

...The storm broke in August, with another wave of industrial unrest...

...more than twelve million people living on a below-subsistence level, ecological blights among the worst in Europe, and a public that could cope only by moonlighting, bribery, black-marketeering, or the occasional job stint in Chicago or Stockholm—all this had turned Poland into a prime example of the idiocies wrought by a "command administrative" economy and a nomenklatura furiously clinging to power and privileges...

...ing the party's control over areas such as foreign policy and defense might well minimize the chance that Solidarity will turn once again into a massive political movement...

...WINTER • 1989 • 53 Poland's Min= including Walesa...

...With a dwindling working-class following, it was reduced to clusters of erstwhile activists, as well as a number of intellectual advisers, many of them suspected by the former of harboring personal political ambitions...

...The government's plans and dismal performance record have been criticized from various points of view, and counterproposals have run from advocacy of unrestrained laissez-faire to a far more radical blend of market mechanisms, private entrepreneurship, and government planning.** Whatever the differences among them, nearly all economists agree on measures aimed at encouraging the growth of the private sector, establishing profitability as the criterion of an enterprise's survival, sharply reducing the crippling taxes on both private and state enterprises, and providing more freedom for enterprise directors so as to make them less dependent on ministry orders...

...In Dubcek's Czechoslovakia, the party itself became infected with the virus of reform and therefore receptive to the ideas of economists like Ota Sik...

...Despite everything, this argument enjoys popularity, and any attempt to question it evokes spirited anathemas.* Geremek's essay (and Stomma's de facto rejoinder) is but one illustration of many...

...Censorship would be curbed...

...Above all, the economists have urged a thorough decentralization of the economic apparatus and a fundamen resistance, felt secure enough in Hungary to force through rudimentary reforms in the early 1970s, thus laying the groundwork for more radical changes...

...Similar sentiments (though in characteristically calm language) now came from Stanislaw Stomma, as well as from Alexander Hall, * The author refers to the predominance of romantically nationalistic views that emerged in Poland in the wake of the uprisings of 1830 and 1863...

...The relief proved ephemeral...

...Thatcher's class" —this only a few days before the British visitor called for the legalization of Solidarity...

...or the atmosphere of weariness, indifference, and political passivity may once more prevail (if only temporarily...

...The government, clearly astonished by this turn of events, caved in...

...Others quit in weary despair, and in the steel plant of Nowa Huta the authorities had to call out the detested ZOMO (riot police)—not exactly the language of "dialogue" and "national understanding...

...Come now, Mr...

...Unless, however, the party is shorn of some of its power and agrees to share power with other social groups, Poland will remain mired in its protracted economic and political crisis...

...To which his wife, Danuta, standing at his side, added gloomily: "There is no Solidarity...

...second, an end to the party's monopoly of power—specifically, depriving it of its control over factory workers' councils, "people's councils," and the Sejm...

...Another Politburo member, Jozef Czyrek, at first balked at my probing about legalizing Solidarity...

...A "new political arrangement" must be concluded: the party would still retain its "leading role" in the government, but would dispose of less than half of the parliamentary seats...

...The need for a "political settlement" now overshadowed all other concerns...

...In May 1988 several thousand workers in the Gdansk shipyard, birthplace of Solidarity, and other plants throughout the country laid down their tools, and for a while it seemed as if another major industrial upheaval—the first since 1980—was in the offing...

...With the demand for the relegalization of Solidarity now being embraced not only by an increasing number of workers, but also by oppositionist intellectuals, many of them heretofore cool to the notion of "union pluralism," the authorities announced in late August that they were ready to enter into direct "round table discussions" with the political opposition, including Lech Walesa...

...The eminent economist Jan Mujzel, a consistent proponent of drastic economic cum political reforms who in the past (judging from my conversation with him two years ago) had not wanted to make Solidarity's legalization the centerpiece of the reforms, now told me that without recognizing Solidarity "the regime— and the country—will go down the drain...

...Or it may be diluted by a regime that clearly is not keen on resurrecting the ghosts of 1980-81—this despite Solidarity's assurance that it would relinquish any political ambitions...

...Other seats are apportioned to other organizations, nearly all of them equally servile...

...They shouldn't have tried to grab everything at once," was the common refrain...

...Walesa replied that he was always in favor of dialogue, but (this under pressure from the young workers) only on the condition of full reinstatement of Solidarity...

...But it remained subject to an indefinite postponement decreed in 1984 by the Council of State (Poland's collective presidency...

...In fact, until the most recent events, one could hardly speak of Solidarity as a single definable organization...

...The very fact that we're prepared to sit with them at the table speaks for itself," he replied...

...An article on this subject by the Polish economist Ryszard Bugaj will appear in a forthcoming issue of Dissent—Eds...

...It was he, after all, who in February had been the first to propose an "anticrisis" pact between the opposition and the regime...

...The idea, occasionally under the sobriquet of "a proreformist coalition," now seemed to be accepted by many of his critics on both sides of the divide...

...If there was one single area that could no longer be tackled by the usual mix of hand-wringing, pious assurances, and bogus palliatives, it was surely the state of the country's economy...

...He was present at the pilgrimage," Czyrek angrily replied, "wasn't he...

...Its head, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, is known as much for his reformist itch as for his hostility to Solidarity...

...Exactly two years before, the government had proclaimed a sweeping amnesty for political prisoners...

...The shipyard—like many shipyards in many countries—has been grossly unprofitable...

...There were many reasons for this somber state of affairs, including the natural erosion of élan due to fatigue, disappointment, the growing indifference to any form of political activism, and personal feuds and disagreements about strategy and unproductive but timeconsuming tactics...

...Poles, however prone to wishful thinking, are not known for straining forever at the leash...

...See B. Kaminski, "Economic Reform and Directive Capacity," paper presented at international conference, New Dimensions of Poland's Economy," Wichita State Univ., Kansas, Oct...

...What followed was the usual muddle: The government, apparently taken aback by the reaction to its decision to close the shipyard (though God alone knows why it should have been), announced that the process would take two years and that all the workers would be assured of new jobs...

...And Professor Geremek, in the past attacked by Solidarity's radicals (he wanted a dialogue with the regime) and also by the regime (he insisted on the relegalization of Solidarity), now felt vindicated, if not euphoric...

...Yet there was no sign of steps aiming —in the words of the referendum—at "strengthening self-government, extending the rights of citizens and increasing their participation" in running the country...

...One reply came from Bronislaw Geremek, a distinguished historian, one of Solidarity's principal advisers and now its unofficial chef de cabinet...

...And a political settlement was predicated, in turn, on solving the problem of workers' participation and representation...

...By the time this article reaches the reader, the "round-table talks" may have started—or they may not...

...Recent polls conducted by the official Center for the Study of Public Opinion [CBOS] indicate that most Polish citizens favor a mechanism that would effectively check government policies...

...As the last contingent of young workers left the Gdansk shipyard, Walesa bravely intoned the old slogan: "There is no freedom without Solidarity...

...The economic measures proposed would impose considerable hardships on an already hard-pressed population: temporary unemployment once workers are dismissed from unprofitable enterprises and higher prices inevitable once pricing is determined by supply and demand...

...None of the scenarios promises instant cure...

...Privately, many Catholic intellectuals deplore it, but thus far no one has seen fit to broach this delicate subject...

...In Poland, however, each successive ruling elite has been hounded by an awareness of its lack of legitimacy...

...And he didn't denounce these slogans...

...Similarly, Thatcher has earned the praise of the odd political journalist of the "conservative-liberal" persuasion (Poland's version of our neoconservatives), hostile to "socialism" in any shape or form and impressed with the way the British prime minister has handled her country's trade unions...

...Second, [because] it is impossible to reconcile different interests in a coalitionist structure by excluding the representatives of most employees, especially of industrial workers...

...We will smash the komuna...

...That in turn requires political pluralism and participation in the decision-making process both on the local and national levels...

...And selective quotations from the spate of self-critical writings published in the underground press over the past few years seemed to offer proof of Solidarity's "political bankruptcy...

...The tendency to portray Solidarity as the representative of "society" writ large has also been accompanied by sweeping denunciations of the authorities and by demands—such as the full relegalization of the union as the sine qua non for any negotiations with the regime—that invited charges of hyperbole, lack of realism, and intransigence...

...Some of the strikers won hefty wage increases ranging from 50 to 63 percent, almost immediately nullified by equally hefty increases in the prices of food and services...

...Walesa may prove inflexible on the matter of Solidarity's reinstatement, if only because he is hostage to the militant young workers who are likely to disown him if he "capitulates...

...In May 1988, for instance, the journal Res Publica (Warsaw) carried two responses to the editors' question, "What place will the opposition occupy on the Polish political arena three years hence...

...An editor of the underground weekly Mazowsze described the results of a poll among Solidarity activists: The organization was now enjoying a "remarkable surge of popularity...

...After all, opinion polls still indicate that the vast majority of Poland's citizens have little use for either the government or its political opponents...

...The habit of "speaking of 'the societys' opposition and the attempt to reduce [many] tendencies to one common denominator," he writes, is grounded in "weak political thinking" and in post-insurrectionary traditions and motivations [such as] the preservation of national identity, tracts, such as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion...

...Walesa first said he would call for a strike and then reversed himself...

...the society's participation in public life" (this last something of a tautology), and so on...

...It was fed by the remarkable volte face of the regime, which had just announced its readiness to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition, *** At the present time, two satellite political groups, the Democratic and Peasant parties, are represented in the Sejm and can always be counted on to back the ruling Polish United Workers (that is, Communist) party...

...Not only within Solidarity and oppositionist circles, but also in the Sejm, a new spirit of defiance was on the rise...

...The debate was aired live on Polish television on November 30...

...For several weeks an uneasy calm prevailed...

...If the stalemate persists, the stage may be set for another explosion...

...In a country like Poland, where "sprawy honorowe" (matters of honor) count at least as much as political realities, it was inevitable that Walesa (this despite Michnik's and Kuron's request that their candidacies be withdrawn) would dig in his heels, as he also did about the Gdansk shipyard...

...The government offered no guarantees, but hinted that this subject, too, was open to discussion...

...This simplistic attitude, he observes, fails to take into account the important differences between the reformists and hard-liners within the party, as well as the "complex nature of the opposition...

...In this version, the bureaucrats in charge of those industries are seen as creatures of the system, rather than as an independent group protecting its own institutional interests...

...It was not an easy job, what with some of the workers suspicious of Walesa's ostensible penchant for "rotten compromises," but in the end he won out, and Solidarity met with the general to discuss the timetable, composition, and agenda of the forthcoming talks...

...The results were (or should have been) predictable...

...Walesa himself admitted in an interview (Konfrontacje, September 1988) that "at least 60 percent of the Poles couldn't care a damn about Solidarity—what they want is a better life...

...General Kiszczak said he would do what he could, and Walesa began to shuttle back and forth from 50 • DISSENT Poland's DIMauna one factory to another pleading with the workers to call off their walkouts...

...Its own leaders admitted that the movement had grievously erred by escalating its demands, falling prey to its myth of invincibility, refusing to negotiate in good faith with the party reformers, and frequently letting hotheads and "fundamentalists" dictate its strategy and tactics...

...A few days later, the government declared that it was hoping to initiate the talks as quickly as possible, but with a Solidarity delegation that no longer included Jacek Kuron and Adam Michnik, both men ostensibly opposed to Poland's "constitutional order...

...The second contribution, by Stanislaw Stomma, a lawyer and leading lay Catholic figure, is just as critical of the regime as Geremek and more optimistic about the longrange prospects of democratization...

...Even the eminent historian Jerzy Holzer, author of a highly sympathetic work on Solidarity (published by an underground press in 1984), chided its leaders in an interview published in the September 1988 issue of the official monthly Konfrontacje...

...To this day," he observed, "every prime minister must get the party's imprimatur for any bill he wants to present to the Sejm...

...Though the term "coal, energy and steel lobby" is widely used both by East European and Western economists, some of the latter reject it as a sociological entity...

...Moreover, strikers' demands centered on higher pay and improved working conditions, while the occasional political cries, especially for the reinstatement of Solidarity, fell largely on deaf ears...

...The "ideology" of the ruling elite, he says, finds its mirror image in the "traditional routine of the opposition," which clings to an obsolete view of the international order and to a vision of Poland divided between two distinct camps— "the rulers and the ruled...

...Already several political clubs, one of them pledged to the principles of the prewar Christian Democratic party, have come into being...

...Over the past two years, the courts have often upheld such appeals...

...They can succeed only if they enjoy a measure of public trust and confidence...

...It would no longer "repress" or "discriminate against" anyone "for his or her convictions...

...Poland's Dilemma leader of a "sanitized" pro-"Endek" group* and once a severe if sympathetic critic of Solidarity...

...The bureaucrats remained at their desks...

...But again, the objection only fueled growing suspicion that the authorities were seeking a pretext for aborting the talks...

...By the time I arrived in Poland in September, the widespread misgivings about the wisdom of insisting on Solidarity's immediate reinstatement had disappeared into thin air...

...Traditional sources of industrial strife, such as the huge Ursus steel plant in Warsaw, remained passive, and the public at large registered little sympathy for the strikers...

...All of which helps to explain the air of expectation that I found upon arriving in Warsaw in early September...

...I asked Party Secretary Ciosek whether this meant that the regime was at long last willing to recognize Solidarity...

...What next...

...The new officially sanc tioned trade union federation, now seven million strong, claimed, often effectively, to have inherited the "true" mantle of the Solidarity of late 1980 and early 1981—before it presumably changed from a bona fide trade union to (as the official media tirelessly proclaimed) an "antisocialist" political force manipulated by "political adventurers" and intellectuals indifferent to the real aspirations of Polish workers...

...Discontent kept growing...

...But nearly everyone concurs on the essentials: first, freedom to advocate alternative views and policies—that is, no more foot-dragging on the much discussed "law on associations," lifting the ban on independent student organizations, and restoring university autonomy, severely curtailed in 1986...

...What explains Solidarity's spectacular second coming...

...The "sociological" theory, on the other hand, explains the bureaucracy's obstinate resistance to any reforms that threaten to undermine its position in the communist power structure...

...But Romania has a history of popular passivity only occasionally punctured by a bloody jacquerie...

...Union pluralism," which is to say the reinstatement of Solidarity, had been expressly sanctioned by law...

...Pace the British writer Timothy Garton Ash, hardly any bona fide economist champions a "Thatcherite" model of a market economy...

...Brumberg," he replied, "you know better than to expect me to publish any criticism of the Primate...

...Despite the six-month hoopla about "public discussion" and despite its promise to abide by the results of the referendum, the regime decided to shape its economic policies without even paying attention to the advice and dire warnings of its "own" Consultative Economic Council, the official trade union federation (OPZZ), and the economists grouped around the official weekly, Zycie Gospodarcze (Economic Life...

...Walesa, less vacillating and uncertain than he had been back in May, quickly became the recognized spokesman of the new opposition...

...Whether Jaruzelski et al...

...What guarantees can Solidarity offer that its reinstatement would lead to a "better life," or a decline of social discontent...

...new electoral laws for "people's councils" (local administrative bodies) and eventually the Sejm (parliament) would soon be put into effect...

...In September, the Sejm was the scene of an unprecedented spectacle: The government of Zbigniew Meissner tendered its resignation after listening to scathing criticism by nonparty and party deputies alike...

...And public opinion polls have shown that the public's revulsion against the authorities does not necessarily translate into support for the political opposition...

...Could another explosion be far away...

...I attended a meeting of the newly founded Solidarity chapter at the Ursus plant (dormant * "Endek" —from the first initials of the pre-war National Democrats, a virulently antisemitic and chauvinistic movement, part of whose legacy (minus the antisemitism) has been embraced by various groups in Poland, including Hall's "Young Poland Movement," later reincarnated under the title "Club of Political Thought Dziekania...

...But this time there were two differences: During the weeks that followed, as many as thirty thousand workers were out on strike...

...Look at these slogans," he said, showing me the text of demands raised at a recently concluded "workers' pilgrimage" to the holy site of Czestochowa: "Down with the red bourgeoisie...

...Nor did it seem to recognize the psychological need to proceed decisively with the "law on associations...

...This will entail, of course, a new electoral law...

...Luxury and capital goods were let off scot-free...

...Though the term "socialist market economy" is no longer in vogue, by far the largest number of economists advocate some form of a mixed economy...

...In other words—a major if long-postponed inroad into the party's monopoly of power.*** The new optimism stemmed first and above all, of course, from the pro-Solidarity slogans raised during the August strikes...

...Their image of Solidarity is not drawn from the experience of 1980-81...

...No "technological" solutions, however appropriate, can work in a country whose ruling elite enjoys so little public support, and where a growing number of citizens crave a voice in shaping their future...

...The magnitude and character of the censorship imposed by the church on publications under its control cry out for analysis, especially in the light of the church's much vaunted "moral authority," and its impassioned defense of freedom of expression...

...If, say, 60 percent of the deputies were chosen in free elections, ad hoc coalitions might well be formed, likely to include disaffected Democratic and Peasant deputies...

...Third, trade union pluralism and the legalization of Solidarity is at one and the same time a matter of the credibility of the ruling camp and a major opportunity to assuage the emotions bequeathed by the events of December 13, 1981 [the day when martial law was proclaimed in Poland...

...Since my last visit, the situation has again deteriorated and the earlier mood has given way—predictably—to skepticism, anger, and gloom...

...the aspirations of society...

...I have already mentioned the regime's failure to honor its promise of democratizing local elections...

...That Solidarity is back in vogue is undeniable...

...Which is to say that the Polish see-saw may be expected to go on swinging — down, up, and down again...

...Instead, it would search for a "dialogue" with the political opposition, including "persons from the realistically oriented bodies of former Solidarity...

...As it happened, the strikes were over in less than three weeks, and the government heaved a sigh of relief...

...Walesa (until recently described in the party press as a "private person representing no one but himself," but now a subject of several interviews in the open press) use his authority to persuade the strikers in the remaining five plants (out of the original seventeen) to go back to work...

...Forgotten were the admonitions about linking economic reforms with greater political pluralism...

...Instead, they point to the natural tendency of an import-oriented economy—rather than one emphasizing export and hard currency earnings—to secure input into heavy production at the expense of consumer goods...

...He criticized their "senseless" demands and their pursuit of a course patently designed to offend and embarrass the regime, rather than to draw it into a meaningful discourse...

...There was no perceptible change in investment, and unproductive plants and factories continued to poison the air even as they went bankrupt...

...Unlike Geremek, however, Stomma does not spare the opposition...

...The irrepressible Jacek Kuron told me he was ready to wager that Solidarity would "again function as a legal organization" within three or at most six months...

...But surely Walesa," I countered, "never uses such language...

...Forgotten were the lessons of WINTER • 1989 • 49 Poland's Men= history, which demonstrated (in 1970, in 1976, and most dramatically in 1980) that price increases are no substitute for genuine systemic reforms...

...54 • DISSENT Poland's Mauna Alfred Miodowicz, head of the official trade union federation (and member of the Politburo), challenged Walesa to a televised debate about the desirable shape of "union pluralism" (not surprisingly, Miodowicz thinks you can have plenty of it even with only one union...

...Its "independent" status does not exempt it from official censorship, which since 1983 allows every publication to note each excised passage, and to bring the censorship decisions to court...

...And unlike three months earlier, the reinstatement of Solidarity was a major demand...

...Poland is the birthplace of a number of gifted economic theorists (Oscar Lange, Michal Kalecki, and Woldzimierz Brus, among others) who had repeatedly tried to impress the political leadership with the need to abandon the system of centralized control in favor of a mixed—or "socialist market" — economy...

...It was all grimly familiar...

...The article was datelined "October 1988...

...Expectations raised by the referendum gave way to loud grumbling...

...48 • DISSENT Poland's Dilemma tal change in the investment policy, with a shift of emphasis from heavy industry to consumer goods, housing, and agriculture...

...agree remains to be seen...

...The fears generated by this weakness and augmented by the trauma of 1980-81 linger on to this day...

...To Daniel Passent—recognized even by his foes as one of Poland's most accomplished journalists—such "voices do not testify to the ostensible readiness to enter into a dialogue, to make concessions and compromises...

...Rather, it is an expression of seething anger, frustration, and a craving for a body that would represent their interests, and would not be manipulated by any "politicians...

...private individuals would be allowed to found "independent" journals...

...Instead, the government launched a precipitous "wage and price" policy aimed at freezing wages and imposing drastic increases on the price of food, consumer goods, and energy (coal and electricity)—all striking at the most dispossessed parts of the population...

...How real is it and what does it bode for the future...

...He presented a closely reasoned case for the gradual "institutionalization of economic and social pluralism, accompanied by a significant (if temporary) abjurement of political pluralism...

...Moderate" support for Walesa may wane once the law on associations comes into being and if the party agrees to a power-sharing arrangement in the Sejm...

...More ominously, the new law on elections to the "people's councils," while allowing for multiple candidacies, was so worded as to ensure their control by the local WINTER • 1989 • 47 Poland's Dilemma party apparat —which is precisely what happened when the Poles voted in spring 1987...

...and third, a drastic change in the notorious nomenklatura system, which has clogged the prospects for advancement in major areas of public life to anyone except the party faithful, and which has been one of the principal causes (along with the housing scourge) for the massive exodus of young people from Poland...

...And why did Jaruzelski's regime, which for years had spared no effort to destroy and defame Solidarity, suddenly decide to recognize it as a negotiating partner...