Post-election truce?
by Jan Malewski
THE ELECTION OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
IC WHESH
30 00 FOC
(post-Communist) candidate Aleksander
Kwasniewski as President of Poland closes a chapter in Polish history. It is the mark of popular deception with politicians from the
Solidarnosc (Solidarity) movement. And of
ЗЕЛА * ОРІА people's rejection of neo-liberal policies for
POLSKI the restoration of capitalism. But the paradox is that Kwasniewski is committed to pursuing just such policies. His election leaves the field free for those who lead the struggle against the phantoms of the
Stalinist past to try to mobilise those who pay the price of neo-liberalism. Outgoing
President Lech Walesa has opted for a strategy of de-stabilisation. Before leaving office, he primed a number of time bombs...
Supporters of former President Lech Walesa gather signatures for the overturning of the election of ex-Communist
Poland in 1996 is a country transformed. In
Aleksander Kwasniewski.
1080 the richest 20 of households had an
1989 the richest 20% of households had an Aleksander Kwasniew average income 3.5 times higher than the poorest 20%. The ratio in 1995 was 1:5. Back in 1989, apart from a small private sector and the top circles of the bureaucracy, higher incomes were grouped in certain economic sectors, and some regions of the country. These differences have disappeared. Today the differentiation reflects something closer to the social structure of an underdeveloped capitalist country. Entrepreneurs are the richest, followed by the liberal professions, followed by workers and pensioners. Farmers and the unemployed come at the bottom of the income ladder. 1 Fifteen percent of the labour force is out of work, a slight improvement on recent years. Ownership of the means of production has also changed. By the end of 1994 54% of GDP was being produced in the private sector, which employed 61% of the work force. 2 Not including the "grey" economy, which employs between 1/4 and 1/3 of the real work force, and produces 20-30% of GDP. 3 In 1989 there were 8,400 state enterprises. By July 1995 1,596 had been privatised, and privatisation was formally under way in a further 3,297. The rhythm had slowed in 1994, but increased in 1995. In 1989 most of Poland's trade was with the Soviet Union and the East European countries. Today, the European Union is the source of 64.4% of Poland's imports and absorbs 71.2% of the country s exports. The Polish currency, the Zloty, is now convertible inside the country. The exchange rate against foreign currencies is fixed by the market, and is relatively stable, despite high inflation (estimated at 26% in 1995). This stability is the result of a financial surplus in Poland's current account 16 January 1995 dealings with the West. 5 The National Bank's status makes it independent of government (and the Bank's president even intervened in the election campaign). Political officers in the Polish army have been replaced by Catholic chaplains. The officer corps is pro-NATO, and hopes the country will soon join the alliance. The General Staff campaigned for Walesa during the election. The police, particularly the political police, has been restructured. The directors of the new Office for the Protection of the State (OUP) have made declarations of loyalty to the new state. To Walesa. ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI DOES NOT PLAN TO REVERSE THESE changes. He is an apparatchik of the 1970s generation. One of those who helped reorient the old order towards the market economy in the 1980s. Kwasniewski is no old Stalinist. Nor is he a Communist militant. His electoral programme was spectacularly similar to that of Jacek Kuron, a neo-liberal candidate from the Solidarnosc movement. Like Kuron, Kwasniewski is in favour of the rapid social transformation which is under way, for Poland's integration into NATO and the European Union. Kwasniewski's party colleagues have been in government for two years, so there are plenty of examples of their "true nature". As Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy comments, "Poland is a land of paradoxes: a centre-left government with postCommunists like me is introducing the market economy,
while the trade unions, like Solidarnosc, which toppled Communism, put forward populist slogans. 6 Kwasniewski benefited from the record of two years of Social Democratic government, in which his party, while not deviating too much from the policies of its right-wing predecessors, was better than they had been in managing social tensions. The rapid growth of the Polish economy, after a deep crisis and savage restructuring of industry, gave the new government more room for manoeuvre than their predecessors had enjoyed. Real salaries rose 2.8% in 1995 (the first such year since 1989). Unemployment fell (-1.5%). GDP is estimated to have risen 6-7%, industrial production 10.8% and investments 20%. The budget deficit is lower than in 1994. [..] The incumbent president Lech Walesa launched his campaign with a virulent anti-communist campaign, and allied himself with the conservative, populist current in Polish politics. He was even willing to challenge or block the Social Democrat's privatisation drive, imposing a
The Agrarian Party (PSL) is torn between its clientelist tradition (it was a puppet party under the Stalinist regime), its opposition to the capitalist restructuring of the countryside, and the Catholicism of its supporters. The PSL has 29% of deputies, which makes it the second largest party in the parliament. If it joins the opposition, it would de-stabilise any Social Democrat government. A DIFFICULT YEAR This year will see referendums on the 'coupon' privatisation and on a new Constitution. Kwasniewski is committed to liberalising the law on abortion. The Social Democratic government has promised to increase the speed of privatisation in 1996, particularly in the key sectors of heavy industry, and the banking sector. Solidarnosc's own bastions of support are in Poland's iron, chemical and petrochemical plants.
referendum on their 'coupon' privatisation programme for February 1996. Walesa demanded civic and judicial sanctions against members of the former ruling Communist party (several million persons). His current received more votes in this presidential election than in the general election of 1993. This has reinforced his position within the conservative, populist bloc, which has developed round the Solidarnosc trade union and the non-parliamentary right. Some leading bishops have virtually declared war on the new president. The Abbot of Czestochowa, a symbol of Polish nationalism during the years of partition and subjugation to foreign powers, has ceremonially closed his doors to Kwasniewski, as his predecessors did during the 17th century invasion of Poland by the Swedes. Poland is now polarised between two political camps: a neo-liberal bloc dominated by Kwasniewski's "postCommunist" social democrats, and an anti-Communist, traditionalist bloc, dominated by Solidarnos and supported by the Church. Neither of these camps represents a social polarisation: the working class, the entrepreneur group and the peasants are divided in their support for the two blocks. In many enterprises each bloc is represented by a different trade union. trade union. Lech Walesa and the leaders of Solidarnosc seem to want to develop this polarisation into a "cold war". This would oblige the Agrarian Party and the Union of Labour (the left-wing from Solidarnosc) to choose their camp or split into fragments. Both these parties did much worse in the Presidential elections than they had done in 1993.
1001 petronentucal Plants.
new called "The intellectual flagship of the Western Left' (The Guardian) NIR 212 Colin Leys A RADICAL AGENDA FOR BRITAIN?; Nancy Fraser RECOGNITION AND REDISTRIBUTION; Michael Mann CLASS POLITICS IN THE 20th CENTURY; Manuel Riesco GLORY TO THE JACOBINS; Paul Buhle HOLLYWOOD AND LEFT AESTHETICS; Merryn Williams THE PROPHET OF KELMSCOTT; Gavin Bowd FRANCE: LA FRACTURE SOCIALE; Jon Wiener NIXON IN HYPERTEXT; IRELAND AND THE BRITISH LEFT. SOME RECENT OUTSTANDING ARTICLES NLR 211 JULIAN STALLABRASS, Cyberhype and Utopia; ANDREw GLYn, Tackling Unemployment; JoHN RoEMEr, The Economics of Equality; NLR 210 W. G. RUNCIMAN, The Triumph' of Capitalism; CECIle JAckson, Myths of Eco-feminism; NLR 209 FREDRIC JAMESON, Derrida's Marx; STUART HaLl., Caribbean Identities; RICHARD WALKER, California Rages Against the Dying of the Light; ELIZABETH WIsoN, The City in Rhetoric; NLR 208 CARLo GINZBUrG, Morality and Distance; CATHErINE HALl., Imperial Citizenship; ROBERTO UNGER/Cur, China in the Russian Mirror; NIR 207 G. A. CoHen, Labour and Social Justice; ROBERT FITCH, New York's Kuin; SABINA LOVIBOND, Keminist Keasoning, NLK 206 ERIC HOBSBAWM, Barbarism: A User's Guide; FRANco MoreTTI, A Historical Atlas of European Literature. Forthcoming MICHAEL MANN, GORAN THERBORN, TOM NAIRN, on Age of Extremes
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17
International Viewpoint n° 273
* Poland
Walesa profited from his last two weeks in office to place a few time-bombs for his successor. He convinced the
Constitutional Tribunal to annul the June 1995 law on privatisation. Then he submitted the law on taxation to the same tribunal. This made it impossible to implement a law on state finances for 1996.
Since the elections, Walesa's support committees, together with Solidarnosc, have collected over 600,000 signatures demanding the cancelling of Kwasniewski's election, on the grounds that he mis-represented his educational record. 7
Finally, Walesa produced from his sleeve a dossier accusing
Prime Minister and Social Democrat leader Jozef Oleksy of having, until very recently, collaborated with the Russian secret services.
WALESA AND HIS GENERALS
Years of conflict between President Walesa and the parliamentary majority allowed the military hierarchy to gain a level of autonomy incompatible with a democratic
I WALSA state. In March 1995, the General
Staff was able to force the resignation of the Minister of
Defence. In June, the army's newspaper published an article presenting the left as the enemy of
This summer, the army.
representatives of the General Staff joined Walesa's election campaign.
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General Wilecki repeatedly condemns the "politicos" who are leading Poland to ruin. The general is rumoured to have ambitions beyond the purely military... Until now, the civil power in Poland has always ceded to pressure from the military. The conflict between "the street", , mobilised by the populist and reactionary slogans of Solidarnosc, and "the institutions" managed by the Social Democrats risks to de-stabilise the institutions. The parliamentary character of the young Polish democracy risks to suffer. The General Staff may even open the way for a Bonapartist solution. * notes 1. Danuta Zagrodzka, Gazeta Wyborcza, 16-17 July 1995. 2. Central Planing Office (CUP) report, cited in Gazeta Wyborcza, 31 July 1995. 3. "Grey" meaning here not registered for taxation, particularly for Value Added Tax (a sales tax). See Danuta Zagrodzka, Gazeta Wyborcza, 16-17 July 1995. 4. Due to heavy spending by residents of Germany at the numerous "grey" bazaars. The official balance of payments is in deficit. 5. Gazeta Wyborcza, 13 July 1995. 6. See this author's article in International Viewpoint #251, December 1993 7. After five years study at Gdansk University, Kwasniewski left before defending his degree.
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