Solidarnosc after the failure of the
10 November general strike
Jacqueline ALLIO
As far as the economic situation goes, the figures speak for themselves. Month after month production has continued to decline. The report released by the Central
Statistical Bureau for 1982 shows that by comparison with 1981, which can hardly be called a "good year"! — the decline in production varied between 7% and 14% for the first six months of 1982. And it is known that it fell still further after that.
Even in the coal industry, where the government strove to achieve an increase in production, the results were far from brilliant. To be sure, in May 1982, the official press could proclaim that production had risen by 23.3% with respect to May 1981. But a comparison with May 1980, before the explosion of the August strikes, shows a decline of 27.7%.
A Solidarnose economist pointed out: "Despite the enormous material, moral and political costs it occasioned, the declaration of the state of war did not aid in any way in solving the problems of the Polish economy, that is, in relieving the pressure of the foreign debt, the starving of the economy by lack of raw materials, inflation, the agricultural crisis... "(1)
The "operational programs" that were drawn up to assure that certain limited priorities in production would be met have now become a whole system of management in themselves. Most directors of big enterprises were able by the usual methods - bribes and interbureaucratic factional battles - to get themselves put on the priority lists.
AN EVEN MORE DISTORTED ECONOMY
As for the special contracts made with the Kremlin in a series of industries such as textiles, the implications they will have cannot be foreseen. In order to make up for the lack of raw materials, it was decided that certain enterprises that were in danger of having to shut down would henceforth work directly for the Soviet market. They were to ship 85% to 90% of their production to the USSR after using raw materials received from the USSR.
Since only a tenth of the production in such industries reaches the Polish market, when the workers get the same wage as other Polish workers, even if this is low, such an arrangement is obviously going to be a factor creating inflation.
The system of privileges accorded to the army and the police forces, moreover, has a not inconsiderable disruptive effect on the domestic market. A worker at the
Polar factory in Wroclaw revealed that in
1,153 washing machines and 589 refrigerators - extremely scarce items on the Polish market - were delivered to the military distribution net-
Such an economic orientation obviously has to be carried out at the expense of the poorest sections of the working people, as is confirmed both by the fragmentary information given by the official press and the analyses that have appeared in the underground bulletins:
"In such a severe crisis - with a 40% drop in the standard of living and pauperization of broad layers of the society -the promises of productivity bonuses' without a general increase in wages means in fact that the poor will get still poorer and the rich still richer."(2)
How could an economic reform get anywhere in such conditions?
It is because they have doubts about this - and not because they have any concern whatever about the Polish workers - that the capitalists are reluctant to grant new credits to Poland. If the Western banks finally agreed to make new loans to the Polish junta, on condition that the repressive measures are rescinded ... by August 1983, this is more because of the threat a Polish default would represent for the international financial world than out of any hope that the Polish bureaucracy can restore a minimum of "order" in the economy.
NO END IN SIGHT TO THE "DISORDER"
The problem of the bureaucrat-generrals is how to overcome what they call disorder. What they mean by this is the continued unrest reflected in constantly occurring strikes, even though these have often been isolated and subjected to severe repression; innumerable street demonstrations, both violent clashes involving relatively small groups and impressive mobilizations of several thousand persons; and various sorts of demonstrations of massive opposition to the military junta.
How can the junta boast that it has re-established order when hundreds of periodicals continue to appear, testifying to the breadth of the resistance movement? How can it claim that it has silenced the enemy when clanbroadcasts are continuing and growing more numerous, despite the seizures of radio transmitters that have announced with a great furor on How can the junta hope that it has gotten the support of the privileged layers when the actors and the stage managers are continuing the systematic boycott of the TV that they started in the wake of the December 13 crackdown? This sort of protest, which few people expected to last more than a few weeks, should be pointed out. Not only does it involve very serious material loss for those conducting it but it shows that the junta has not succeeded in breaking the alliance between the workers and the intellectuals that was one of the bulwarks of the Polish revolution following the August 1980 strikes
MASSIVE BOYCOTT OF THE BUREAUCRACY'S "UNIONS"
How, moreover, can the military claim to dominate the situation when the new unions that they set up to replace Solidarnosc are being massively boycotted by the working class? Not even bribery has been successful. For exampie, the Polish railroads offered a wage increase and a six week vacation in a socialist country of your choice to anyone who would agree to join the organizing committees for the new unions. They got hardly any takers. So far only 3% of the 40,000 enterprises in the country have been able to get together the 15 candidates required to set up an organizing committee.
In this context, one can understand the cynical tone openly adopted by the minister of social affairs in an interview about the impact of the trade-union law on public opinion. "It produced a postoperative shock that has still not worn off. People are bitter, full of resentment, distrustful, cautious, and fearful of being ostracized by others... Building the new unions will take at least two to three years." (4)
The restoration of order on the trade union front is not going any better than it is in the economy. (1). KOS, No. 17, in Bulletin d'Information de Solidarnosc, Paris, November 1982 (2). Nas Czas, No. 3, October 4, 1982 (3). A study that is far from being exhaustive indicates such broadcasts took place regularly from April to October in at least six cities. (4). S. Ciosek's interview in Polityka (cited in Le Monde of January 7, 1982.)
3
### TOWARD A NATIONAL
UNDERSTANDING?
What progress has been made, then, toward achieving a "national understanding"? According to the underground press more than 5,000 political prisoners have been sentenced to long terms, from three to ten years. Another 5,000 are awaiting trial. That is quite a lot of victims for a government that boasts of being the champion of national harmony.
Since the regime has no carrots to offer, it is using the stick. This is the meaning of the moves that are being made on the eve of the lifting of the state of siege to grant the government special powers enabling it to proclaim a state of emergency if necessary. This is also the meaning of the fact that the "operational Defiant show of support for Solidarnosc. (DR). groups" that were set up last year in preparation for the declaration of martial law are being stationed in the Polish countryside.
By this means, the junta hopes to subdue the most refractory spirits. Whether it will be able to do that is another matter. One of the lessons of the past year is that the workers are not letting themselves be intimidated easily. Despite the repression and the thousands of firings, it cannot be said that the rebellious mood of the Polish workers has receded notably.
fact that the regime is deeply divided over what attitude to take to Solidarnose makes the perspective "national accord" still more remote. It would be possible to think that this might be no more than the usual sort of factional wrangle in the Polish CP, if the party itself were not in a totally dilapidated state.
have a choice between being fired, going to jail, or joining the Party, workers caught drunk or been told at the public transport depot in Poznan. "If you are in debt, join the Young Socialists and we will wipe it out," the chairman of the CP youth organization promised in Bialystock. 4 meet very often ... We don't care what your views are, the only thing that matters is your presence."(5)
As a Gdansk worker said, "the situation is difficult, we lack perspectives. But these gents who rule us have even less."
A STAB IN THE BACK BY THE
CATHOLIC HIERARCHY
In this situation, the workers clearly perceived the Catholic hierarchy's appeal to them on the eve of the planned action not to go on strike on November 10, as the result of a deal by the church with the regime at the expense of the resistance movement. "He dropped us, " many underground Solidarnose workers leaders said about Monsignor Glemp, the primate of Poland.
The question is rather whether Montheir determination to stand firm in defense of the workers' interests.
Some of the activists, the more cleareyed ones, moreover did not expect anything more from the primate: "Maybe his excellency thinks that if he is humble the regime will be generous towards the church. But that is a naive approach."(6)
Another Solidarnose activist recalled the way in which in the wake of December 13 the church agreed to give up the right to have sermons given at mass every Sunday broadcast over the mass media, "thereby making the job of the Polish authorities easier." He also noted the compromise made on the Pope's visit. He went on to accuse the church outright of having "collaborated with the propaganda of People's Poland" and "showing a haste worthy of frightened and naive loyalists." This attitude, he said, suggested "a continuation of a certain tradition of the Polish church that has not always been inspiring."(7)
It is obvious that the Catholic hierarchy is watching out for its own interests and embraces the mass movement only to the extent that it fears losing credibility if it does not. A movement as powerful as Solidarnosc was before Jaruzelski's crackdown represented more of a threat than an ally for the church. But the church had no alternative but to support its demands.
The difficulties the resistance movement is experiencing now have made it possible for the church to reassume its own independent role and to try to operate as an arbiter in the struggle between the workers and the bureaucracy, seeking a compromise with the bureaucrats.
The hierarchy's desire to escape the direct pressure of the masses - and the criticisms that are being expressed for the first time in such a forthright way - was expressed for example in the proposal that Monsignor Glemp made recently in a sermon. He said that "there should be Catholics in the municipal councils, in the provincial councils, in the ministries, and in parliament." Catholics in these bodies would serve as a buffer, leaving more freedom for maneuver to the princes of the church.
It would be wrong, suggest that all the priests embrace the views of their superiors. There are many stories of arrests and roughing up of priests who support the actions of the underground union. And it has become impossible to keep track of the number removed from their churches Catholic hierarchy itself because they showed too much sympathy for the views of the resistance movement.
The fact remains that in renewing its appeals for social peace as a quid pro quo for the release of Lech Walesa and permission for the Pope to visit Poland, the hierarchy showed clearly which camp it was choosing. It is clear that both the church and the bureaucracy are counting on Lech Walesa to undermine the underground opposition. "Lech Walesa's decision to enter into dialogue with the regime over the problems of achieving a national understanding... represents a disavowal of this opposition and its policy of confrontation," the French CP paper l'Humanite wrote, for example, on November 13.
What role Walesa will actually play in the period opening up remains to be seen. But whatever attitude he adopts, it would be a fundamental error to think that the position of a single person - even if he is a charismatic leader - can determine the whole future of a movement.
THE UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT
AT A CROSSROADS
The November 10, 1982, strike highlighted the problems that the union is experiencing, problems that were pointed out in a previous issue of International Viewpoint. (8) (5). The Bialystock Information Bulletin, No. (6). KOS, No. 16, in Bulletin d'Information de Solidarnose, No. 40, Paris, October 27.
Kierunki, No. 21, in Bulletin d'Information
Solidarnosc, No. 41, Paris, November 4 (8). International Viewpoint, November 15,
The following documents show that these problems are not easy ones and that it will take some time to solve them. An activist writing in a clandestine publication wrote, for example, about August 31, 1982, "In dozens of cities ... there were hardly any organizers. It was not just that they were not visible, they simply were not there."(9)
Without making such harsh judgments, many workers expressed their concern about the lightminded way, as they saw it, that the Provisional Coordinating Committee of Solidarnose (the TKK, the underground leadership) called a general strike that they did not feel they could carry out.
"Many people think that the time was badly chosen and that in the present circumstances it is too difficult to carry out an eight hour strike in a militarised enterprise. We are not criticizing the national leadership, but there is a lack of coordination." This is what a worker at the Gdansk shipyards said on the eve of the November 10 strike. But he also pointed out: "No, the workers are not afraid.
are just more distrustful and cauotherwise when for a week every worker at a key point in production had a military man on his back? But those who are so anxious to see the end of the resistance movement should not count their chiekens before they are hatched. Tens of thousands of people came into the streets in the wake of the November 10 setback itself. And just before Lech Walesa was released the Gdansk shipyard workers had started preparations to go on strike at the end of November "to make up for the
No, the outlawing of Solidarnose does not mean that it is dead. The workers no longer believe in any posibility of a national accord, and they expressed this in forceful terms after the delegalization of the union. They are not going to change minds overnight because Lech
Even if Walesa's release does arouse a lot of hopes and not inconsiderable illusions, the junta's inability to make any significant changes in the economic situation, along with the growing repression, cannot help but convince many activists that Wladyslaw Frasyniuk was right when he said just before he was arrested:
chairman of Solidarnosc for the Wroclaw and a member of the TKK has been sentenced to six years in prison.
THE TERMS OF THE
CONFRONTATION REMAIN CLEAR
The problem is then not so much the resistance movement has reached a crossroads and entered into a period of ebb. The most important question is how it is going to prepare itself for a confrontation that is inevitable, even if it is deferred. "It is an illusion to think that we can entice this regime by offering concessions without conditions. In this we are the fish and not the fishermen. It is the WRON that holds the line. As long as this does not change, no representative of Solidarnose can sign an agreement or even a capitulation. The only thing that Solidarnose representatives could sign would be a WRON list. The the negotiating table leads through a test of strength."(11)
It is necessary then, to prepare for this test of strength. The only weapon workers have for such a confrontation is
They tious."(10)
In fact, the strike call was not followed by and large. How could it have been
Gdansk Strike Committee awaits government delegation (DR).
"There is no way that self-managed unions can exist in a society that is not self-managed."
Since then, the former
— and that will remain true — the general strike. But in order to carry out one successfully, the movement first has to be capable of taking on a series of tasks. "Organization and still more organization is necessary," in order to fill the void left by inadequate or nonexistent coordinating structures. Another fundamental task facing the movement is organizing self-defence of the enterprises and work directed at the army and the police. There has been a lot of discussion about this in the underground press, but not much actual work has yet been done.
### CRISIS OF LEADERSHIP
However, the fundamental problem, one that is particularly evident since the failure of November 10, is the problem of leadership. What is needed is a collective leadership able to keep closely in touch with the reality of the underground movement and to offer programmatic perspectives and tactical methods that show the workers the road to follow.
In the coming period, the Interregional Commission to Defend Solidarnosc, which includes workers representatives from 16 regions and is working out an action program, may be able to contribute to the formation of such a leadership.
What is certain is that the underground movement more than ever needs international support. It needs this to avoid being isolated: It needs material aid. It needs support for its fight to win the release of all political prisoners, and for winning the restoration of democratic and trade union rights. It needs support to keep Solidarnose alive. (9). Bulletin d'Information de Solidarnose, No. 42, Paris. (10). Le Matin de Paris, November 11, 1982 (11). Tygodnik Mazowsze, cited in Bulletin d Information de Solidarnose, No. 28, Paris.
5
Wroclaw Radio Solidarnosc on the general strike to struggle for a republic based on self- of the strike itself.
The following is the transcript of a broadcast on November 16 by the clandestine