THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: CAN POLAND STEER A MIDDLE COURSE?
Bernstein, Paul
The Road Not Taken: Can Poland Steer a Middle Course! BY PAUL BERNSTEIN Poland seems to be shifting gears again, decelerating from the charged atmosphere of daily political confrontation to a...
...tap the talents of Poland's intelligentsia to manage and continually redesign the experimental "economic mechanism...
...Jaruzelski has also emulated Kadar's campaign against corruption by initiating the prosecution of several dozen high officials from the Gierek administration...
...The bureaucrats have resisted decentralization—and the loss of their jobs—by renaming their positions and then attaching them to surviving agencies...
...As defense minister in 1970, he refused to heed an order by party leader Gomulka to deploy troops as strikebreakers...
...The Pope, too, is an asset to the cause of liberalization...
...it allows the Church to act as a neutral space where people can oppose the government without engaging in the confrontational activities that could strengthen the hand of Jaruzelski's hard-line rivals...
...Poles are preoccupied with the enormous sense of freedom—the taste of a wholly different society—that they experienced during the days of Solidarity...
...The Church's soul-searching has been encouraged by Pope John Paul II...
...Even then, the unions may strike only over wages, not political or social issues...
...On being named prime minister in February 1981, he worked out several agreements with Solidarity...
...By many accounts, the Russians were prepared to invade late in 1981 and early in 1982 if the Polish leadership had not decreed martial law and clamped down on Solidarity...
...A relaxation of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States would allow the East European governments to open their societies to more Western influence...
...While Jaruzelski has tightened political power, he has tried to decentralize much of Poland's economy, a move he considers essential for long-term stability...
...The majority of Poles still feel an aching disappointment over the loss of that breathing space...
...Today, to prevent a similar development, Jaruzelski has restricted each new union to a single line of work...
...In response to the inefficiencies of Hungary's highly centralized economy, Kadar launched a New Economic Mechanism in 1968...
...Nonetheless, the sort of line Jaruzelski must walk has been carved out before, in Hungary...
...Jaruzelski then outlawed the union completely...
...What lies ahead for Poland may be nothing more than the imposition of new forms of repression, or it may be a second chance at basic reform...
...it is not an exaggeration to say that many feel they have reclaimed the independence of their souls...
...In addition, Poland will be better off when the United States resumes feed grain shipments to Polish hen and poultry producers...
...The Archbishop does not hurl defiant rhetoric at the government as often as his predecessor, Wyszynski, did...
...In addition, workers can organize their own companies, lease capital goods from the state, and divide business profits among themselves...
...In August 1980, Jaruzelski argued in the Politburo for negotiations with striking workers and against the use of troops...
...Walesa seemed willing to concede that independent unions need not possess all the powers once held or claimed by Solidarity...
...Now we are free to choose which length of truncheon to be beaten with...
...Nor is it simply a question of staving off the Russians...
...And since the imposition of martial law, the Pope has acted as a kind of ambassador-at-large from the liberation movement to governments around the world...
...After he was released last December, Walesa urged the government to allow a variety of unions to proliferate...
...There, the post-1968 party chief, Gustav Husak, failed to prevent the party from falling under the control of a hard-line faction, despite his relatively moderate stance and previous independence from the Russians...
...it will suffer under a tightly centralized structure, as Czechoslovakia has since 1968...
...The Polish people themselves pose a great challenge to Jaruzelski because they have reason to be suspicious of any official policy, including the "middle course...
...And Western contact has always presaged reform in the East European nations...
...While he has prohibited anticommunist and liberal-socialist activism, Kadar has also tried to eliminate Stalinist or hard-line forces in Hungary...
...They say the Church should throw its weight behind the moderates— represented by Jaruzelski—to prevent more repressive elements from taking power...
...Kadar was familiar with repression first-hand because he had been imprisoned and physically abused by rivals in the early 1950s...
...Yet Poles on the street express no sympathy for Jaruzelski's faction or, indeed, for any other faction within the party apparatus...
...If Jaruzelski were to become ill or die, the crucial link between army and party moderates could be lost...
...Secretary of State George Shultz, for instance, conferred with the Pope and then declared that Jaruzelski's move was not enough for sanctions to be lifted by the United States...
...strategy would be a phased resumption of economic aid in response to whatever reforms Jaruzelski achieves...
...If Poles choose the latter path, they may eventually have reason to think of Solidarity and the upheavals of the last couple of years not as a noble effort that came to naught, but as a first step toward a great achievement...
...Although he has checked the power of the unions to become a multi-issue social movement, Jaruzelski has recognized Poles' longing for a popular voice...
...The government can let the society keep on festering the way Czechoslovakia did after the 1968 Prague Spring, or it can choose gradually to improve conditions as Hungary did after its 1956 uprising...
...One key power denied the government's new unions is the right to associate across all industries in a particular geographic region...
...Of course, the primary burden for a "middle course" falls on the shoulders of the Poles themselves...
...Nonetheless, few Poles consider the state-sponsored PRON organization a legitimate vehicle for airing of their grievances...
...In past decades, Poles did put their faith in the promises of reformers at the top of the party hierarchy, such as Wladislaw Go-mulka in 1956 and Edward Gierek in 1970...
...The political climate is thawing slowly, to be sure, but Poles can now look forward to what General Wojciech Jaruzelski calls "full normalization...
...Kadar has let no reform challenge the party's position in Hungary, and has softpedaled reforms that appear to pose a threat...
...Western observers have in Hungarian history a checklist of possible developments in Poland's near future: Poland will have to calm Soviet security concerns to prevent Moscow from resorting to overt intervention...
...And throughout the crisis, the general kept the police on a shorter leash than some had expected...
...This regional or "horizontal" linkage was a major factor in Solidarity's metamorphosis from a labor organization into a social movement...
...It is true: The Church grew stronger during the heyday of Solidarity and, after martial law had crushed the union, the Church grew more powerful as many nonbelievers redirected their energies...
...Combined with more recent initiatives, the move has allowed a market system to function, at least to some extent...
...The hard-liners claim, for the purpose of garnering worker support, that the reforms have led to price increases and will cause further jumps in the cost of living...
...The clubs will probably find sympathetic ears among the functionaries who lost their jobs when Jaruzelski abolished government-sponsored trade unions along with Solidarity...
...On the other hand, those in touch with Communist Party hard-liners say Jaruzelski is under pressure to impose stricter controls over former Solidarity activists and radical members of the clergy...
...Martial law restrictions have been relaxed, Lech Walesa and most of the other interned Solidarity activists have been released, food lines are shrinking, and coal production is rising...
...Rather, it is helpful to examine the pattern of his actions during fourteen years in the Polish Politburo...
...Hurdling these obstacles is not just a matter of intraparty maneuvering, of course...
...It is an unfortunate fact that Poland's second chance at reform depends to a large extent on a few powerful people...
...Poles took advantage of the exemption...
...The people concluded long ago, therefore, that only a force independent of the regime, like Solidarity, could spark change in the society...
...government posts as high as deputy-minister began going to non-Communists in 1962, and a year later universities stopped excluding youth from middle-class backgrounds...
...The existence of an independent Church that can confront the Polish regime and yet remain a valued channel between the government and the populace gives Poland one advantage in the search for a "middle course" that Hungary and Czechoslovakia did not have...
...U.S...
...If the Pope were to die soon, the Vatican's special assistance to Poland might vanish...
...The Kremlin was not about to sit back and let Poles obtain the freedoms that have been denied Czechs and Hungarians...
...He reaffirmed the party's 1981 admission that its methods and structure need to be reformed...
...Last November, the regime was careful to leak news of the coming political relaxation to Western diplomats, an action which suggested that Jaruzelski accepts the linkage of foreign aid and domestic reform...
...Poland will have a much better chance of repairing its sickly economy when its fishing industry can resume harvesting in U.S...
...In fact, the relaxation of martial law restrictions occasioned no celebration: One machinist sardonically remarked, "Oh sure, the government wants to give us more freedom...
...Given the current political climate, Glemp's position is probably appropriate...
...However, these "moderate," "nationalist" Communists couldn't or wouldn't deliver on their pledges to give workers a greater share of power, make government more just, and boost the economy...
...Most Poles still feel an aching disappointment over the loss ofthat enormous sense of freedom they experienced in Solidarity In Poland, as in any other East European country, it is extremely difficult to satisfy public demand for freedom of self-expression and simultaneously placate the apprehensions of Soviet rulers...
...The United States directly affects Polish politics through trade, banking, food relief, and radio broadcasts over the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe...
...Members of the Catholic Church, especially those close to Archbishop Jozef Glemp, agree that a battle is raging within the party...
...But the indirect impact on Poland of U.S.-Soviet relations may be greater in the long run...
...Jaruzelski's apparent aim was to isolate Solidarity's radicals so he could reach agreement with the moderates, led by Walesa...
...today, those holdings yield almost one-third of Hungary's produce, an important source of foreign currency...
...The most critical question is, are Jaruzelski's politics similar to Kadar's...
...How Poles use this pride could determine the future of their country...
...Flexibility is crucial if the United States is to assist Poland's attempt at a "middle course...
...freedom—if that can be done without provoking the Soviet Union...
...He encouraged hiring by ability and education...
...Thus, if Jaruzelski wants to liberalize Polish society—and meet Gomulka's promises of 1956 in the process—he will have to find a third way...
...Cuba's dependence on the Soviet Union after the imposition of the American embargo is worth remembering...
...Germany has devastated Russia twice in this century, and each time the Germans have invaded through Poland...
...vague government promises necessarily fall short of meeting their expectations...
...In the same vein, Jaruzelski's long-term effect on Poland cannot be predicted solely from his decision to impose martial law...
...He was saying, in effect, that independent unionists do not object to state structures so long as workers can have their own organizations, too...
...To that end, he has established PRON, the Patriotic Movement for National Salvation...
...Kadar's policies might end up serving as a model to the Polish leadership...
...The Polish leadership is eager to resume trade and banking with the West...
...Fortunately, Jaruzelski's options are still broader than Husak's were...
...It was this group that requested last November that martial law be lifted and amnesty extended to those who had been arrested...
...The Soviets, in turn, secretly sent their Warsaw Pact chief to Warsaw on December 11...
...Jaruzelski, like Kadar, will have to develop a policy toward dissidents...
...NATO arms buildups have the effect of convincing the Soviets to keep a tight rein on Jaruzelski...
...Whether they will be effective remains to be seen...
...Polish enterprises have been given greater freedom to set prices and wages, decide what to produce, and determine where to sell goods...
...Grabski also won support for his assault on the economic reforms...
...Instead of looking toward government initiatives, some priests are pressing the Church to support dissident political activity...
...sanctions against the Polish government are also counterproductive...
...People who have talked to Jaruzelski and his close advisers say the general wants to put Poland on the "Hungarian path" toward relative economic prosperity and moderate cultural and civic Paul Bernstein is a Boston-based writer who has frequently visited and written about Eastern Europe...
...Jaruzelski will have to cope with similar power blocs...
...Kadar abolished the requirement that government officials must come from the working class and carry party membership...
...Managers of enterprises have been given considerable discretion over what to produce, when to sell it, and what raw materials to draw from...
...Most Poles are not optimistic...
...nurse relations with Western banks and governments for money, industrial parts, and feed grain, and solve the immediate shortage of consumer goods without resorting to steep price increases (which spur protests) or an infusion of Soviet-bloc imports (which carry political strings...
...Or will they accept the "middle course" not merely as a compromise way out of Poland's current crisis, but as an opportunity to move toward new, democratic forms that could ultimately surpass even what Solidarity envisioned...
...A worker in Katowice told me last fall, for example, that "no change can come in less than fifteen years...
...Because many Poles regard the Church as their last chance, they expect a great deal from Glemp—and they are not always satisfied...
...the shifting alignments within it are of little concern...
...Whatever befalls Poland, it seems the Church gets stronger," Archbishop Glemp told an American reporter last summer...
...The Solidarity experience deepened the Poles' self-respect...
...Until the winter of 1981, Jaruzelski had repeatedly acted in favor of reform and against repression...
...This Hungarian model is, of course, only a model—it does not mean the elements that worked there are present in Poland, or would serve the same ends if applied there...
...Since 1956, he has faithfully adhered to the Soviet foreign policy line and, in domestic affairs, upheld an inviolable Soviet principle—the supremacy of the Communist Party...
...Solidarity activists have rejected the government's recently legislated union structures, insisting that anything less than independence makes the unions unworthy of participation—perhaps no different from the unions that served workers so poorly in Gierek's time...
...Yet, despite the importance of a handful of personalities, something has been achieved in the past three years that will not disappear...
...The Kremlin regards Poland as more essential to defense than, say, Hungary, because the wide Polish plain is the main approach to the Soviet Union from Germany, its traditional enemy...
...Still, Jaruzelski will have to accomplish four enormous tasks to blaze a "middle course": transform the factionalized party into an efficient, progressive, and honest organization...
...Life in Czechoslovakia became much worse—even worse than it had been before the reform period of the late 1960s...
...He recently circulated a homily urging citizens to run for seats in town councils and regional assemblies, and to take jobs in national ministries...
...Fortunately, Reagan has changed his condition for lifting sanctions from the "restoration of Solidarity"—a condition Jaruzelski could never meet—to "a resumption of dialogue between the Polish government and truly representative forces of the Polish nation...
...He also kept a dialogue open with the Catholic primate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, and with his successor, Archbishop Glemp...
...In that case, the best U.S...
...And farmers may cultivate private plots...
...This seems to be one reason why he wants to keep many army officers in government after martial law is dismantled and the state largely returned to civilian control...
...And in the party rank and file, the hard-liners are organizing a base of support through "Realism Clubs"—groupings that press for a return to the more repressive policies of the pre-Solidarity days...
...Jaruzelski announced he would ask the Parliament for emergency powers, including the authority to ban strikes...
...Said the Archbishop, "I don't agree with the tradition that says believers must leave the political field entirely to Communists...
...Kadar sought to do so early on by firmly returning Hungarian armed forces to the Warsaw Pact command...
...Nevertheless, he continued discussions with the Church and eventually reached accords on the Pope's 1983 visit, Walesa's release, and the role of television performers under martial law...
...Poles claim the cancellation of those contracts has cut their meat production in half...
...The former group claims Jaruzelski has been lenient toward "counterrevolutionaries...
...neither unleashing independents nor relying on the party will do...
...Yet the Church is not united on political issues...
...A free press and competing political parties would be too provocative for the Russians, so Kadar has tried another way of keeping policy in line with popular opinion—frequent polls to keep the leadership informed of public preferences...
...Although Kadar arrested the rebels of 1956 and the organizers of some subsequent protests, he offered amnesty four years later and has steadily curtailed the power of the police since then...
...In response, Solidarity scheduled a nationwide general strike for December 17 and called for a referendum on alternatives to the existing communist government...
...The change has meant that Hungary can draw on talent not necessarily available within party ranks...
...At an October meeting of the Central Committee, for example, a majority of top Communists agreed with former Politburo member Ta-deusz Grabski's call for the arrest of priests sympathetic to Solidarity...
...In the provinces, reformers elected to party posts in 1981 are being driven from office...
...Farmers rent their land to government collectives, the managers of which are elected by the farmers...
...To that end, he has had to rein in two groups—high officials who favor the use of strict controls and police terror, and middle-level bureaucrats who have used their jobs for personal advantage...
...Many have turned instead to the Church...
...They have formed "Catholic Forums"—discussion groups—to which Solidarity activists have been invited...
...In the fall of 1981, a steadily deteriorating economy brought on a rash of wildcat strikes that even Walesa could not bring to a halt...
...The Hungarian experience suggests that there is at least one way for East European leaders to navigate between the Scylla of Soviet security demands and the Charybdis of their people's restless search for freedom...
...The longer Poland is blocked from normal trade and aid with the West, the longer the Poles must depend on Soviet aid...
...BY PAUL BERNSTEIN Poland seems to be shifting gears again, decelerating from the charged atmosphere of daily political confrontation to a calmer state of protracted struggle...
...Many parish priests and some bishops find Glemp's stance toward the government too conciliatory...
...Indeed, during the year of martial law, many reform bills were pushed through the Parliament...
...But such independent initiatives have posed a threat to entrenched power— including the power of the Soviet Union...
...Jaruzelski has conferred with Hungarian trade union officials and sent Polish economic administrators to Hungary to learn from their counterparts...
...Underground union activists have all but abandoned the idea of reviving Solidarity, but they have vowed to continue protesting in other ways...
...In short, Jaruzelski has indicated he prefers a "middle course" between the broad By deepening the Cold War and destroying detente, Reagan has persuaded the Soviets to exert tighter control over their East European buffer zone freedoms demanded by Solidarity and the monopoly of power desired by hard-liners and the Kremlin...
...It should be remembered that Kadar's liberal policies of the 1960s and 1970s contrasted sharply with his earlier behavior and image as betrayer of the 1956 revolt...
...If hard-liners such as Grabski and Foreign Minister Stefan Olszowski are successful, Poland will not follow a "middle course" of gradual liberalization...
...As martial law is dismantled, Polish leaders face a greater challenge than the one posed by Solidarity in the winter of 1981: Today, they must not only determine the fate of the independent trade union movement but also settle on a new course for the entire nation to free Poland from recurrent cycles of economic failure and repression...
...That strategy failed when Walesa refused to negotiate in the absence of his full presidium, including the radicals...
...The former Cardinal of Cracow periodically invites Glemp and a few other Polish bishops to Rome for strategy sessions...
...When Jaruzelski claimed early last December that martial law restrictions were being relaxed, the Pope's opinion apparently helped determine the Western response...
...Jaruzelski's control of the army adds decisively to whatever support he can draw from moderates in the party...
...Taking a different tack, Glemp is encouraging Catholics to participate in the legal institutions of government...
...In Hungary, Kadar dubbed his middle course a "struggle against two fronts...
...And the bureaucracy is already stalling economic reform to retain its privileged position...
...The Polish people's new pride will not leave them...
...By deepening the Cold War and destroying detente, President Reagan has persuaded the Soviets that they must exert tighter control over their East European buffer zone...
...Will they withhold support for the government's "middle course" and scorn those who back it as collaborators...
...He also tries to use the global influence of the Vatican to strengthen the position of the Polish Church...
...Unfortunately, however, the influence of Roman Catholics may be offset by that of American anticom-munists...
...two days later, Jaruzelski instituted martial law...
...Jaruzelski appreciates the Church's role, for when he imposed martial law in December 1981, he exempted the Church from his ban on public gatherings...
...Yet Hungary's Janos Kadar has managed to sustain that sort of balancing act since 1956, when the smoke of invading Soviet tanks was lifted...
...To the average Pole, the party perpetuates an unfair and inefficient system...
...They were especially angered when the primate supported government pressure on television performers to end a boycott of the censored media...
...Profits are shared between workers and managers...
...He is prepared to grant the unions the right to strike, but only after they have been established for more than a year and, in the event of disputes, have exhausted a complex series of arbitration procedures...
...For Jaruzelski, the battle against the Right alone involves two fronts: He is opposed by hard-liners in the Central Committee and the legions of bureaucrats threatened by state reforms...
...Late last year, he interviewed advisers to Solidarity and union officials who had been released from internment...
...waters—an activity that amounted to 30 per cent of Poland's annual catch...
Vol. 47 • February 1983 • No. 2
