Polish workers defy
May Day -
Jaruzelski
Jacqueline ALLIO Hundreds of thousands of Polish workers took to the streets on May 1 in response to the call from the clandestine national leadership of Solidarnosc. The response showed that Solidarnose remains alive; 40,000 in Nowa Huta, 15,000 in Warsaw, tens of thousands in Wroclaw, Szczecin, Cracow and other towns in the country.
Who could believe the official press in their oft-repeated statements that these 'counter-demonstrators' numbered no more than 40,000 in some twenty towns when they could catch glimpses of this tightly packed crowd? Perhaps they were afraid, but they were decided to show their rejection of the bureaucratic regime, and — young workers and dignified old ladies shoulder to shoulder - to confront the hordes of ZOMO helmeted and armed to the teeth.
In Warsaw the crowd defied the mounted police to obey the orders of their commanders to act more forcefully'. In Cracow the demonstrators penetrated into the ranks of the official demonstration and marched in front of the platform where uniformed and civil bureaucrats stood side by side, shouting, Poland is us, come with us.' In Nowa Huta the ZOMO were charged and put to flight.
There is no doubt of Solidarnose's success. Particularly since to participate in a demonstration called by the TKK (clandestine leadership), or even to find oneself on the fringes of a clandestine gathering', runs the risk, as everyone knows, of police control. And thus, in this country where the state is also the employer, the risk of finding oneself the following day without work and listed as an 'anti-social element'. However, this did not prevent hundreds of thousands of Poles from braving the threats of the regime, who had announced that they "would not hesitate to use force, and disregarding the exhortations of the Catholic hierarchy.
THE DEFEAT OF THE EPISCOPATE
The complete failure of the manoeuvres of Cardinal Glemp is patently obvious. Having appealed at the end of March for no demonstrations, he had to back down given the combativity that was shown in the factories. A week before May Day he recognised the legitimacy of the call by the TKK for May 1, and explicitly contradicted his earlier statements by saying, "The workers movement has its own way of celebrating its festival; we have never defined how it should be done..'
This turnabout demonstrates that the regime's attempt to rest on the support of the Church in attempting to get 'normalisation' accepted has once again failed. vented the workers from making it clear to the primate that, banned or not, Solidarnosc is a full actor on the political scene. journalists who have just 'rediscovered' the underground union, the pope appears to have understood this. trated by his warning authorities that he would have to take up the question of the political prisoners in his sermons if they were not released before his arrival.
The prospect of this visit - although nothing today assures that it will in fact take place - certainly represents an important opportunity, both for the regime and for the clandestine movement. But it is not the only one, far from it.
The violence of the confrontations which took place on May 1 at Nowa Huta (which resulted in one death that exists in the ranks of the working class. This is a factory town, built around trial complex in the country with 40,000 chato be to be speci ed, this demonstration had a massively working class character.
But what was most striking was the determination of the demonstrators, old and young, to do battle with the forces of order. They were obviously prepared, and did not intend to disperse after the first jet of coloured water from the water cannons. Their slogans, such as 'Down with the regime, explicitly showed their anger with the repressive policies of the regime, and with the worsening economic situation which is bringing poverty to growing layers of the working class.
Solidarnose demonstrator May 1 (DR)
For the moment, however, the regime remains well in place. It still has absolute control over the army and the police.
It was even able to organise an imposing march in the capital, which it was unable to do last year, by requisitioning workers and children in a sixty kilometre radius, and massively mobilising the military.
The fact that the workers at Nowa Huta were not content with simple skirmishing, but attacked the bureaucratic regime so openly by charging the ZOMO, demonstrates the importance of what answer will emerge to the debate that has gone on in the clandestine movement for months.
To patiently build a clandestine society based on parallel cultural and social institutions, hoping that time, and the breadth of such a movement, would force the regime to sit down at the negotiating
Or to prepare for a confrontation that the outbreaks of anger by the working class render inevitable? That is: to prepare the general strike by systematically reorganising the trade-union structures in the factory, by a propaganda offensive directed at the army and militia, and by setting up organs of self-defence, able to stand up to the forces of repression?
The leadership of Solidarnosc in Lower Silesia has chosen the latter course. The Nowa Huta workers seem to have opted for this as well. Such a perspective could rapidly win a big audience. As Lech Walesa himself has recognised -wellknown for his caution though he is -"people are saying more and more often that we have to fight with the same weapons as are used against us?