POLAND "A party is indispensable" "KRYKI" was one of the main leaders of the Union of Workers Councils of the Polish Resistance Movement (ZRP-PRO) in Upper Siliesia. Today he is a member of the Executive Committee of the Workers' Opposition Alliance - Solidarnosc (POR-S) and one of the founders of the Workers' Party of the Self-Managed Republic (RPRS). The following interview was published in Wolny Robotnik, No. 38, June 1986, the periodical of the POR-S of Upper Silesia.
Question. It is clear from your articles and statements that you are a socialist, convinced that in order to carry through to its conclusion the social struggle against the pseudopeople's power that we confront a political party is necessary.
Answer. That is true. I think that a party is an indispensable instrument to carry through the fight for power to a successful conclusion. That is precisely what any party is for. Palace revolutions or political cosmetics will change nothing in our bureaucratized regime. Only a workers' and social revolution will make it possible to achieve the changes that we need and guarantee that they will be lasting.
A party means above all disciplined cadres but also it means a program, a definition of who are its allies and supporters. It is a concrete political instrument.
Q. How then do you explain the aversion many activists have to forming parties?
A. The penalties are more severe for belonging to a party, but that probably isn't the essential thing. The regime has impressed strongly on the social consciousness that there is a single, supposedly infallible party. It presents every attempt to form another party as a betrayal of the homeland, as a preparation for a coup d'etat, and so on. This often creates a strong block. But that is a negation of political culture, not just European political culture but world political culture.
Q. What sort of new party do we need?
A. We need above all a workers' party, not just in name but by its nature and by the orientation of the changes this party seeks to direct. It must also be a socialist and democratic party, one that accepts political pluralism and which - and this is fundamental in my opinion - gives expression to the aspirations of the society, both in its activity and in the character of the process of changes that it directs.
Q. The party of the regime, the United Polish Workers Party (PZPR), claims to be just such a party.
A. As you say, the PZPR claims, and only claims to be that. I am thinking about a party that needs the workers and which they themselves will build around a program. Otherwise, it would be useless. L
LEN TOOG SPATHUSIA
Basi
DOKAD
PROWADZE Title page of the pamphlet with Trotsky's article from January 1935, "Where is the Stalinist Bureaucracy Leading the USSR?" published at the Olof Palme underground printshop by the Political Group of the POR-S in North Praga, Warsaw
21
BRITAIN