One More Round in Poland

...In Radom and in the Ursus tractor factory near Warsaw workers struck in protest and obtained—after suffering arrests and beatings—cancellation of the increases...

...The workers did not support their demands for cultural freedom...

...For another, if the new generation of workers dominating the picket lines benefitted from past experiences, it nevertheless could not avoid its own costly tactical mistakes...

...The "line"' itself has never been questioned, of course, nor has the antidemocratic nature of the system changed...

...By March 1968 Warsaw students were protesting the banning of Adam Mickiewicz' play, Forefathers' Eve, because of its anti-Russian references...

...Gierek introduced a new breed of apparatchiks who appeared sophisticated in comparison with the simple-minded, committed Communists around Gomulka...

...In Moscow Nikita S. Khrushchev had recently denounced Stalin's crimes, and liberalization breezes were blowing from the east...

...Often successful, these actions encouraged others...

...Gierekmanaged at the outset to buy popularity with unlimited Western credits, but he did not tackle the underlying weaknesses of the economic system, or root out the incompetent, corrupt nomenklatura in managerial positions...

...The underground press also helps coordinate union strategies...

...Unlike Gomulka and Gierek, who started out with promises that the "errors and deviations of the past" would not be repeated and ended up shooting at the working class, the General has never deviated from his tough line...

...By June 1976 the government raised the price of food an average of 60 per cent...

...Each has taught the people a new lesson in solidarity...

...Increasingly the division between "us" (the people) and "them" (the regime) is the heart of the matter...

...It was the failure to adhere to a promised salary structure that provoked the initial uprising in June 1956 at the Poznan iron works...

...Equally unprecedented was the secret, multicandidate election at the congress itself for the post of first secretary...

...A referendum last November failed to win the absolute majority of all registered voters necessary for approval of the regime's proposed severe economic reform, including drastic (just how drastic remained unsaid) austerity measures...

...Eventually it set up an open, albeit illegal, National Executive Commission...

...Yet not since the first major revolt against the regime over three decades ago have Poland's periodic upheavals been mere repetitions...

...Many believed him to be a man of good will...

...But the thaw was short-lived...

...This probably explains the two-stage introduction of the new prices as well...

...When he asked for their support the workers in Gdansk shouted, "We will help you...

...For one thing, the exhilaration and hope that existed at the turn of the decade has given way to an acceptance of grim reality, making older workers worn out by many years of poverty and repression reluctant to resume yesterday's battles...

...As in August 1980, when nationwide strikes in Poland led to the creation of the Solidarity trade union, in May 1988 the gate at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk was on the front pages...

...The fundamental issue in Poland is the regime's credibility...

...shortages were again common...

...They began negotiating separate settlements —e.g.raisesof ll,200 zlotys a month in the Ursus tractor factory, 10,500 in the Gdansk refinery, 9,100 in the Lodz leather factory...

...In August 1980 when another increase in food prices provoked strikes in Gdansk, the Silesia mining region and then throughout Poland, the workers had their strategies forged and their goals defined...

...Union newspapers present otherwise censored information about current events and bluntly examine existing conditions: "The tragedy of Poland in the '80s," one such assessment this spring observed, "is that a situation has been imposed which forces the majority of the society to helplessly watch the country sink into poverty and backwardness, and all attempts at social activity are persecuted because the regime considers them a threat to its monopoly...

...The strikers' demands—salary raises, reinstatement of those unlawfully dismissed, recognition of their independent union— also sounded familiar...

...There were more goodies in the shops and there was money to purchase them...

...Edward Gierek, the new First Secretary, denounced the shooting as "a painful reminder that the Party must never lose touch with the working class and the nation...

...Any impression of a new, genuine thaw was dispelled shortly after Kama's ouster in October...

...Anna Husarska, a frequent contributor to The New Leader, is a Polishborn free lance translator and journalist...

...Soon thereafter Wladyslaw Gormilka came to power as a popular leader and an advocate of the "Polish path to socialism...

...The average monthly salary in Poland is 30,000 zlotys, and the regime had proposed a balancing pay raise of 6,000 zlotys...

...Prominent opposition figures founded the Workers' Defense Committee, whose Polish acronym is KOR, and started a samizdat bulletin publicizing the cases of unlawfully held individuals...

...Yet despite the clampdown, the isolation for long months of Solidarity Chairman Lech Walesa, the internment of other union leaders, advisers and sympathizers—the spirit of Solidarity survived...

...Delegates to an unscripted Party Congress held in July 1981 actually were selected by secret ballot at the local level...

...Workers pay their dues, help sacked colleagues and publish their own bulletins...

...Polish society categorically rejects all collaboration with the General...

...Several have toppled Party leaders, who were then blamed by their successors for deviating from "the Party line...

...The authorities, remembering the violent reactions to suddenly announced price hikes in the past, apparently hoped that by seeming to give the people a voice in adopting the unpleasant measures an all-out Solidarity call for demonstrations would be avoided...

...Two years later, in the midst of the frantic Christmas shopping season, the government raised prices for food staples an average 30 per cent...

...Small wonder that during the six-and-a-half years of his rule none of his maneuvers have gained popular support...

...Price hikes had once more triggered social unrest...

...In the early days following the imposition of martial law street demonstrations were frequent, until ruthless suppression by the ZOMO riot police efficiently cut them down...

...But meaningful sacrifices will not be accepted unless they are part of an overall restructuring—call it perestroika—that places primary emphasis on truly economic considerations and is implemented by a government enjoying the population's confidence...

...A clash with police ensued...

...since April, electricity has gone up 100 per cent and coal 200 per cent...

...So long as there is no dialogue between the two sides, so long as the people are deprived of any self-determination, order might reign in Warsaw, but another round won't be far away...

...Workers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk went on strike and marched in protest to the local Party headquarters...

...early on it forced a transportation stoppage in Bydgoszcz...

...In many enterprises they took part in staged meetings to condemn the "disturbances" as the government launched a shameful anti-Semitic campaign pointing out the Jewish origins of some student leaders...

...Thus production was lower than expected...

...Priorities changed, too...

...Between 1970-76 net salaries doubled, and imports from the West grew sixfold...

...Everyone from International Monetary Fund experts to the workers in Poland's factories agrees that austerity is necessary...

...No nation will tighten its belt at the point of a bayonet...

...Similarly, every time Jaruzelski has called Poles to the polls they have expressed their discontent by staying away in unprecedented numbers: 25 per cent boycotted the elections for local Councils in June 1984...

...Indeed, it is estimated that inflation this year will run from 44 percent (the government's figure) to 60-80 per cent (Solidarity's...

...Meanwhile, unfulfilled promises have continued to feed the society's frustrations...

...Similiar confrontations took place in nearby Gdynia and in Szczecin, bringing the official death toll to 45...

...A few days after the massacre on the Baltic coast Gomulka was ousted...

...Radical circles are waiting for it, the authorities are afraid of it, and the silent majority thinks it would be ineffective...

...At the shop-floor level, the old networks have been surreptitiously maintained in many enterprises...

...For the next 16 months Poland was the scene of the impossible come true: Workers enjoyed democratic elections in their 10 million-strong free trade union, held a National Solidarity Congress, and introduced self-management in many enterprises...

...The government went ahead with the price increases anyway: Since February, food has been 40 per cent more expensive than previously in Poland...

...Renouncing traditional investment in heavy industry, the Secretary declared he would emphasize the production of consumer goods: "Let Poland grow in strength, let people live in prosperity...

...Why the referendum...

...Whatever progress has been achieved in the area of cultural freedom has to be credited to the opposition's endurance, not to the regime's tolerance...

...The collaboration assumed an institutional form that September...

...The strategy was partially successful...

...On December 13 his successor, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, placed the country under martial law...

...Foreign debt went from $7 billion in 1975 to $20 billion in 1979(itisnow$39 billion...

...The difference between demonstrations, strike committees and slogans on the Sunday the price hikes were announced, and the quiet bargaining for salaries on Monday, is the difference between the state of mind and spirit of the so-called élites, those politically engaged, and of the silent majority, those who above all have to support their families, bring up and educate their children, fight to obtain an apartment...

...But Poland today is very different from what it was in the summer of 1980...

...And then there is General Jaruzelski...

...This time the victims of repression were supported by students and intellectuals who organized legal, financial and medical assistance...

...The authorities seemed ready to grant as much once the local strikes flared up in February...

...Officially outlawed in October 1982, Solidarity went underground (some leaders functioned from hiding places for several years...

...Unfortunately, the abundance was purely artificial...

...Rich in the experience of Poland's postwar history, they believe that only an explosion of social discontent can force the authorities to proceed with such reforms...

...Instead of the feared organized action, spontaneous wildcat strikes broke out as workers realized they simply would not have enough to live on...

...34 per cent (government officials acknowledged 21 per cent) did not turn out for the October 1985 Parliamentary elections...

...Even the officially sanctioned National Federation of Trade Unions, supposedly a docile instrument headed by Politburo member Alfred Miodowicz (whose son, incidentally, is an opposition activist), felt compelled to participate in the latest wave of strikes...

...The élites understand that the salary and price increases do not solve Poland's problems—that nothing short of a profound economic reform can save the country from ruin, and that this is impossible without an equally profound political reform...

...Solidarity adviser Jacek Kuron has drawn a telling picture of Poland's predicament...

...But it would take over twice that advance to preserve present purchasing power...

...Manifestations of solidarity from the intellectuals were very limited...

...In aprophetic article entitled "Before What Might Happen," published in the February 24issueofthemain underground weekly Tygodnik Mazowsze, he wrote: "The specter of a social explosion is haunting the country...

...Their objective, clearly, was to head off a nationwide drive for uniformly greater compensation, and the tactic ultimately proved effective...

...With the announcement of the latest price hikes last January—long before the protests at the Lenin steelworks in Nowa Huta captured international attention—workers began striking in isolated enterprises or refused to cash in what they considered insufficient offsetting compensation...

...Other intellectuals close to KOR issued clandestine publications designed to inform the workers of their rights...

...With the backing of experts from opposition circles they scored a major victory—the recognition of their own independent trade union, Solidarity...

...In September 1986, when he invited lay Catholics and moderate opposition intellectuals to join a " Social Consultative Council" that would advise him on political and economic matters, there were no credible responses...

...Stanislaw Kania, a relatively mild-mannered man who had replaced Gierek the previous year, was kept on...

...The democratic climate even affected the Communist Party, which had seen hundreds of thousands of members hand in their cards to show their disappointment with its performance...

...The authorities responded violently to mass demonstrations against Communist domination under the slogan "bread and freedom," causing casualties among the participants...