Solidarity Makes a Choice

...Solidarity could encounter trouble from another source as well...

...Should local elections be scheduled for next year as anticipated, and should the new electoral law allow the full participation of all parties, then perhaps Poles will be energized to decide their own fate...

...I can barely come up with one...

...Brigid's Church in Gdansk, chanted "We want bread, not a prime minister...

...Solidarity, meanwhile, refused to participate in the grand coalition the Communists proposed, but it had to make a difficult choice: It could take the helm now, with all the obvious hazards involved, or it could stand by and watch the regime decompose until the Communists were forced to decide either to peacefully pass on by allowing fully democratic elections, orto less amiably abandon the experiment in guided democracy altogether...

...That brings us to the question of what a Solidarity government can really accomplish...

...The Communists' erstwhile allies, the United Peasants Party and the Democratic Party, knew that further association with the ancien régime would mean political suicide...

...But the nine-year-old trade union— or, more accurately, its Citizens Parliamentary Club—could not assume control alone...

...Some observers see Glemp's address as a step toward the formation of a nationalist movement more amenable to the desires of the Primate and his top adviser, the anti-Semite Maciej Giertych, than Solidarity is...

...Membership in the union has stabilized at about 2 million— 8 million less than in 1980-81, and somewhat below that of the Communistfounded All-Poland Federation of Trade Unions (OPZZ...

...When the Communist Parliamentary Club demanded that Kiszczak present it with at least two candidates for each Cabinet post, he reportedly threw up his hands in despair: "Two...

...Indeed, that they had not already disappeared was due only to the pre-electoral agreement at the round-table talks concluded last April...

...The very absurdity of their extremism almost made any overt criticism of Mazowiecki seem disrespectable...

...Whether or not the rumors are true, two days after Mazowiecki's confirmation at the end of last month the Church openly appeared on the scene when the Primate, Cardinal Józef Glemp, delivered an anti-Semitic homily...

...and "Do we really stand to profit from the step we have taken...

...And there have been meaner slogans, too: On the 50th anniversary of the RibbentropMolotov pact, several in the small crowd outside the Soviet Embassy in Warsaw cried, "Mazowiecki Sowiecki" (Mazowiecki the Soviet...

...So far Mazowiecki has done little to instill a sense of hope, a sense of purpose in the millions who voted Solidarity into office with a mandate for change—but without joiningit, suggesting that they fail to see their own critical part in the process...

...Since the Constitution gives the President supreme power over national defense and internal security, and it would be impossible to govern with these two forces in opposition, the Communists also had to be included in the Cabinet...

...But rumor has it that the Church did indeed play an essential role in the choice of Mazowiecki, a Catholic intellectual, over Professor Bronislaw Geremek...

...The civil service, managerial class and state bureaucracy are all products of the old order...

...Mazowiecki's hope is to set in motion a process of institutional change, starting at the grass roots level, that will gradually yet irreversibly democratize thecoun try...

...If not, the idea of a Solidarity Prime Minister might prove one whose time is still to come...

...Even if the new Prime Minister favored mass purges—he emphatically does not—there would be no experienced replacements available...

...N0W that the national euphoria greeting the appointment of Poland's first non-Communist Prime Minister in over 40 years has subsided, questions are beginning to surface about the wisdom of the opposition's decision to take over the reins of government without having full control...

...Therisk here, Solidarity calculated, was too great...

...Economic reform is, of course, its basic priority...

...Mazowiecki's meeting with Israel's Ambassador a few days later was seen as an expression of disagreement with Glemp's statements...

...Despite its many problems, though, the government's prospects are not entirely gloomy...

...In the elections to the politically insignificant Upper House, however, which were free of such constraints, the only successful non-Solidarity candidate was a maverick, apolitical millionaire...

...Some Poles, to be sure, were dead set against the move from the start...

...With his rather Leftish opinions and Jewish origins, Geremek is said to have been deemed too "controversial...

...Nor could the top Communist brass do much to inhibit obstructionism, assuming they wanted to...

...Two days after Tadeusz Mazowiecki took office, young radicals confronting the new Prime Minister at the entrance to Solidarity's holy of holies, St...

...The inevitable split that has occurred between "trade union" and "political" Solidarity is already starting to show: Although the appeal of the union's national leadership for an end to the recent wave of wildcat strikes is largely being heeded, some regional leaders have implied that their adherence will not be unconditional...

...Yet while the Communists no longer object to even massive privatization, it is simply not clear whether the people would be willing to endure the resultant economic hardship...

...Without foreign credit and investment the country's disastrous debt situation has to worsen...

...Utterly without Parliamentary support, he was unable to attract anyone of prestige to serve with him...

...By making the improvement of local government a top priority, and creating a special post of Minister of State to supervise the reform of the present system, Mazowiecki has pointed to a way out of Poland's morass...

...A thorough restructuring of the economy would surely entail price hikes, unemployment and additional social inequality...

...That may be the case, for the Polish episcopate has historically been unwilling to become enmeshed in the country's politics...

...It needed the Peasants' and Democrats' support to obtain a majority in the 460-seat Lower House...

...His shocked audience included the new Prime Minister, who has repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism...

...The answer to the first is easy...

...But these were the malcontents, the lunatic fringe for whom accepting anything short of immediate total independence, as well as the reincorporation of Vilnius and Lvov, is tantamount to treason...

...This gave the Peasants 17 per cent and the Democrats 5 per cent of the seats in the Lower House—because the Communists counted these seats as part of their safe 65 per cent, against the 35 per cent allotted to Solidarity...

...But the Prime Minister needs all the support he can get, and the Primate's homily won widespread approval in the country, as he no doubt expected it would...

...Political Solidarity has yet to form it own cadres...

...The satellite parties thus realized they had to oppose a non-Solidarity government if they wanted to survive a future free ballot...

...But Senator Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who has emerged as one of Lech Walesa's leading advisers, told fellow deputies that the Church was not consulted on the decision to form a Solidarity government...

...The new administration, moreover, is bound to be hobbled by its unhappy functionaries...

...Dawtd Warszawski is the pen name of a Warsaw journalist who edited one of the first underground reviews, KOS...

...The careers of almost a million members of the nomenklatura are at stake...

...The role of the Church in current developments is unclear, and all interested parties are keeping a stiff upper lip on the subject...

...Nevertheless, the questions remain...

...If the people see this taking place, they will probably accept the price tag...

...General Czeslaw Kiszczak, the former Interior Minister who was initially designated by President Wojciech Jaruzelski to form a government, was doomed to fail at the effort...

...The most responsible, articulating two distinct anxieties, are: "Could we have done otherwise...

...It is obvious to everyone that basic structural conditions must be altered if progress is to be made...