Collision Course in Poland

...Within two weeks American military intelligence, using far more sophisticated electronic means than were available Mark Hopmns, a past contributor to The New Leader, is a specialist in Soviet and East European affairs before the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, picked up evidence of Warsaw Pact activity This was the beginning of a huge massing of troops on three fronts—in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and western districts of the Soviet Union—that continued for more than two months By late November about 30 Soviet tank and mechanized infantry divisions, some fleshed out with reservists, were prepared to advance into Poland almost overnight All through last fall, despite the sporadic coverage in the U S because ofthe Presidential campaign, important developments were taking place in Poland Lech Walesa, a 38-year-old electrician turned labor union organizer, suddenly emerged as one of the most powerful men in the country To the hardened Politburo of Leonid I Brezhnev, here was a troublemaker who boasted in November to the West German magazine Stern "I was the one who made him what he was in the first place, this Mr Gierek It was I who led the strike in 1970 Gierek owes it to me that he went up, just as he owes it to me that he fell (on September 5) " More recently, Walesa suggested to Italian journalist On-ana Fallaci—after some prodding?that if the present government of Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski fell, he and Solidarity might be forced to run the country Early on, the Soviet leaders made it clear that in their opinion Solidarity and Walesa represented a budding political opposition in Poland The union had neither explicitly accepted the concept of the "leading role" of the Communist Party, nor relented in its insistence upon improved working conditions, higher pay, relaxation of media censorship, greater access of the Catholic Church to the press, and what amounted to a purging of the Party itself On October 30, Polish Party boss Stamslaw Kama was summoned to Moscow for a summit meeting Two factsot this conference are significant First, that the Soviet group included only political and diplomatic figures, none ot the Soviet military or security people weie pi esent Second, eonti arv to most Western reports of the meeting, Kama himself wasnorendorsed Theofficialcommunique carefully referred to the "working people of fraternal Poland " The usual phrasing would have continued led by Comrade Kama " In this case it did not, clearly indicating that the Kremlin deemed Kama expendable The communique was one of three benchmark documents recording Moscow's rising impatience with the Polish situation In the name of Brezhnev it expressed confidence that the Poles would resolve their "acute problems of political and economic development," and that "subversive activities against Poland" from beyond its frontiers would be resolutely condemned " In short, the Soviet leadership told the Poles to get their house in order, with or without Kama, and in the meantime, shifted the blame to the imperialist enemies For the Kremlin, the following month of November brought no progress Polish dissidents within the Committee for Social Self-Defense (KOR) openly associated with Solidarity, and the Polish Communist Party revealed deep divisions among Kama's constituency, the old Gierek apparatus, and the emerging faction of former secret police chief and ex-Interior Minister Mieczyslaw Moczar Moscow now used the word "counterrevolution" to describe what was menacing Poland, thereby upping the ante once more Tass,tnliftingacom-mentary from the Czechoslovak Communist Party newspaper Rude Pravo, also warned that "Socialist, patriotic forces" would react to attempts by unnamed "external and internal" forces to engineer counterrevolution What happened next passed almost unnoticed in the American media, but probably persuaded the Kremlin that Soviet and Warsaw Pact security was definitely endangered Polish railroad workers threatened to strike for higher wages To slow or halt trains running through Poland trom the USSR to East Germany would be to cut off a main supph line to 19 Soviet diusions on what the Soviets regard as their tront line against nato Equipment, tresh troops, returning umts—all travel on those trains The railroad workers won on November 26, forcmg Kama to back down once more in the face of Solidarity demands The hardline East Germans, who along with the Czechs had been egging on the Soviets, then had their news agency report with obvious provocation "Passenger train traffic between the GDR and Poland has been considerably reduced " But the Soviet military high command needed no East German story to see where Poland's free trade union was leading Over the succeeding days, as huge headlines in American newspapers recorded, a real threat of Soviet invasion became apparent In Warsaw, Josef Klasa, head of the Communist Party's information department, called an unusual press conference on December 4 to announce that the Soviet Union would be reluctant to " help us with military force to save Socialism in Poland," but l f necessary woulddosoallthe same Exactly why the Soviet Politburo decided it was not necessary is no more precisely known than any key Kremlin decision Whatever the reason, by December 5 leaders of the Warsaw Pact, including the 'dovish" Romanian President Nicolaei Ceausescu, were assembling in the Kremlin for another summit about Poland, and the most critical moment for an invasion had passed The December 5 meeting tightened the screws several turns more, however With the huge invasion force in place (although curiously American intelligence never did pick up signs of sea or air activity), this time the Kremlin communique evhorted the Poles (once more Kama's name was omitted) to "assure the country's development along the Socialist path " Failing that, the communique went on, thev could "firrnh count on the traternal sohdant\ and support ot \\ arsaw Pact membei s Whether through the inter\ ention ot the Romanians (and possibh Hungarians) or because ot rising alarm in \\ ash-ington and Western promises ot retaliation, the Sox lets rearranged their strategies andga\e Poland'ssecuntv and mi-litan torees the iesponsibilit\ tor reining in Solidarity Only if they were unsuccessful would the Warsaw Pact be "invited" to assist By mid-January most of the encircling divisions had moved back in a tactical retreat For the next month the Soviets dwelled on counterrevolution and nato efforts to tear Poland away from the Warsaw Pact Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jozef Pinkowski fell, and an almost pitifully weak Kama virtually collapsed before the escalating demands of strike-prone Solidarity and its youthful brother, Rural Solidarity The beleaguered Party chief made hasty trips to East Germany and Czechoslovakia to plead forbearance from his alarmed allies Prior to leaving in late February for the 26th Party Congress of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union, Kama and the new Prime Minister, General Jaru-zelski, finally were able to arrange what they thought would be a 90-day moratorium on strikes Nevertheless, they were singled out in Brezhnev's long, hectoring speech to the opening session of the Congress No longer patient or understanding, he sharply criticized "mistakes and miscalculations in internal policy" in Poland As a result, he said, "enemies of Socialism, with the support of outside forces, are creating anarchy and endeavoring to turn the development of events into a counterrevolutionary channel " Brezhnev concluded by hurling back at the Polish leaders what they had said themselves at their last Central Committee meeting "A threat to the foundations of the Socialist state has arisen " On March 4, as the Congress ended, a third Soviet-Polish summit was held in the Kremlin Unlike the previous meetings when relatively understanding Soviet Politburo members were the participants, Brezhnev was flanked by hardline ideologist Mikhail Suslov, secret police chief Yun Andropov, Defense Mimster Dmitri Ustinov, plus Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and assorted functionaries This time the Poles were asked to report on the "measures taken to overcome the serious threat to the Polish people's Socialist gains " They also were made to pledge that they would "overcome anarchy and disarray " Everyone at the meeting agreed, said the official Soviet report, that "imperialism and internal reaction hope that the economic and political crisis in Poland will result in a change in the alignment of forces m the world * Then came the ultimatum "The Socialist community is inseparable, defense of it is the cause not only of each state but also of the entire Socialist coalition " By thus invoking the "Brezhnev doctrine," originally pronounced to justify the '68 invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Kremlin emphasized that sooner or later, one way or another, the political revolution engendered by worker dissatisfaction in Poland would be halted and reversed Indeed, the Soviet Politburo assured the Poles that they had the " strength to reverse the course of events " The evolution of the Kremlin's response to the upheaval in Poland has fairly evenly corresponded to its growing intensity The Polish Communist Party has plainly been unable to carry through its pledges to Solidarity, or to control, let alone suppress, the union Instead, the Soviets have been treated to photographs of Lech Walesa, in the open collar of true old-time revolutionaries, being wooed by Communist functionaries in their white shirts, ties and dark suits Except for a compromise on a five-day week, reached in early February after high tension and strikes, Solidarity's agenda of some 20 economic and political demands agreed to last August in Gdansk remains unfulfilled Even without the March 19 eruptions of violence that diverted attention to Bydgoszcz, the Polish leadership would be hard pressed to live up to, say, relaxation of censorship The government is already being challenged each day by a union that is linked by telex communications, that has duplicating machines and printing presses, and that has a long record of successful purgings of officials As the Soviets have claimed, Solidarity is functioning as a political party Nowhere else in the Soviet sphere has there been such open opposition In Czechoslovakia in 1968, for example, the Soviets did not permit a whisper of socialist democracy The conventional wisdom, of course, is that Poland is "different " The Soviet leadership, outside observers seem to agree, will lose there no matter what it does In any case, by implicitly accepting an independent trade union in a Communist client state, albeit angnly, the Kremlin has crossed a line Having acknowledged all this, one must nonetheless point out that the Kremlin has steadily escalated its warnings and threats to Poland It has made unmistakably clear what is expected of the Polish leadership, and what thecon-sequences of failure will be Some of the Warsaw Pact troops that receded in mid-January have returned for "spring exercises" of indefinite duration, and while limited in number compared to the September mobilization, they are in position to back up any Polish security actions Solidarity's leaders, especially Walesa, are fully aware of the lengthening Soviet shadow across Poland, but they are not prepared to abandon their basic demands Polish workers were deceived in 1956 and again in 1970, and the Party's current promises arouse bitter mem-ones The American intelligence community has been focusing on scenarios that have the Jaruzelski regime declaring martial law or a state of emergency in a desperate attempt to re-establish Communist authority From the nature of the Soviet communiques and Moscow's statements over the last eight months, there is strong reason to believe that the Kremlin has long been prepared to support the Warsaw leadership in a showdown with Solidarity Nor has the compromise that headed of f the general strike scheduled to begin March 31 changed the underlying reali-tiesofPoland'spredicament Thewarn-mg issued by Moscow and the rhetoric of both the Polish government and union leaders during and since the latest crisis suggest that, at best, the tension has reached a temporary plateau The two trains are still racing toward each other on the same track...

...Infact, a careful scrutiny oftheKrem-lin's posture reveals that its pressure on Poland has not been the roller coaster of stomach-grabbing highs and lulling lows depicted by American journalists There has been an almost linear progression from concerned interest, to apprehension, and now to command, as the Polish Communist Party and government have repeatedly battled with Solidarity and, for onereason or another, all rational at the time, retreated into compromise, conciliation and eventually loss of authority Not since at least August 27, when the Soviet government news agency Tass noted the growth of "anti-Social-1st forces" in Poland, has the Kremlin shown the least hint of relief or satisfaction with the Polish internal situation The Soviet leaders, no less accurately than the Polish government or, indeed, a number of perceptive Western journalists in Warsaw, have assessed the fundamental conflict for what it is—a grass roots revolution challenging a one-party Communist regime that is key member of the Warsaw Pact It was on August 31 that the striking workers at the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk, theembryo of Solidarity, signed an unprecedented agreement with the Polish government guaranteeing their labor and political rights The very same day the Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda ran an editorial denouncing the "elements" that had put forward the demands...

...THE SIGNALS FROM MOSCOW Collision Course in Polsnd bymarkh°pkins WOJCIECH JARUZEISKI Washington Poland's "democraticrenewal" last week survived its worst crisis to date when a threatened general strike was averted But every week since the first action almost eight months ago in the port city of Gdansk, Solidarity, the 10 million-strong free trade union, and the weakening Communist Party m Warsaw have come into sharper conflict—prompting incrementally harsher reactions from the Soviet Union Choose what imagery you want—two trains on the same track racing toward one another, two opposing battlefield commanders committed to victory—the signs have consistently pointed toward an ultimate bloody clash Americans have been getting a somewhat different picture of the course of events in Poland The U.S media, victims at times of the overwhelming power of the White House to direct the nation's attention, have oscillated between red-hot announcements of an imminent Soviet invasion and jaded casualness This has distorted the reality of the situation m that pivotal central European nation, which, as the Polish Communist Party newspaper Trybuna Ludu observed last August with unusual bluntness, "lies in the immediate security sphere of a world Socialist power —the Soviet Union...