Solidarity Inches Forward
SKALSKI, ERNEST
JOCKEYING FOR POSITION Solidarity Inches Forward BY ERNEST SKALSKI Warsaw What is happening these days in Poland seems chaotic even to the participants in the events. But placing the...
...In these circumstances, the appeals and declarations expressing the Party's and the government's intentions to proceed with their reform could hardly provide a new dynamic...
...Young workers who grew up hearing about the Solidarity legend, but have not been psychologically affected by its setbacks, today predominate in the factories, mines and shipyards...
...What was needed were systemic changes that would eliminate, or at least limit, the overpowering role of the State where the economy was concerned...
...Those attempts were doomed to fail from the very beginning, because the erosion of the government's position had gone too far...
...Already restless because they have little chance of " making it " in Poland under existing conditions, they grew particularly agitated when living standards worsened because of thegovernment's actions...
...Thus they precipitated and were the main participants in the two waves of strikes that hit the country in the spring and summer...
...The last demand has a stormy history...
...Hence the August meeting between Solidarity Chairman Lech Walesa and the Minister of Interior Czeslaw Kiszczak, and the decision to hold roundtable talks with the opposition groups...
...The inefficiency of the Polish economy has in the past decades produced several severe social outbursts...
...A certain reduction of these almighty prerogatives has actually been approved and supposedly is a feature of the socalled second stage of the reform, initiated last November...
...With the Party's ideological monopoly broken, Solidarity's objective is to press the authorities to relinquish their total control over the economy...
...First the ideological monopoly will end—as has already happened in Poland...
...Yet the particular feature that distinguishes Communism is its domination of the economy...
...He was referring to the three elements that account for the total and unprecedented power of the rulers: political dictatorship, ownership of most of the economy (and control over the rest of it), and ideological monopoly...
...So it is not so much an optimal economic concept that is currently at issue, it is reaching a compromise that reflects the true strength of the adversaries...
...It demands the improvement of their material conditions, the recognition that they are the subjects and not the objects of the country's political life, and some form of representation (specifically Solidarity)— even assuming that the undemocratic power of the Communist Party and its dependence on the Soviet Union are to be maintained...
...With the imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981, Poland's Party chief, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, put an end to this postulate...
...Had the authorities themselves not announced the need for economic changes, the question of replacing those in power would have arisen...
...That was certainly a coopting maneuver on the part of the government, but it also amounted to de facto recognition of Solidarity and the confirmation of Walesa's political role...
...This was accompanied by a further shortage of goods and a radical decline in living standards for the majority of the people...
...Whatever happens from now on can only worsen the strategic defeat of Wojciech Jaruzelski's policy in t he '80s and underline the impossibility of continuing it...
...Not even in an autocratic state like the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Iran is the situation comparable...
...It is the first of these, with its attendant police power, that makes the other two possible...
...He sought instead to firmly reestablish the sacrosanct political dictatorship and to completely eliminate any authentic social representation...
...And Warsaw couldn't force them to alter their ways, because except for the existing apparatus, it does not have any significant—and certainly not activesupporters among the population who might replace the offenders...
...They have been in the forefront of smaller subsequent work stoppages as well...
...Translated by Anna Husarska Ernest Skaiski, a new contributor to The New Leader, is a Polish journalist living in Warsaw...
...This lack of support also explains the government's political weakness—notably its inability to break the opposition (and especially Solidarity) by isolating it or employing divide-and-conquer tactics...
...He writes for the Cracow weekly Tygodnik Powszechny...
...Solidarity, for its part, does not want to be reduced to a discussion club...
...As matters stand, this seems a move from which there is no return, despite attempts to delay and dilute the roundtable sessions...
...Its disintegration seemed to have gone beyond the point of rescue: The disrepair of industrial equipment, the shortages of raw materials, the inertia of the managers, and the lack of incentives for the workers were devastating...
...Indeed, it was initially formulated during the August 1980 strikes that give birth to the Solidarity trade union...
...The regime does not want to recognize Solidarity as a trade union precisely because this would give it political power...
...Nowak also has a theory about the sequence in which this system will be dismantled...
...Speaking of the Communist system, the Poznan sociologist Leszek Nowak once advanced the concept of "triple masters...
...In Poland this is called reform, in the Soviet Union perestroïka...
...Then the economic monopoly will crumble—a process that has started here...
...But such a reform would have to limit the prerogatives of the State, curtail its control over the economy, and reduce its bureaucratic structure...
...For a Communist regime to be successfully attacked on economic grounds, the economy must be in such a state of crisis that the authorities themselves recognize the bankruptcy of their management policies and the necessity for radical action...
...As for the economy, since it could not continue functioning as poorly as before without a serious eruption, a reform was announced starting in 1982...
...There are enough other discussion clubs in Poland, and they are not what the workers need...
...And finally, the political dictatorship will give way...
...To achieve this Solidarity needs freedom to maneuver—something that the Jaruzelski regime refuses to concede, but that it is gaining on its own...
...The regime has apparently decided that no confrontation should be risked...
...Most important of all, it has been impossible to maintain the social calm in Poland...
...Nevertheless, the entrenched bureaucrats around the country simply refused to give up their privileges...
...But what was officially touted as a major overhaul of the system proved in fact to be a set of cosmetic moves, with no alteration of its basic principle: State ownership of most of the economy and control over the rest...
...The authorities, of course, want to make the fewest concessions possible, and to postpone their retreat as long as they can...
...the workers...
...The organized and respected opposition is fighting for the interests of the vital segment of society, i.e...
...Neither the repressive measures, nor the partial easing of them two years ago, has depleted the ranks of the discontented...
...The authorities' fiasco was total, but nowhere was it more spectacular than in the area of the economy...
...But placing the almost constant jousting between the government and its opponents in a theoretical context may help bring some order to the current situation...
...The fight at the moment is over the place Solidarity is to occupy on Poland's political map...
...In reality, though, both sides are jockeying for position in a much more important struggle...
...At the same time, he tried to restore the ideological monopoly...
...Although this year's strikes have so far not been very widespread, in most Polish enterprises the signs of a more menacing outbreak are palpable and the political police have been quick to recognize them...
...Officially, it is said that the regime and the opposition must together come up with an efficient economic program...
...Now things have deteriorated to the point where the regime cannot limit itself to economic reform and leave the political system untouched...
...All the government managed to do was partially deregulate the economy, causing the annual inflation rate to skyrocket from 30 per cent to 100 per cent...
Vol. 71 • November 1988 • No. 20
