The changes in Poland
Rule, James B.
Returning to Warsaw after a lapse of nine years, a visitor expects visual changes as dramatic as the political. That expectation is quickly dashed. The Polish capital simply looks more tired...
...The biggest questions of all have to do with the future of Solidarity...
...Such decisive control, they argue, might yield undesirable results for society as a whole, by permitting workers to run down the capital of the enterprise for their own short-term benefit...
...Part of the problem is housing...
...What will public opinion make of a regime that spawns unprecedented unemployment, while a minority enrich themselves in speculative and entrepreneurial ventures...
...What institutions of ownership should predominate...
...The whole city seems covered by a deeper layer of grime: pollution control costs money, and in its absence a film of gray dust envelops everything even on the brightest days...
...Another provision of the July 13 measure calls for a special offering of some 20 percent of stock in each enterprise to its workers, at half the market price...
...Privatizing" a Rube Goldberg command economy like Poland's means finding parties able and willing to take over economic units whose viability is problematic at best...
...Perhaps most important is what political institutions and modes of public participation will emerge...
...This is not quite a mind-set for pluralism...
...All such questions are up for grabs...
...Government planners are preparing retraining programs, labor exchanges, and unemployment insurance...
...But it is the only sort of capital in plentiful supply in Poland these days, and even that may not suffice for the trials ahead...
...Of course, the authoritarian overtones of Per6nism have no place in Solidarity ideology...
...The Poles are finally taking their destiny into their own hands...
...Will the new political institutions and new habits of participation sustain pluralism, civil liberties, and a supportive social contract...
...But no one could quite believe that the thenawesome communist power would continue to tolerate such a heresy...
...Returning to Warsaw after a lapse of nine years, a visitor expects visual changes as dramatic as the political...
...Others insist that such moderation can only prolong the agony of those suffering from economic stagnation...
...Such bold tactics won great victories for both Solidarity and its leader when they faced the most monolithic and formidable of adversaries...
...One official spoke of unemployment insurance providing partial wages for six weeks—hardly long enough...
...What principles of civic virtue will be put forward to justify suffering that will be extensive but unequal...
...Clearly that is impossible, even if there were the political will for it...
...The high price of fuel has driven many auto owners off the road, yet the remaining traffic seems to include a higher proportion of BMWs and Mercedeses...
...No matter how badly the new system falters, there will be no call for a return to firm-handed Communist rule...
...So, even when new jobs become available, qualified workers may be unable to take advantage of them...
...But what role will it play now...
...The ingredients of such a reaction are clear enough— despite the best efforts of Solidarity and some circles within the church to keep them from developing...
...The magnitude of the task is enormous, and precedent nonexistent...
...The Catholic church will be heard on social and moral questions, still others insisted, but not slavishly obeyed...
...But most are tiny, perhaps no more than debating clubs—no contest yet for Solidarity as electoral forces...
...Still less clear, in this complicated political equation, is what forces will emerge as defenders of workers' interests...
...And this means some modus vivendi with figures from the old order, at least for a time...
...How rapidly will it pursue marketization of the economy, and how strongly will it resist efforts to protect jobs and raise wages...
...Many prices have been decontrolled, and a FALL • 1990 • 425 Report from Abroad number of state enterprises have been left to sink or swim...
...Yet this highly unusual structure has to raise questions about the ability of Solidarity to foster the expansion of pluralism...
...On the "left," the "old guard" of Solidarity argue for gradual marketization, with elaborate protection for those displaced...
...Many Poles reject all party politics, simply because of the unsavory history of political parties in their country's recent history...
...Predictions are risky...
...Though Western investors have been willing to entertain such a role in a few cases, most Polish enterprises are simply not such alluring investments...
...To maintain solidarity against a unified antagonist, it formed an all-inclusive alliance of those at odds with the regime...
...If all spark plugs are produced in just one firm, and more are unavailable from abroad (because of lack of foreign exchange), the benefits of the market are elusive at best...
...Every adult Pole will be supplied with "privatization bonds," good for shares in the privatized firm of his or her choice...
...There are even beginnings of a militant trade-union "left," as remnants of the old "official" trade unions organize to play the role formerly reserved for Solidarity, that is, protesting plans for economic reform and rationalization deemed too hurtful to workers...
...Guidelines exist for economic development under capitalism...
...As midwife to democratization, it took great pains to avoid violence and to remain democratic and open...
...Yet a few hours of walks and conversation reveal that things are changing, and not simply running down...
...Or is this asking too much even of a movement that has distinguished itself in its opposition to totalitarianism...
...What political representation will the supporters of wide-open, no-holds-barred capitalism develop...
...Even assuming that satisfactory nongovernment ownership were arranged, the benefits of marketization of the economy could remain elusive...
...Old ideas, and institutions associated with them, are in collapse...
...The once-pervasive blackmarket currency traders, now also legal, have set themselves up in storefront shops...
...The political and moral capital accruing to Solidarity is considerable...
...It has been and remains all of these things...
...A number of university intellectuals seemed convinced that nothing short of drastic measures could bring life to the moribund remnants of the command economy...
...One observer likened the situation to the corporatism of PerOn's Argentina...
...But membership in Solidarity is down, and conflicts within the movement are dramatic...
...On the contrary," the Polish host replied...
...At worst, one can imagine a right-wing reaction, as disgruntled Poles seek conspiratorial explanations...
...But doubt remains as to how many Poles will be interested in acquiring and holding such stocks—and as to whether ordinary Poles will be willing or able to add any significant infusion of private wealth into its fledgling market economy...
...It is not clear how a country in Poland's impoverished state can find resources to circumvent such newly liberated monopolies...
...The changes now under way will bring suffering, and that suffering will bring cries for relief and demands for new directions...
...Rankandfile members are willing to endure the pain of layoffs, others insisted, in the interest of creating a viable economy...
...They could also take a variety of institutional forms, with greatly varied social and political contents...
...Without an outside enemy to encourage internal unity, Solidarity is probably headed for radical transformation...
...In the face of such complications, planners are seeking legal changes to make buying and selling apartments more feasible, and attempting to create an information exchange to bring buyers and sellers together...
...In fact, no such transformation is possible, despite images of aggressive European and American investors snapping up Polish companies at garagesale prices...
...markets are in...
...But the institutional forms through which these tensions will be expressed are not yet in place...
...from their former positions...
...For a comparable historical example, one must search far—perhaps to the rise of republican impulses in Europe after 1848...
...But will democracy have its best chance if all major power questions must be brokered through it...
...Indeed, Poland already has an array of parties...
...Communism is out...
...But these are vastly more complicated changes, and they will perforce take far longer...
...The movement, I was assured, will continue to draw support from a wide range of political tendencies...
...Most Poles now seem to have absorbed the notion that many enterprises are vastly overstaffed and unproductive...
...But now, after the collapse of the Communist regime, Solidarity is virtually the only political game in town...
...Solidarity won support from many as a kind of anti-party in a Manichaean contest between good and evil...
...For now, thankfully, there is no mass party or quasi party that might give voice to such tendencies...
...Any new owner— whether a Western corporation or a workers' council—will have to sink considerable capital and management skill into most enterprises before seeing any profits...
...Last spring, unemployment had already reached a quarter of a million, or close to 2 percent of the nonagricultural labor force...
...Any version of the changes now in motion is bound to create enormous strain, as some groups benefit and others lose...
...But here, too, it is unclear that workers would be inclined to retain shares acquired in this way...
...Solidarity had created a pluralist wedge in the Soviet monolith...
...Was it strictly a trade union...
...These economic questions point inevitably to political ones...
...ditto for development under centralized, command economies— and, for that matter, for the transformation of capitalist to centralized systems...
...There are reasons for concern about Polish democracy...
...To be sure, Solidarity struggled to practice everything that the Old Regime did not—openness, democracy, pluralism, defense of the weak...
...Many—nobody knows how many—will face unemployment with no immediate prospect of new jobs...
...But there the consensus ends...
...The Polish capital simply looks more tired than ever, with its heartbreaking Stalinist architecture, mercifully relieved here and there by restorations of a few older buildings...
...By their courage, they have helped loose the grip of tyranny all around the world...
...Nationalism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism remain part of the political repertoire—the latter in a country now deprived of nearly all its Jewish population...
...But one senses that no one really knows how acute the demand will be for such services, or how long these demands will last...
...What balance of economic power should be sought among unions, owners, and government...
...When I left for Poland the newspapers were full of talk of "shock therapy" for the country's economy—as though a transformation from a communist command economy to Manchester in the 1850s could be performed overnight...
...Many ordinary Poles suspect a secret accord between the new government and the old, to ensure a smooth transition...
...The Poles deserve better...
...Such dilemmas pale by comparison to the human dilemmas posed by creation of a labor market...
...The new government has legalized such entrepreneurial activity to lower prices and foster convenience for consumers...
...Those for whom such arrangements facilitate a smooth transition to a new job will be the lucky ones...
...Many are predicting unemployment of 10 percent by the end of this year—an emotionally volatile figure in a country where for decades nearly everyone had some kind of job...
...Crime is up...
...It's just that they all have jobs...
...membership in Solidarity down...
...A political party...
...The leadership answers affirmatively...
...No one seems to doubt that the old system has to go: the command economy has brought economic disaster as well as moral and political catastrophe...
...Will the solidarity with the weak and "unproductive" fostered by Solidarity in its original incarnation withstand the rush to a market economy...
...The aim is now to create markets in labor and capital and, of course, in goods and services...
...The media are lively and informative...
...In historical retrospect, the rise of Solidarity appears as the dawn of a new era—a harbinger of hope for a radically more humane order in the former Soviet bloc...
...Perhaps it is this sentiment that Walesa seeks to tap when he calls for "a president with an ax: decisive, tough, straightforward," who would rule by decree until Parliament could act...
...The need for such an institution is hard to miss...
...The position of Solidarity, one official told me, is no different from that of social democratic governments with trade union ties in Western Europe...
...Will it continue to defend the interests of the lowest-paid workers—as it did in the early 1980s —just when they stand to suffer most...
...Particular resentment focuses on figures from the old elite, still profiting (sometimes literally...
...New ideas, new forms of political practice, new alignments are projecting themselves into the resulting vacuum...
...Where this is true, privatization amounts to a license to print money for a collection of tiny but formidable monopolies...
...Finding an adequate apartment takes a lifetime for most Poles...
...If the present program went expeditiously, both replied, about six percent...
...So, the big political questions: How far will the Report from Abroad Polish government go in allocating scarce resources to those who suffer from these changes...
...FALL • 1990 • 427 Report from Abroad Poland now lacks an external enemy that might inspire internal cohesion...
...We may hope that these qualities will lead to an order combining economic vigor, political pluralism, and authentic social solidarity...
...In a time when real wages are shrinking, the idea of being the subject of an economic experiment appeals to no one...
...q 428 • DISSENT...
...But, amid widespread desires for rapprochement with Western Europe, one does hear talk of "Poland for the Poles" —as though the country's problems could be resolved by eliminating foreign influences...
...Can it resist the pressures toward nationalism and authoritarianism that are apt to arise...
...Real estate speculation has begun in earnest, with residential land available at market prices, usually beyond the reach of ordinary Poles...
...As of January 1990, the zloty is convertible within Poland...
...Sidewalks are full of small private stands, selling everything from fast food to kitchenware...
...In Poland crucial products and services are often available only 426 • DISSENT from a single source...
...A plausible scenario for economic recovery must include some process by which workers shift from less productive industries to more productive ones...
...Solidarity has had to cope with such anomalies since the beginning...
...Such a step would theoretically create a stake in the well-being of the firm and, perhaps, set the stage for worker management...
...How much support will they be able to muster if economic suffering becomes widespread— say, if unemployment remains over 10 percent...
...It unites tendencies ranging from social democrats to free-enterprise liberals— with significant admixtures of church-oriented activists and nationalists, secular intellectuals, and small farmers...
...On what kind of market system is to be sought—a state-directed welfare economy a la Sweden, or a winner-take-all unreconstructed capitalism on the Thatcher model—views vary endlessly...
...If no one looks back to Stalin, some will yearn for another Pilsudski...
...But for the transformation of a developed industrial economy from a highly centralized order to a market system with significant private ownership, we have no historical precedent...
...Whether such backing-and-filling will prevail over Walesa's appeals to direct-action populism remains to be seen...
...And skeptics hold that 20 percent could constitute a controlling interest...
...Or will the strains of hardship and the rigors of international competition leave Poland as a sort of East European Turkey— with embattled democratic institutions and a struggling, cheap-labor economy...
...The story is told of Western visitors to Poland under the Old Regime, who, hearing of its unproductive economic arrangements, commented, "But at least you have no unemployed...
...I asked two key government figures: If I returned in a year, what proportion of Polish enterprises would be out of government hands...
...The Mazowiecki government has been slow to act, even against those who could be targeted for civil or criminal charges for their deeds under the old regime...
...Faced with the need to defend all of "society" against a regime supported by outside powers, Solidarity took on something of the structure of its opponent...
...One hears rumors of all sorts of scams, with former members of the nomenklatura wheeling and dealing their ways into all sorts of windfalls in newly privatized industry, real estate, and trade...
...Can it continue to act as a trade union while its representatives enact a painful restructuring of working life...
...And this in a country where changing places in order to change jobs is far less normal than in the United States...
...None of these transformations will be completed rapidly...
...At worst, one can imagine an authoritarian reaction, as disgruntled Poles seek conspiratorial explanations for their suffering...
...At least no one need expect any nostalgia comparable to that of some Soviet citizens for Stalin...
...Thus, a plan adopted last July 13 seeks to spread ownership widely within Poland itself...
...In any case, Poland is now undergoing a profound and far-reaching realignment of political and social forces...
...In 1981, when I last visited, Poles were preoccupied with the prospect of invasion...
...Mazowiecki and his allies are clearly hoping to muddle through toward democracy, struggling to maintain political consensus without dramatic gesture or personality cult...
...But few are willing to volunteer their own jobs for such a shift...
...But now the dangers, though formidable, are far less monolithic...
...The Nazis, and the Communist regimes that followed them, worked endlessly to stifle spontaneous political impulses—so that grass-roots activism hardly comes naturally to most Poles today...
...Yet one can identify elements within Solidarity that resemble Western European Christian democrats and social democrats, along with freemarket liberals and conservative nationalists...
...Poland is coming to resemble a Western democracy —but not a very prosperous one...
...The Catholic church has the most important card to play in condoning or restraining these tendencies, and it is unclear which tendencies in the church will prevail...
...leaving one is unthinkable...
...What limits should be set on the untrammeled workings of the market...
...A social movement...
...But neither is it clear who will defend the economic interests of the workers...
...What sorts of political institutions, alliances, and attitudes will form the context for these conflicts...
...the domestic news is rarely reassuring...
...In the absence of such an enemy, an evolution from Solidarity domination to some multiparty system is likely...
...None of these bold thinkers seemed to fear finding themselves unemployed, should their plans be put into effect...
...Hardly an overnight metamorphosis...
...Will the future Solidarity specialize in this role...
...True, certain dramatic changes have occurred...
...What effect will these changes have on the values of freedom, democracy, and equality...
Vol. 37 • September 1990 • No. 4
