Mass Workers Movement Reorganises in Poland
Three months after the military crackdown tory floors is for such actions. These rein Poland, it is clear not only that the mass workers movement has not been crushed but that it is reorganizing.
Peter Jonsson, Polish correspondent of the Swedish magazine ETC reports in a recent issue (No. 3): "Solidarnosc has been able to reestablish functioning organizations in the factories and on the regional level.
"That is also true in such regions as Lodz and Lublin, where the organization was broken up last December.
"Today, there are 1,700 underground bulletins being published in the country....
"Cells have been set up in the big factories in the Warsaw region--FSO, URSUS, the Rosa Luxemburg works, and Huta Warszawa. Most of these cells have their own printing apparatus and publish their own information bulletin....
"For about a month now, the Warsaw regional leadership has also been publishing a bulletin, Tygodnik Mazowsze.
Jonsson wrote that the regional Solidarnosc leaderships were discussing the possibilities for launching extensive strikes.
"According to the information that ETC has got from Poland, the mood on the facports are substantiated by the solid support for limited strikes that have taken place around the country. In Warsaw, there was a ten-minute strike in the big FSO automotive plant against the price rises.
One of the underground bulletins, Informacja Solidarnosci regionu Mazowsze published a confidential government report in its February 12 issue. Among other things, the document said: "In the Czerwone Zagletie mine in Sosnowiec, about 115 leaflets inciting to revolt have been distributed in which such things as the following can be read:
"'After the black night of terror, a day will dawn, made bright by the power of Solidarity....Citizens, do not let yourselves be intimidated. Lift your heads and you will see that thousands of trade unionists are waging a new battle for a free and
In the March 22 issue of our sister publication, the French-language Inprecor Cyril Smuga writes:
"In four regions, Gdansk, Cracow, Warsaw, and Wroclaw, regional Solidarnosc leaderships have been reconstituted, made up of leaders who escaped arrest. "
Smuga quotes the February 12 issue of Informacja Solidarnosci regionu Mazowsze which says: "We see a tumultous development throughout the country of Social Resistance Circles (Kola Oporu Spolecznego--KOS), each made up of five people. Every member of a KOS forms a new KOS, a clandestine resistance circle that circulates the press, collects and spreads information, and organizes mutual aid and
On January 29, Solidarnosc called a strike in Wroclaw that stopped work briefly in most of the factories in the city. Informacja Solidarnosci (No. 21, February 2) published an account by an eye-witness in the DOLMEL factory:
"The action was very well received among the workers. This was not an open protest, but the people did not work, and the management and the guards were afraid. Since January 28, there has been a certain nervousness in the factories. Everybody had gotten a leaflet. This was a great satisfaction to the people. They had overcome fear; the action restored people's courage and the links among them.
Tens of Thousands of Jewish Youth in Tel Aviv
March Against Zionist War and Oppression
Is the Zionist monolith cracking? The Begin government's policy of mass repression is provoking unprecedented reactions inside the Jewish population of Israel. The activity of the Committee for Solidarity with Bir-Zeit, the Palestinian university on the West Bank closed by Israeli government officials, is a good example of this. Hundreds of activists have been mobilized by the Committee and its activities have had a wide impact in university and intellectual THERE circies.
The most significant expression of these changes in the Israeli Jewish population was the massive March 27 protest in Tel Aviv. Between thirty and forty thousand persons demonstrated their opposition to the repression in the occupied territories. A good indication of the mood of the crowd can be gauged from the fact that the Committee for Solidarity with Bir-Zeit sold some 6,000 buttons of the Committee, which carry the colors of the strictly illegal Palestinian flag, something which would have been unthinkable a few years back.
Maia Edri, a leader of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR, Israeli section of the Fourth International), discusses the current situation in the interview below. The LCR is popularly known by the name of its newspaper, Matzpen.
This interview was given to Fernando Zamora in Paris on April 5. The transcript has been translated and edited by IV
Question. In what political context did the recent demonstrations over repression in the West Bank Arab communities arise?
Answer. There is a very deep political crisis in Israel today. Basically, it reflects the inability of the Israeli bourgeoisie to continue to maintain the principal imperialist fortress in the Middle East, and to crush the Palestinian people as an organized political entity, as was called for by the Camp David Accords.
This political crisis combines with an economic one. Israeli capitalism is unable to offer the people security, either physical or economic.
While it is true that we have entered a period of worldwide capitalist crisis in general, in Israel this crisis assumes particularly acute forms, because 60% of the national budget goes for the military. That is, the political needs of Israeli capitalism make it impossible to achieve lasting economic stability.
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March 27 Demonstration in Tel Aviv. (DR)