The U.S. Choices in Poland
WOLNICKI, MIRON
AFTER THE BANNING The US. Choices in Poland BY MIRON J. WOLNICKI The present crisis in Poland can perhaps best be understood as the latest in a series of political upheavals faced by a nation...
...officials by surprise...
...Under any circumstances, the independent union Solidarity—officially abolished by the Polish Parliament last August 8—would have had a slim chance of successfully challenging the Communist Party's power monopoly...
...In 1956 and 1970, the Kremlin quelled the rioters with tactical compromises, correctly assuming that these could be reversed over time...
...The current U.S...
...In the face of mounting national economic hardships and police provocations, they were pressured into taking a tough negotiating stand where it might have been wiser to accept government compromises...
...Actually, they wanted to convince Moscow that Solidarity was not a threat to Soviet interests in Poland...
...And, whatever Solidarity's own intentions, the widespread support it received not only in the West but—albeit less vocally—elsewhere in Eastern Europe fueled Soviet fears of discontent spreading throughout its meticulously constructed empire...
...According to a poll taken recently by the PUWP, 85 per cent of the workers in Poland's large enterprises have refused to join the government controlled unions created to supersede Solidarity...
...The fact that they proved even less willing than their parents to abide the whims of a tyrannical bureaucracy was a peculiarly stinging defeat for the authorities...
...Finally, Poland needs additional humanitarian assistance, which should be channeled through the Polish Catholic Church and international relief agencies...
...Contrary to some speculation in the West, Solidarity did not envision a capitalist Poland, nor did it wish the naMiron J. Wolnicki, a new contributor, is Visiting Professor of Political Science and Economics at Villanova...
...Although it was apparent from the outset that Solidarity's importance extended far beyond the Polish frontier, the movement's brief history prompted no significant helpful steps from Washington vis-avis the Soviet Union...
...hopes for a real change were soon dashed...
...For different reasons, both superpowers stressed the union's political character and what they saw as its potential for subverting the unity of the Eastern bloc...
...Many Western analysts thought the union leaders were losing touch with reality at this point...
...Marxism's relentless rhetoric stressing the working class' dominant role in developing society had backfired with unmistakable irony...
...For some time, the United States and Western Europe have been working at cross purposes in this area, and accordingly have been undermining each other...
...2) Are you for establishing a temporary government and free elections...
...As water cannon and concussion grenades sought to silence the brave experimenters in democracy, the Polish people were once again reminded of their precarious position on the map...
...The focus should be on the Soviets...
...Yet the union's argument was plausible: With the Party's grip on the nation rapidly disintegrating, Moscow could choose between dealing with Solidarity or letting the military take over...
...Further, Solidarity represented a new generation...
...What is needed, first of all, is a credible combination of threats and incentives that is formulated and will be adhered to by the entire Atlantic Alliance...
...4) Can the Polish Communist Party be the instrument of such guarantees in the nameof the whole society...
...For as the union membership became increasingly radical, the leaders were forced to follow suit, often against their better judgment...
...Most members had been born into the Communist system, educated in ideologically uniform schools and employed by the State for all of their working lives...
...President Reagan's offer to sell the USSR a record 23 million metric tons of grain in the coming year is a good example and should be duplicated with other products...
...Its demands were extensive, but included no plan for disrupting the postwar European status quo...
...The American response—or lack of one—to developments in Poland suggests that both the emergence of Solidarity and, later, the initiation of martial law took U.S...
...Second, the United States should foster mutually beneficial trade with the Soviet Union in sectors that it determines to be nonstrategic...
...To its misfortune, Solidarity was also quickly thrust onto the international stage at a time of already strained Soviet-American relations...
...Nonetheless, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and his 10 million supporters did present the Soviets with their gravest foreign policy problem in years...
...A "Yes" vote was expected on Question 3, in essence assuring that the country would remain in the Communist camp whether or not the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP), as the ruling organization is technically called, continued to govern...
...The maneuver does seem unrealistic in retrospect, and it might not have been undertaken in a less desperate atmosphere...
...Moreover, with approximately one in three Party members joining Solidarity, the attitudes of the " revival" quickly penetrated local Party and government structures...
...Both of those revolts swept new elites to power and elicited promises of far-reaching economic, political and social reform...
...3) Are you for providing military guarantees to the Soviet Union in Poland...
...Similarly, Jaruzelski's crackdown was met by economic sanctions that, while a gesture, could hardly be regarded as designed to have a tangible political impact...
...Even so, a radical ground-swell nearly cost Walesa his re-election at the first Solidarity Congress in September 1981...
...posture may serve in the short term to vent America's outrage, but its eventual results are likely to be inimical to the West, as well as to Poland's long-range prospects for democratization...
...On each occasion, the ensuing liberalization was brief...
...Choices in Poland BY MIRON J. WOLNICKI The present crisis in Poland can perhaps best be understood as the latest in a series of political upheavals faced by a nation whose fate has frequently been determined by geopolitical factors...
...America's generosity will be particularly crucial this winter, for Poland's GNP has dropped by more than 20 per cent in 1982...
...In 1956 Wla-dysla w Gomulka emerged under the banner of anti-Stalinism...
...The Solidarity period—from the first actions in Gdansk in August 1980 to the imposition of martial law in December 1981 —was different in several respects...
...The most important point here is that a policy emphasizing punitive actions against the Polish government alone cannot alleviate, let alone resolve, the present crisis...
...The "counterrevolutionary" label was not easy to pin on a legitimate organization that kept its members inside the factories and pursued its objectives without burning street cars or Party offices...
...The Polish strikers involuntarily became an issue in the ongoing competition between democratic capitalism and Communism...
...If this group cannot grow enough food to reverse the trend of worsening shortages, popular disgust—already at a high point over the dissolution of Solidarity—may well boil over into further hopeless uprisings, provoking in turn still more severe repression...
...Indeed, outlawing Solidarity has so far begotten more problems than it has solved for the Jaruzelski regime...
...The Polish people are looking to the West for help, but the response must be the kind that will really do them some good...
...Solidarity posed a qualitatively different kind of challenge...
...This commerce could then be available as leverage should the Soviets ever use their military might in Poland...
...Fourteen years later, Gomulka was deposed and Edward Gierek became Party chief in the name of modernization...
...Solidarity grew out of their experiences of two previous major confrontations between workers and the Party, in 1956 and 1970...
...Internally, Sohdarity'sstruggleagainst the dictatorial State was paradoxically victimized by its own commitment to democracy...
...Third, the existing sanctions on Poland should be discarded in favor of a more complex set of measures that would support Polish private farmers...
...In trying to bypass the hapless Party, Solidarity was hoping that the Soviets' pragmatism would outweigh their doctrinaire insistence on the PUWP's "leading role...
...But the fledgling union was doubly doomed by the prevailing East-West climate...
...Solidarity's Poland would be a far more stable ally than a country coerced at riflepoint into an artificial calm...
...Probably one of the union's most controversial moves before the start of martial law was its proposal for a popular referendum on four—to say the least-sensitive questions: "1) Are you in favor of a vote of confidence in General [Wojciech] Jaruzelski...
...For one thing, though the movement began with spontaneous strikes, these soon gave rise to an unprecedentedly broad and cohesive coalition of workers, intellectuals, farmers, and liberal rank and file party members...
...tion to abrogate the Warsaw Pact...
...The movement's principle of fighting by legitimate methods and avoiding violent clashes made it particularly dangerous...
Vol. 65 • November 1982 • No. 20
