A year of debates in Solidarnosc SEVEN YEARS after it came into being, as a result of the most powerful upsurge of strikes and workers' self-management ever seen in Poland, and five and a half years after it was banned, the Solidarnosc social movement and union is today in the grip of a deep-going identity crisis.
The most evident signs of this are the divisions that have been appearing publicly in its leadership since September 1986, when most of the political prisoners were released, as well as the reorientations expressed in the documents most recently made public.
At the heart of these debates is the economic debacle the country is experiencing and the means for alleviating it, for getting out of the crisis that has thrown the population's standard of living into a tailspin.
As a result of this economic crisis, thousands of people are leaving Poland every year to try to their luck in the West European countries. Here, they often swell the ranks of those working in the "black economy," since these states do not tend to welcome this wave of "economic refugees" with open arms. CVRII CMIG
POLAND countersigned by Lech Walesa, that it would remain underground. But two of its main leaders - Jan Andrzej Gorny and Marek Muszynski - found themselves released from their posts. Thus, the TKK lost its last " real-name clandestines" (that is, people using their real identity).
Finally, the regional leadership of the union in Lower Silesia — a region where Solidarnosc had succeeded in rebuilding a particularly strong organizational network underground - announced that it could not see the advantage of the regional leadership coming out into the open and acting with an public face.'
Discussion reveals sharp organizational tensions
Following these events an intense debate opened in the underground press, a debate that brought on some tensions and some political realignments in the Solidarnose movement. Evidently, it is the questions concerning , the orientation of the Polish opposition that are at the center of this debate.
But what is new — at least on this scale -- are sharp organizational tensions, both between the public and clandestine leadership structures, and within them. This situation inspired the following disillusioned commentary from Julia Laseczka, the editor of the Warsaw journal KOS:
"It is no longer the opinions themselves, but knowing who is behind them, that is beginning to determine whether they are accepted or rejected. In the divergences of positions over any given question, one senses more and more the signs of complicated personal intrigues... Competing ambitions are beginning to determine not only relations between various groups, structures, milieus, regions and towns, but are also increasingly entering into the relations between individuals making up 1. See IV 107, October 27, 1986 and 111, December 22, 1986. 17 September 14, 1987 • International Viewpoint
CYRIL SMUGA
• HE RELEASE of most political prisoners in September 1986, and the change in the methods of repression used against independent activists, gave rise to hopes within the Polish opposition of a political "relaxation" on the part of the regime — in particular in the circles of the historic leaders of Solidarnosc.
Responding immediately to this perspective of "liberalization," some of the most prestigious of the former leaders of the clandestine union, with the support of Lech Walesa, set up a Provisional Council of Solidarnosc (TRS), which was supposed to serve as a public leadership of the banned union.
At the same time, the underground regional leadership of Solidarnosc in Warsaw (RKW) decided to carry on its activities above ground. And following this decision public regional leaderships popped up in many areas.
In the meantime, the national clandestine leadership of Solidarnosc (TKK) had announced, in a communique
POLAND the same group....
"Greater police activity may not be necessary to put an end to the six-year period of building an 'independent society'. It may be that we will wind up this period all by ourselves."2
A general weakening of Solidarnosc, and in particular of its workplace structures, is the backdrop to all these debates. "There are no longer clandestine union commissions in the workplaces" writes an editor of the main oppositional journal in Warsaw, Tygodnik Mazowsze.3
"A nation in which hope is dead"
In another Warsaw journal, Wola, Jan Szymanowski speaks of a "nation in which hope is dead," and considers that Solidarnosc "after its death," is leading "a symbolic life." 4
Tomasz Litwin, one of the leading personalities in the Warsaw InterFactory Coordinating Committee (MKK), writes: "Perhaps Solidarnosc has no more trumps, perhaps the game - in which the stakes are the public way of life in Poland - is being played out partly without its participation. Perhaps the silence is not a sign of reflection and preparation but of helplessness...
While clandestine press and publishing remain one of the jewels of the movement with nearly 1,000 regular titles according to some estimates, their distribution has run into some problems.
One of the distributors recounts: 'In 1984, I distributed up to 100 issues of each title; today, within the same milieu, I have managed to sell only ten issues, and even then just the most interesting titles....Independent distribution is ceasing to play its role of linking and mobilizing people. On the contrary, it is putting them off the opposition." 6
Dawid Warszawski, a well-known editorialist on the clandestine journal KOS, notes: "Solidarnoso has not managed to remain an important factor in determining the situation in the country. But — despite their claims - the authorities have not been able to eliminate it from the Polish political scene either." 7
Another KOS journalist, in an article in which he writes "I have tried to be a journalist who listened to what people say about their own movement, that they have created and which without them would quite simply never have existed," draws a gloomy picture of Solidarnosc:
"The "masses' increasingly feel that they have no influence either over what 18 happens underground, or what happens aboveground. The majority of the socInternational Viewpoint • September 14, 1987 iety who take no part in the activity are being treated as a 'human raw material' that can be used for political activity on a bigger scale sometime in the future....
"Something has been turned upside down. The concept 'us and them', used previously as a substitute for "society and the authorities' , is being more frequently used to mean 'us, the members of Solidarnose and them, the members of the national commission and its agencies'
"Symbolic of the movement's inauspicious evolution is the change in the 'social communication within it.' At the beginning, information was circulated through the press or directly in meetings and via personal contacts, through the social activity of the masses.
"Today, information moves in one direction only. We receive all the wisdom of the leaders and their journalists, or sometimes also of journalists independent of the leaders. None of them even tries to find out what we are thinking. Do the appeals, the directives from 'the higher ups,' correspond even partly to the expectations and aspirations of 'those further down'?" 8
The account of the meeting between Zbigniew Bujak, chair of Solidarnose in Warsaw, and the members of the Warsaw MKK held in November 1986 in a way confirms such a pessimistic judgment. Bujak "stressed that in the immediate future Solidarnosc needs spectacular actions that will testify to its base in the factories, and that if there were no such actions, the entire movement would be weakened."
The activists wondered: "After almost five years of underground work, are we still fighting for the union, and relying on the union? Aren't our objectives broader, do we still need the union mask? In fact, today, the underground is not just the union."
Solidarnosc: "the most powerful weapon"
Bujak's answer was to reaffirm forcefully the need for the union, "the most powerful weapon." But it has to be noted that he proved unable to show how this tool can be used and limited himself to asserting "that even in the most pessimistic perspective, it will be necessary to maintain at least a symbolic continuity and the forms of Solidarnosc. That will be enough to ensure", he said, "that in a situation of social crisis people will turn toward Solidarnosc, toward what is left of it, and will act as an organized social subject." 9
Some reports that have appeared recently in the underground press testifying to attempts by worker activists to find instruments other than simply Solidarnosc's underground commissions in order to be able to act in defence of workers' interests.
For example, in the PONAR mechanical instruments factory in Ostrzeszow, Solidarnosc activists took control first of the self-management council; then of the factory circle of the Democratic Party [a Communist Party front organization designed to give the appearance of a two-party system — and, in the context of the Stalinist notion of people's democracy — to represent the progressive petty bourgeoisie]; and finally the "new union" set up by the regime after the banning of Solidarnosc.
In the spring of 1987, this "new union" called a strike and won the promise of a substantial wage increase (7,000 zlotys for everyone), to be given in several stages. This was an exemplary action, if there ever was one.1° But what is most significant is that these events were taken up several times in the Solidarnose press, while the union continued to uphold its call for boycotting the government unions.
### Clandestine activity continues in the factories
It would be wrong to conclude that Solidarnosc's underground commissions no longer exist in Polish factories, or even that their activity is only symbolic. All observers agree that they have become weaker, especially in those regions where the Solidarnosc leadership has paid only scant attention to this sort of work (as is the case in Warsaw). But the underground press also reports significant examples of clandestine activity in the factories.
This is particularly true in Lower Silesia, where the Regional Strike Committee (RKS), the underground regional leadership set up in December 1981, has always endeavored to serve as a coordinating body for the factory commissions and has given constant support to the efforts of the activists in the factories.
In an editorial in the bulletin of the Lower Silesian RKS, Z Dnia na Dzien, Jozef Turzyma wrote, "The Wroclaw leaders know that the region's strength is based on unspectacular and difficult work in the factories. Brilliant groups of café dissidents may be all right in the capital, where it is easy to find yourself under the spotlight of the 2. KOS, No. 5/113, March 9, 1987. 3. FF, "Elephantiasis," Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 199, February 18, 1987. 4. Wola, No. 12/218, March 30, 1987. 5. Ibid. 6. Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 203, March 18, 1987. 7. KOS, No. 114, March 30, 1987. 8. KOS, No. 3/111, February 8, 1987. 9. Wola, No. 37/203, November 24, 1986. 10. Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 189, November 26, 1987, and No. 209/210, May 6, 1987.
Western TV stations. But in Wroclaw, this would be ridiculous and totally useless. Today, looking back, we can see that unspectacular activities have borne fruit, and that Wroclaw is the brightest spot on the map of the Polish opposition." 11
In fact, while in other regions Solidarnosc factory journals are rare, there are several in Wroclaw, in particular in the FAT, Fadroma, Hutmen, ELWRO, POLAR, Pafawag enterprises, among others. The 1986 tinancial report ol the ELWRO factory commission showed that 400 of the 4,500 people employed there regularly paid dues.!?
However, the fact remains that a high level of underground trade-union membership is not synonymous with a capacity for action in defence of workers' interests. The March 28 price rises and the ensuing strikes are an illustration of this.
Although the TKK had announced its support for the strikes that might break out then, but without issuing a call for a general strike — and Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, the chair of the region union, did the same — the attempts to launch strikes at ELWRO, Pafawag, Hutmen, FAT, Fadroma and Dolmel came to nothing.
On the other hand, in a number of other plants — including some where there was no regular activity by Solidarnosc structures — the strikes were successful in winning substantial wage increases.
This pattern obviously reflected the stepped-up activity of the political police where Solidarnosc structures are regularly active. But it was also a consequence of the forms of action employed by the factory union commissions. Henryk Wujec, one of the Warsaw Solidarnosc leaders who clearly expresses the importance of factory work, wrote:
"The underground union commissions and Solidarnosc activists in the factories have been limited until now to distributing the press, collecting dues and demonstrating their presence during patriotic holidays. Such activities have generally concerned a rather small group, whose existence is important but which has not grown." 13
Disenchantment with activism
Recognition of the ineffectiveness of the actions carried out until that time by Solidarnosc, and in particular of the independent union's inability to be an effective tool in the struggle to maintain living standards, has been reflected in particular by a disenchantment with activism among many workers and an accompanying "withdrawal into private life." This has led many Solidarnosc
Solidarnosc leader Jacek Kuron (DR) leaders to wonder about what forms of action to push in the future.
In the autumn of 1986, Tygodnik Mazowsze, the main underground journal, opened up its columns to a debate on this question, publishing a series of positions by leaders of the movement. This debate was pursued in the columns of many other independent journals. It brought a great diversity of proposals, but the most important thing undoubtedly was that most of the protagonists tended to close the book on underground union activity in the factories.
For example, in a document widely reprinted in the underground press, Anatol Lawina, Maciej Poleski and Maciej Zalewski asked "how is the Solidarnosc movement operating today? Its base is made up of factory circles grouped in underground trade-union commissions. These are small, informal groups with clearly defined activities (distribution of the press, attempts to assure a financial base, meetings in the interenterprise structures, sporadic propaganda actions, a declining role in providing social assistance and performing the statutory functions of unions).
"In general, these groups do not have the means for undertaking actions of a trade-union character. The next level above them is inter-enterprise groupings, conscious of their limitations, but also of their achievements. They consider the program of restoring the union as unrealistic and incapable of eliciting a mass response in the present situation of ebb and stagnation. This loosely coordinated underground structure is led by regional and national leading groups.
"The leading groups, speaking in the name of Solidarnosc and forgetting
POLAND about the underground structures, address themselves to everyone, that is, to no-one in particular. Alongside the Solidarnosc structures, political circles operate, which may be more or less linked to the union but which recruit their members in it (Fighting Solidarnosc is the best example. These include the circles of Workers' Chaplains, the self-management councils, other social initiatives along the lines of Peace and Liberty, and finally political circles whose tradition goes back before August 1980....
"Solidarnosc breaking up into clearer currents"
"In the situation of general helplessness, these initiatives offer an example of activity and growth. They are not responsible for the common failures, they are building something new and attract Solidarnosc people. Solidarnosc is breaking up into clearer and clearer currents of different ideological hues."
On the basis of this observation, the authors conclude that Solidarnosc was wrong to think that it was possible to raise general living standards, not only because of the unfavorable relationship of forces with the bureaucracy, but also because the economic crisis is so grave that "society as a whole has to pay" the costs involved.
"An economic miracle in Poland involves not only structurally changing the economy and releasing human energy, but also budget cuts, the creation 11. Z Dnia na Dzien, No. 2/426, January 12-18, 1987. 12. Solidarnosc ELWRO, No. 163, January 26, 1987. 19 13. Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 192, December 17, 1986. September 14, 1987 • International Viewpoint
POLAND of a capital market and the elimination of money in excess of what there is to be bought on the market. It is necessary to envisage a drop in the standard of living of many social groups and even localized unemployment."
Consequently, after explaining that the perspective of the union should be neither economic nor political strikes and that rather its task should be to create a "new economic order,' " the authors wrote: 'The union needs today not a compromise program but a clear political decision for the people in the movement. The option we have to take today is to restrict our work in the trade-union field to those activities that are real, and to widen our work to new spheres of economic, cultural, social and political work. This is the option that appears necessary and sufficient for our movement to get a second wind." 14
"Real economic reform is indispensable today"
Jacek Kuron also sees the implementation of economic reform as the main axis of the union's future activity: "The proposition that says you have to accept a lowering of your standard of living in the name of economic reform is unacceptable today. But it is just as hard to imagine a program consisting only of demands. It seems that a market economy reform carried out in the framework of a broad social movement - with social insurance for the weaker groups — is the focus of the aspirations of Poles today, both those that have to do with the standard of living as well as their social and political aspirations. This can, therefore, be an immediate goal for the Solidarnosc movement....
"A big movement that will impose a real economic reform is indispensable today. All the activities of such a movement have already been taken up within society, although in a limited way. They have to go on to a larger scale. It is necessary to enter the existing self-management councils, activate those that are not functioning and create new ones. On the one hand, this has to be done through coordination among self-management councils, to bring pressure to bear on the regime for a total market reform; and, on the other, by undertaking actions in the factories aimed at bolstering the economic activity of the largest possible number.
"The same orientation should be adopted outside the state enterprises, in the local self-management councils, in particular in the countryside and in the small cities, but not only there. Through cooperatives, various associations and private enterprises, it is posInternational Viewpoint • September 14, 1987 sible to advance housing construction, stock-raising, processing, trade, watersupply, repairs and services. It is necessary to combat resistance on the part of the local administrations, to change the regime's economic policy, and improve the laws accordingly.
"Such a movement, on the one hand, will enable the people to take control of their own living conditions; and, on the other, it will implement and impose economic reform at the same time." 15
It is useful to point out that these words were written when the Polish government was preparing to introduce the "second stage" of its economic reform, and in this context major price increases were projected (the 1986-90 five-year plan that has just been adopted, with the customary delay, notably calls for increasing prices by 128 per cent in only four years).
These proposals for a "readjustment" of Solidarnosc's concerns have run into opposition. One of the regional leaders in Warsaw, Henryk Wujec, published an article co-signed with Maciej Jankowski, with the significant title: "If we want to remain trade unionists."
has on a lot of alike conf about elaborating a new program for the union, and in particular about supporting independent economic initiatives. While appreciating the importance of these things, it must not be forgotten that Solidarnosc's main field of activity is the state enterprises. Unless Solidarnoso has a real presence there, an active influence on the situation of the workers, all general proposals are apt to be left hanging in mid air."
Wujec and Jankowski proposed that union activists concern themselves with the labor contracts, which, as they noted, after the decree-law of November 1986 have to be ratified by general assemblies of the self-management delegates.
The involvement of Solidarnosc activists in the self-management councils, they explained, must enable them to utilize all the prerogatives of these councils to unite the workers around their most urgent demands. "On the most important question, it is even possible to have recourse to referendums."
As regards the organization, they proposed flexible forms: "These actions should be directed by underground trade-union commissions where they exist. If they do not exist, it would be enough to have a few Solidarnosc activists who would set an example; there would not necessarily have to be many of them....This does not have to be done under the banner of Solidarnosc. The objective is to win even small successes and not to frighten the more timid, or to provoke resistance by the party and reactions from the political police. Our attention has to be concentrated on solving the problems and not on proving how useful we are. If we win a success, everyone will know anyway how it was achieved."
They also proposed where it was impossible to use the forum of the self-management council to try to set up other forms of representing the workers: "For example, the workers in a shop could sign a statement in which they mandated certain people to deal with concrete problems in their name.
mand of bue they mou d hage io The management might not recognize such a mandate, but they would have to take account of it."
To conclude, Wujec and Janowski dotted their "i's" by going back over the method that in their opinion the union should adopt: "The actions proposed here unite and do not divide. Since Solidarnosc acts in the name of all the workers, it is necessary that all those employed in the enterprise be concerned, without excluding members of the party or of the new unions. It is even possible to conduct certain actions together with the 'newunionists,' but it needs to be clear that the initiative has come from Solidarnosc. Likewise, if the latter undertake an action that is really in the interest of the workers, we must support it and insist that it be carried through to the end." 16
A critical picture of the union's activities
The same concerns motivated AG Rawicki. In an article published in the Warsaw journal Robotnik, he drew a critical picture of Solidarnosc's activity: "The pattern of activity of the opposition often comes down to a group of 'armchair politicians' meeting and producing a thick and high-priced journal. They write about Jaruzelski, about Reagan, about geopolitics and the 'premises of conceptual reflection,' about 'neo-conservatism in the USA,' and so on and so on. And then they say, 'Walenty, go distribute that in your factory.'
"Few people still take an interest in the work of the underground trade-union commissions, in ways of helping the activists who, fighting against their own fatigue and the passivity of the workers, are continuing Solidarnosc activity in the factories....Are we really incapable of developing new forms of activity in the factories? In our opinion, we are not! We can and we must do so. And the key to that is to get it into 14. Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 195, January 21, 1987; also published in Wola, No. 3/209, January 19, 1987. 15. Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 191, December 10, 1986. 16. Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 192, December 17, 1986.
our heads that what is important is not personal battles for a seat in the leadership but the strength and effectiveness of the factory organizations." 17
The same author developed his proposals in a Szczecin journal, Robotnik Pomorza Zachodniego. He called for forming "statistical commissions" in the factories with the aim of calculat- the factories with the aim of calculating "how the so-called secret price increases affect the workers' lives." This is very simple, he explained:
"All you have to do is to select among the workers some people living in different conditions, for example an unmarried person leaving in a dormitory, a father of two children living with his wife and inlaws, for example. All these people note down their expenses every month, their own expenses and those of those families, expenses for daily consumption as well as for durable goods. And so for example in January a worker spent 26,000 zlotys, and in February for the same thing, 28,000. This difference indicates clearly the raise that we have to demand to maintain our standard of living."
He also proposed setting up "selfsupply groups," ("nothing is easier — All you need is for one person to collect money, go out into the country and buy meat"); "trade-union funds" ("'which must be used to finance social aid, not the press"); and organizing vacation colonies in collaboration with the peasants.
Finally, AG Rawicki criticized the union press in the factories: "Of course it exists. But...it should have a lot more information on the life of the factories....Reading the factory press, you get the impression that its editors are not at all interested in the problems of their factories, in the possibilities for increasing production capacities, in safety and working conditions, in wag- safety and working conditions, in wag-
Kuron's proposals criticized
The proposals by Jacek Kuron and other champions of "realism" were also criticized by the leader of the Fighting Solidarnosc Organization (OSW), Kornel Morawiecki: "I do not agree with the thesis advocated by Lech Walesa and Jacek Kuron, among others, that now is not the time to put forward wage demands, that it is necessary to tighten our belts. Poverty is growing, and people are working harder and harder, up to 12 hours a day. It's better to clench our fists than tighten our belts." 19
Likewise, the chair of Lower Silesian Solidarnosc, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk, has taken his distance from the champions of a "refocusing" around schemes for economic reform. In an interview given
POLAND to Tygodnik Mazowsze in December 1986, he said: "We have to take up the essential questions, and these are food, housing, and the length of the workweek. Everyone knows that in Poland today people are working up to 10, 14 and even 16 hours a day. After doing most urgent problems, those that can be taken up immediately, are beginning to reach us. " 20
Despite all these concrete proposals and criticisms calling for Solidarnosc to devote itself to the problems of defending living standards and working
"It's better to clench our fists than tighten our belts"
their legal eight hours, everyone worries about finding an extra job to survive."
The editors asked: "Do you think that it is impossible today to unite people around the slogan of economic reform, but that it is possible, on the other hand, to organize a movement for demands that could impose a reform if such a movement were strong enough?" Frasyniuk answered: "That is our duty as a union. Moreover, getting back to the nitty-gritty questions is the only chance to remobilize people. When a trade-union commission asks me what has to be done, I ask them what people are grumbling about.
"Every factory has problems that seem insoluble, and so workers say to themselves that it is not worth taking a beating for that. But if they manage to win on small questions, such as better ventilation or toilets, then maybe you can bring together 10 to 15 people. To go back to activities around reform, this is quite a difficult task, because for the average citizen economic reform is synonymous with higher prices and greater poverty.
"To put it plainly, for whom should the union smoothe the way for the reform, if it has no means for carrying it out? Polish society does not consider itself master in its own country. The workers are not masters in the factories. Therefore, they take no interest in any reform. To get the essential rights of a citizen, people are not going to agree to tighten their belts, even in a reasonable way."
Asked about union activity in Wroclaw, Frasyniuk said: "We hold dozens of meetings with the factory commissions and the representatives of various milieus in the region....We have turned to them to ask them to elaborate demands, in accordance with themes, like the Gdansk 21 demands [which were raised in August 1981] directed at various centers of decision-making, beginning with the government and extending even to the underground (for example, with regard to what school teachers expect from the government, the inspectors and finally from the underground structures). Such lists of the conditions, the union — or, more accurately, its leading circles — once again failed to respond to the test of the price rises. A general statement on prices and wages was indeed adopted on January 26, 1987, and countersigned by all the top authorities: Lech Walesa, the Provisional Council (the public TRS) and the Provisional Coordinating Commission (the clandestine TKK). It repeated all of Solidarnosc's traditional demands. But little, if anything, was done to mobilize the union's activists and, more generally, the workers, to build a national action against the price increases."
Producing for people
Furthermore, while the statement reaffirmed the need for a sliding scale of wages and social benefits, as well as for "shifting materials and investment from production for production's sake toward producing for people." it went on immediately to assert that all this would be impossible without a market reform of the economy. The statement added: "People cannot make sacrifices unless these are accompanied by a perspective for a better future."
Finally, the statement pointed out: "The effectiveness of our defence depends on the emergence of a broad movement for changes in the economic and socio-political system." What changes were meant? A "real economic reform," whose "premises should be based on the principles of the market economy," which involved "the need for de-monopolizing the economy, eliminating the economic bureaucracy from the industries and changing the criteria for selecting leading cadres."
Furthermore, "a real equality of all sectors of the economy is necessary, as well as the submission of the state sector to self-management control. Such an economic reform should be accom17. Robotnik, No 116, December 18, 1986 18. Ouoted by Tyeodnik Mazowsze, No. 200, February 25, 1987. 21 19. Biuletyn Dolnoslaski, No. 8, 1986. 20. Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 196, January 20, 1987. September 14, 1987 • International Viewpoint
POLAND panied by setting clear and simple principles for creating and doing away with economic units, elimination of the banking monopoly and creation of the institutional bases for a capital market." 21
In this context, the concluding appeal to fight to defend wages and to protest against the attempt to force society to pay for the costs of an economic policy that was leading nowhere could not have any impact. The Solidarnose leadership had only too clearly explained that the conditions for such actions to succeed had obviously not been assembled.
This statement was evidently the result of a compromise among different, if not opposing, political and trade-union orientations. In the spring of 1986, in an interview published by the underground journal Kultura Niezalezna, one of the main leaders of the Warsaw RKW, Wiktor Kulerski, without beating about the bush explained that there were two opposing currents in Solidarnosc. Moreover, the sharpness of the tone he took suggested that the stakes in this debate, like the differences, were serious.
### Parallel and opposing processes
In Kulerski's opinion, "circles outside the factories, the local and interenterprise coordinating bodies, the cultural and educational centers, the publishing operations and the circles of their clients have become the main centers of social activity. This has led, by the logic of things, to a growth in the activity of the social committees that operate in the arena of human and civil rights, culture, education, science, health and so on. It has also led to a growth of the clientele of these activities, if I may use this term, and to more funds being allocated to them. I might venture to say that parallel and opposing processes have appeared in regard to the union." 22
This view appears to fit the situation in the region Kulerski represents, Warsaw, but not those regions whose leaders have given priority to building trade-union activity in the factories since 1982-83, even at the price of voluntarist exertions. The attempts by the Warsaw regional leadership to build non-union opposition activities aroused discontent in many other regions. And, in this context, accusations were not long in emerging about the peculiar conceptions the Warsaw leaders were supposed to have about sharing out the aid received from foreign union confederations. This happened first in private conversations, 22 and then increasingly they came out into the open. International Viewpoint • September 14, 1987
This is witnessed by a statement attributed to the TKK (which Kulerski says came from a leader and not from the body itself, which was published the New York Polish paper Nowy Dziennik: "The TKK calls on donors, where possible, not to make suggestions about the specific use of various contributions. This will help prevent a chaotic allocation of donor's funds to Solidarnoso's various spheres of activity." 23
According to Kulerski, there have been two lines in Solidarnosc about the form of the movement from the outset. He describes them in the following way (since he is the principal author of one of them, what he says about the opposing line cannot be taken as a faithful representation):
"One of them is the orientation giving priority to the independent self-managed union Solidarnosc, which is seen as a hierarchical, centralized and monopolist structure, which at most might have offshoots in the form of agencies, ad hoc commissions, etc. and marginal groups that cannot be integrated in any way....Among the champions of this orientation, I see some national leaders in recent years, such as those coming from Wroclaw and Szczecin, and also the leaders in Brussels.
"The other orientation is the one that gives priority to the social movement Solidarnosc, organized as an independent, pluralist and decentralized society made up of very different independent, self-managed structures united by the common ideals of Solidarnose and by common goals, such as democracy and independence. In this view, Solidarnosc occupies only one place, a very important one, perhaps essential, but still only one place in the movement as a whole....
"On the national map of Solidarnosc, the Warsaw region is the center that has the greatest potential. Warsaw is the biggest city, the most important concentration of the intelligentsia, the most vital center of political and social thought, the place that has the greatest possibility for foreign contacts, the largest number of independent publishing houses and journals, the greatest diversity of independent structures.
"It was more or less in the nature of things that it was here that the idea would germinate and take root of a pluralist Solidarnosc movement that has made it possible to develop this potential to the extent that this is possible today...It is a humanist conception. Perhaps for the activists of a more paternalist — not to say authoritarian -tendency, trained in the communist system, such a conception is mildly revolting. Maybe it is because it robs them of the feeling that they are in control of the situation that they see a danger in it. Maybe something manifests itself in them that might be called their ego. Whatever it may be, it has to be admitted that at the level of the national leadership of Solidarnosc there is a difference of opinion over the structure of Solidarnosc.
"Do we need a pluralist
Solidarnosc?"
"Do we have to have a hierarchical, centralized Solidarnosc and then for a long, long time nothing, and finally insignificant marginal groups? Or rather do we need a pluralist Solidarnosc movement, one of whose components — an essential one — is the union Solidarnosc...?
"Today the Warsaw region remains an avowed champion of the real — not just verbal - pluralism of the Solidarnosc movement. That is, of total independence, not only for our union, but for all the other structures. (I am thinking here of the social committees, the operations for publishing books, sound casettes and video casettes, of journalists, but also of others). In practice, but without saying so, the representatives of two other regions in the TKK - those of Wroclaw and Szczecin -21. Quoted from KOS, No. 3/111, February 8, 1987. 22. Quoted from Kultura, Paris, No. 475, April 1987. 23. Ibid.
have opposed this, and the others have an ambivalent, wavering or neutral attitude." 24 Do traur the differences er guire wit. ›, Jerzy nizewina ferent way: "Struggles and debates in leading groups are natural and normal. But those that go on for months and months exceed this 'norm.' Sadly it has to be recognized that we are faced with a phenomena typical of groups isolated from society, typical of an organization that has lost sight of its goal, which has lost sight of its longterm idea....
"It seems that in September our leaders regained hope in a new "relaxation' by the regime, in a new formal 'accord,' that they wanted to get in tune with the situation that would follow this 'accord.'
"An analysis of the statements, of the positions of our leaders, of the interviews that they have given, of the 'corrections' that have been made, leads to very interesting conclusions about who these declarations are addressed to. This is, first of all, a discussion, or more accurately, a struggle among the leaders themselves.
"Secondly, there is an attempt to start a dialogue with those on the other side. The theory of 'an accord without an accord' [an allusion to the positions taken by the Warsaw leaders — Jacek Kuron in particular], the successive attempts to define a social compromise and so on are, in reality, a dialogue with the regime in which the social base of Solidarnosc is not participating, because it is preoccupied with quite different problems....
"Our leaders, including the experts of the intellectual circles, have begun to look for a "lesser evil' formula. On that ground, we cannot win the slightest success, as long as we are incapable of defending the living standards of workers, retired people, nurses, school teachers.
"In fact, on this question precisely the obliging economists have slipped us the notion that the evil — that is, the impoverishment of people - is protecting against a still greater evil, the collapse of the economy. And we had begun to forget that this economy was supposed to be for people; we had forgotten what was said clearly in August 1980. Confrontation was imposed on us. The discussion is continuing around the question of how to transform a situation of confrontation into one of compromise. The problem is that compromise can only be the result of confrontation, it cannot replace it." 25
Because they reduce the union Solidarnose to one element among many, the "pluralist" positions upheld by the Warsaw leaders leave room for the dangers that Krzewina pointed to. They lead to forgetting that the power that enabled the Solidarnosc movement to emerge was the struggle of the Polish working class, which began around material demands and the defence of the dignity of the working people.
On the other hand, the positions held by the regional leaderships of Lower Silesia and Szczecin, even though they are not exempt from all sorts of confusion, can enable Solidarnosc to regain ground because they are based on the spontaneous demands of workers. By the same token these positions can also help to achieve the necessary — even if not sufficient - conditions for the survival of Solidarnosc and the various components of the social movement that have emerged in recent years.
Confusion of ideological positions
However, while it is impossible today to assess the relative strength of the main currents that have appeared in the Solidarnosc leadership, it has to be recognized that the positions supported by the Warsaw leaders seem to predominate. This assessment is based on the documents that have been made public recently in the name of various national structures of the movement, which are clearly the result of compromises.
This may be owing to the relative weakness of the champions of the "trade-unionist" line (Wroclaw and Szczecin), as well as to the confusion of their ideological positions. In fact, beyond their insistence on the need to concentrate efforts on workers' material demands and their declared desire to center the structure of the union around factory union commissions, the "trade-unionists" have not produced more general programmatic documents.
The document entitled "The position of the Solidarnosc union on the situation and the avenues of transforming the Polish economy" — which was made public on April 9, 1987, by the national spokesperson of Solidarosc, Janusz Onyszkiewicz — sums up the positions of this current on economic reform. The conclusion states:
"We demand a deep-going reform, one that will introduce equality of all sectors of ownership and reject dogmas; a reform that will limit the role and function of the state in the economy, giving the fundamental role to market mechanisms; a reform that will achieve a decisive democratization of economic life and which, through the growth of self-management and stock ownership by workers, will aid the process of the socialization of economic life....
'This is a vision of hard work and saving, but for yourself and with a per-
POLAND spective for improvement. The major part of the national patrimony has to be at the disposal of socio-economic associations, self-management structures, cooperatives, various mixed companies, and private initiative should have extensive possibilities for development.
"This is a vision of an economy capable of innovation and taking risks, in which the interests of workers and weak social groups will be protected by independent unions and by a rational social policy, conducted by the state and by various social institutions.
"The only possibility for real and consistent implementation of reform is a strong social pressure, a courageous and determined policy by the regime, and the development of broad popular support for the reform. The longer this is delayed, the greater will be the cost and the more difficult the reform....
"Our proposals are based on the achievements of contemporary economic science and in accordance with the Church's social doctrine. They also express the feelings of the great majority of society....
"At its congress in Gdansk in 1981, Solidarnosc declared itself in favor of a social pact around reform in order to get the economy out of crisis. We repeat these words today, despite everything....This is a chance for the regime, but it also demands that it have a sense of responsibility, courage and imagination. In view of the dangers that threaten us, in order to avert the coming catastrophe, everyone must put the supreme interest of the country and of the nation first." 26
The difference of approach from the economic and social proposals Solidarnosc adopted in October 1981 is noticeable. In 1981 it called for "associating the plan, the market and self-management," paid little attention to the private sector (except in agriculture) and put self-management at the center of its demands, for which it demanded a national representative body (a "second house of parliament") endowed with legislative powers.
The new document, on the other hand, puts self-management on the same level as stock ownership by the workers, and presents a vision of "socialization of the economy" in which group and individual ownership would predominate.
This document has been subjected to biting criticism by the economist Ryszard Bugaj, who was one of the main authors of the economic part of the union's program in 1981. He writes: "The main impression you cannot help get24. Ibid. 25. KOS, No. 3/111, February 8, 1987. 26. Quoted from Solidarnosc — Biuletyn Informacyj- 23 ny, Paris, Nos. 169/170/171, July 8, 1987. September 14, 1987 • International Viewpoint
POLAND /FI NEWS ting after reading the 'Theses on the Second Stage of the Reform' presented by the government, and the 'Position of the Solidarnosc union on the situation and the avenues of transforming the Polish economy', is one of a very clear coming together of the conceptions of both parties. This concerns above all the establishment of market mechanisms in the economy…...A certain meeting of ideas has taken place on the question of workers' self-management.
"In the government's 'Theses,' you no longer find generous — even general - statements about this similar to those contained in the 'Orientations of the Reform' in 1981. The present document reveals the strategy of a slow retreat, the disappearance of certain elements of self-managing controls. Solidarnosc, for its part, has taken a much less determined stand on self-management than in the resolution of its congress....
"The most disturbing thing is the question of social protection. I do not share the optimism of the two documents as regards the results of a radical 'marketization' of the Polish economy....In the 'Position of Solidarnosc,' you find nothing on this but the sliding scale. If it were not for the stamp 'NSZZ Solidarosc,' no reader would imagine that this was the position of a union.... A departure from the spirit of the 1981 reform
"To sum up, I think that from both sides we are seeing an evolution that represents a departure from the spirit of the 1981 reform. The new conception is much more one-sided. It puts the stress on the market and private property, on individual competition, increasing material differences. It favors absolute economic constraint to the detriment of social cooperation....
"In my opinion, this evolution is more in the way of thinking of the elites than of the social base. It does not leave much chance for reform. Every compromise in this framework will be fragile, if it is not accepted by the main social groups. You can see looming up the dramatic problem of the renewal of the social mandate of the Solidarnosc structures. Until this is done, documents such as the 'Position of Solidarnosc' will reflect the opinions of elite groups selected more or less by chance." 27
These debates in Solidarnosc testify to the latent identity crisis that the movement has been going through for years, and also reflect an essential preoccupation of the Polish workers. 24 27. Tygodnik Mazowsze, No. 212, May 20, 1987. International Viewpoint • September 14, 1987
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