Dictatorship in crisis:
POLAND one of defeats for the bureaucracy. There was the successful boycott of the municipal elections farce. Then only a few months ago after the authorities had tried in vain to force the eleven leaders of Solidarnose and KOR to leave the country, they were obliged to grant an amone bloody hand washes the other nesty to political prisoners
It is evident that a whole section of the state apparatus reacted very badly to the amnesty, which Jaruzelski was counting on to demobilize and divide the resistance movement. From the time the announcement was made, the Central
"I can no longer limit my ministry to the church grounds, even though so
"people of good counsel" tell me that a real Polish priest should not go outside the affairs of his parish. I will remain among the workers as long as I can." That was how Jerzy Popieluszko explained his work. With his murder on October 19, 1984, Solidarnose lost one of the most devoted worker priests, a fervent defender of trade-union rights, the rights of workers and of citizens. He was a man who courageously denounced the violence and the lies of the bureaucratic regime.
The assassination of Jerzy Popieluszko by agents of the security police deprived Solidarnosc of a man who, since the outbreak of the August 1980 strikes, linked his fate to the cause of the exploited and oppressed
He assumed this commitment to the workers of the Warsaw steel plants by celebrating the mass for them when they occupied their work-
The way in which Popieluszko was liquidated again highlights the real nature of the regime in Poland. The political and moral responsibility for this killing falls entirely on the authorities, and in the first instance on General Jaruzelski, as Professor Edward Lipinski stressed in a letter addressed to the chief of state (1), demanding that he resign. Lipinski, now 96 years old, is a member of the Academy of Sciences and cofounder of the Workers Defense Committee (KOR).
The Polish authorities bear the responsibility for this murder, regardless of whether Captain Piotrowski's goons acted on their own or at the instigation of people higher up. Even if this attack on the mass movement was the result of the clashes between the cliques in power, it was no less a crime committed by the regime as such. What is more, the great majority of Poles have no doubt about it. Jacqueline ALLIO and Cyril SMUGA
Since the December 13, 1981 crackdown, the repressive apparatus had already committed many murders. There were the workers at the Wujek mine, dozens of participants in street demon-
Bartoszcze was murdered. (2) Like Jerzy Popieluszko, they were all victims of the same mechanisms of a regime based permanently on martial law.
There is no doubt that the latest crime was conceived of as a reprisal against the mass movement for its determined op-
Committee of the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP — the Polish CP) was literally inundated with telegrams of protest from its "base." This opposition hardened when the Solidarnose leaders released from prison were given a hero's welcome by throngs of supporters at masses celebrated in their honor.
The authorities then threatened several of these leaders with reprisals if they persisted in their public activities. In particPinior were sent back to prison for two months for taking part in the August 31, 1984, demonstration in Wroclaw and for having met with workers from the factories in that city. State of war
In fact, even if the hopes of many for a revival of open activity by Solidarnosc have not been realized, General Jaruzelski is far from having achieved his ends. And this is feeding a backlash in the state
Last September, the journal of the MRKS (Inter-enterprise Workers Committee) of Warsaw, the CDN-Glos Wolnego Robotnika, noted a growing hostility to the Jaruzelski team among the bureaucracy, with its "vanguard" more and proclaiming openly Stalinist positions. In fact, the present ruling team has
"missing."
strations killed or
A few months ago, the peasant leader Piotr
Jerzy Popieluszko by a Solidarnose poster depicting a Polish saint (DR)
my deaths
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International Viewpoint 24 December 1984 position to the bureaucracy's "normalization." In particular, this year has been never managed to bring to heel all sections of the state apparatus. ticularly true of the economic apparatus, which is more broken up than ever, divided up between cliques based in certain localities and certain industries that compete for investment funds and control of means of production.
However, this is only one aspect of the affair. Paralleling the imposition of the state of war, we have seen a series of modifications in the relations among the apparatuses. The POWP, which traditionally held supremacy, was elbowed out of first place by the military apparatus and the state bureaucracy. "In the good old days," the MRKS journal wrote, "a minister used to consult daily with 'his own' boss in the Central Committee. Now a head of a PUWP department has to apply to a minister. There was a time when Central Committee functionaries 1. Le Monde, November 7, 1984.
See International Viewpoint, No 57, July 16, 1984.
13
had direct access to ministerial offices. Today, they have to make appointments several days in advance." (3)
The members of the military apparatus have, at the same time, taken control of the Ministry of the Interior, including the political police, which also flies in the face of tradition. This does not suit the old cliques in the PUWP or the Ministry
PONDS of the Interior because it puts in question their status in the state sphere, and with it, the accruing privileges.
The failure of the normalization makes the sections of the bureaucracy that feel cheated quick to challenge the Jaruzelski team in the name of a harder line calling for a more energetic struggle against the opposition. Some of them think that they represent an alternative for the Kremlin and its mercenaries.
It is against the background of these factional struggles that a tendency has appeared for certain sections of the Ministry of the Interior to want to administer their own "justice." We saw this with the
Paris December 14, 1981: a demonstration in support of Solidarnose (DR) kidnappings committed by Solidarnosc Organizatior. (OAS), which not cover up this political crime the same perhaps by the letter addressed to him by tortured people accused of taking part in the underground work of Solidarnosc. Although the victims formally identified a member of this commando group as being a secret police agent, and although Deputy Ryszard Bohr submitted a letter signed by forty intellectuals in Torun on this subject, the investigation has dragged on fruitlessly, and the attacks of the OAS have continued.
"Communique No. 1" of the OAS denounced "the incapacity of the Jaruzelski team and its security services" to wage an effective struggle "against the cancer that is eating away at the society - a conspiracy and a lashion or opposition, against Solidarnosc. Generals Jaruzelski and Kiszczak have not been inclined to go after the bandits of the OAS. No wonder! From the standpoint of the regime as a whole, they have done good work, even if they did not bother to get an OK
According to the information given by Kiszczak in a speech on TV, it seems that Captain Piotrowski, who admitted murdering Father Popieluszko, defended himself with arguments similar to those advanced by the OAS in its leaflets. minister of the interior has even said that he suspects that "some powerful figure" is hiding behind the murderers and that he has taken special security measures to make sure that they are not liquidated in their cells. (4)
All of this may only be a smokescreen. The essential thing, however, is that the leading team has been obliged to admit that the assassins belonged to the state apparatus, thereby revealing the deep
"An Eastern Bloc regime has turned on its own political police under popular pressure, Solidarnosc activist said. "And a regime that turns on its police is simply sawing off the branch it is sitting on." (5)
At first glance, it might seem that there was no reason why the regime could way it did the murder of Piotr Bartoszcze, or institute a phoney inquiry in order to stall for time, as it did in the case of the murder of Gregorz Przemyk. (6) No reason except mass pressure and fear created by the kidnapping of Popieluszko forced the Jaruzelski team to move very quickly to head off developments of a scope that could have threatened it.
The arrest of Captain Piotrowski and stooges, followed by that of Colonel Pietruszki of the political police; Jaruzelski's decision, with the agreement of the PUWP Central Committee to purge the secret police apparatus; and finally the finding of Popieluszko's body were all the results of mass pressure. These moves were made under the threat of a strike in the Warsaw steel plants and in response to the fear that the masses who swept toward the church of St. Stanislaw inspired in the regime.
What happened after the kidnapping of Popieluszko testified to the relationship of forces that has been maintained between the workers and the Polish regime. It is a relationship of forces that represents a constant threat to the regime, in particular if the resistance movement proves capable of taking advantage
Popieluszko's murder was an attack both against Solidarnose and the church. One might have expected therefore that Cardinal Glemp and the section of the hierarchy that supports him in his policy of conciliation with the regime would feel obliged to shift their position toward the mass movement, on which they turned their backs long ago. However, nothing of the sort happened.
In an October 27 dispatch from Warsaw, Krzystof Wolicki, a Catholic intellectual and correspondent for the Paris daily Le Matin, wrote: "The primate, Glemp, seems determined to make the faithful listen to reason. Since his return to Warsaw [from East Berlin] - alerted dissident priests, in an initiative that must have reminded him unpleasantly of the hated horizontal structures in the party Glemp has been trying to defuse what he regards as a powderkeg. On Saturday evening, at the request of the regime, he ordered the evacuation of the presbytery of the parish of St. Stanislaw, the parish of Father Popieluszko. served as a sort of command center of the
The official press had denounced it that very day as a nest of the 'master provocateurs' of Solidarnosc." (7)
On the following day, Sunday, Octo ber 28, the date of the
Popieluszko would have celebrated if he had been alive, Glemp decided to say mass at the same time as the one in the church of St.
His intention was to divert a •section of the faithful and head off the demonstration that the mass in Popieluszko's church threatened to turn into. But that did not keep 50,000 from going to St. Stanislaw, while the primate attracted only a paltry 1,500.
It took a hell of a nerve to ask the faithful to love their fellow man, includ-
General Jaruzelski and the agents who killed Popieluszko. The gulf that already exists between the base of the church and the hierarchy thus threatens to widen.
The situation created by the kidnapping of Popieluszko required a firm response by the opposition movement, even if it could only act with caution. It could not be excluded that the murder was a provocation instigated by some circles in the apparatus that were looking for an opportunity both to launch a brutal
CDN, No 83, September 18, 1984. Le Monde, November 1, 1984. Liberation, November 12, 1984. Gregorz, a high school student arrested at a demonstration, died after being beaten up in. PLe Meatin, on.
Le Matin, October 29, 1984.
International Viewpoint 24 December 1984
repressive operation and to take advantage of that to bring about changes within
After the institution of the state of war, Frasyniuk, a leader of Solidarnose in the Wroclaw region, warned on more than one occasion that the regime was determined to crush the resistance movement and that street demonstrations could offer a pretext for it to move. In this respect, Lech Walesa had good reason to warn against falling for any provocation by which the masses could be used as cannon fodder in the battle for a redistribution of power going on among rival factions in the regime.
However, on the other hand, Walesa adopted a position rather close to that of
Glemp, offering the mass movement no political action perspective and in particular in saying that he hoped to see a
"frank dialogue"
Walesa demobilized the energies of the movement and paralyzed any initiative.
For a long time, the democratic opposition circles have not concealed their fear that a social explosion could lead
But what might have been understandable, if not justified, before today represents an anachronism.
The fact is that the majority of Polish society, and in particular the working class in the big factories, has gone through very rich experiences of self-organization.
And we can be sure that the masses would be able to put this to good use.
A workers' leader like Walesa should have been convinced of this.
Channelling the energy of the masses in collective prayer will only allow the regime to gain time and reconsolidate its
In other words, it will enable it to prepare for a counterattack. In front of the 15,000 persons assembled for a mass in the church of St. Bridget in Gdansk, Walesa said that Popieluszko's kidnappers "had played a nasty trick on all Poles, from the premier to the ordin-
As if the workers shared a common interest with the regime in
The mass movement has no interest in whitewashing the head of state of the responsibility that falls to him for this mur-
And Walesa's efforts to convince the workers that a "dialogue" is possible with the authorities can only lead into a blind alley. A favorable situation for the mass movement could of course lead to a new phase of negotiation with the regime, but only on the condition that the author ities thought that their backs were to the wall. In any case, it would not be a "frank dialogue," but a need on the part of the regime to make concessions and reach a tactical compromise. In any case, the authorities will not be forced to engage in dialogue by collective prayers.
Commenting on an interview in which Walesa said that "the Polish church has International Viewpoint 24 December 1984 shown that it is capable of giving a lead to the nation at crucial moments in our his-
Financial Times correspondent
Krzysztof Bobinski wrote that is ready for Solidarnose to take a back seat in any talks between church and state." He added: "This line will surprise many of the union's activists....But
Mr Walesa's line is fairly clear. He is signalling to the authorities that they can rely on calm prevailing in the country while he demands that they establish control over their own security apparatus and follow this up with conciliatory
Whether or not this is really Walesa's orientation, and his propensity to make hasty statements that he contradicts the next day is well known, it is clear that if the mass movement adopted such a position, the regime would be able to limit the damaging effects for it of Popieluszko's assassination.
For their part, on their release from
Frasyniuk and Pinior, another leader in the Wroclaw region, launched the slogan of "social control over the repressive apparatus." A few days later, leaders in a dozen Polish cities who were known during the period when Solidarnose operated legally as representing the union's more militant wing, launched an appeal along the same lines: "Since December 12, 1981, the list of acts of terror has lengthened considerably. always only one way to stop the terror -social control over the repressive appar-
Forcing the imposition of such control is the objective of those who formed the Committees to Defend Human Rights Against Violence in Cracow, Wroclaw, Gdansk and in many other cities. It should also be possible today to take advantage of the moral crisis that Popieluszko's assassination has certainly created among the functionaries of the
On this basis, it should be possible to appeal to them to put up passive resistance during repressive operations, to funnel information to the underground press and the Human Rights Defense Committees about the activities of the repressive apparatus, to call on them to try to organize themselves in trade-union commissions or antirepres
The question can be asked, however, whether the Human Rights Defense Committees will be able to do public work. The regime has just declared them illegal.
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Will they be able to operate openly despite this? That would unquestionably be a very great success for the mass moveforces will make it possible to force the regime to accept this sort of activity.
Regardless of what happens in this respect, the Human Rights Defense Committees cannot serve as a substitute for the mass movement. If they were to take the place of the mass movement, in fact, that would be a very important setback, a return to square one, to what the KOR represented before August 1980.
From this standpoint, Walesa was right to say that the goals of these committees are too limited in comparison with the objectives and tasks of Solidarnosc, and that it would be an illusion to think that social control over the repressive apparatus by itself would be sufficient to offer the country a way out of the political crisis. In the present situation, such control and its effects could only be very restricted.
Instead of being a substitute for the mittees should be complementary to it, an initiative toward broadening its field
In order for the work of these committees to develop in reality, they will have to base themselves on a greater activity of the social forces, in particular by the factory workers. potential that had accumulated by the end of October and the beginning of November is favorable to such activity.
The immense demonstration of a half a million people on the occasion of Popieluszko's burial was the material ex pression of this potential. But in order to take advantage of these possibilities, it is necessary to reject the fundamentally wrong slogan of "Only calm can save us. On the contrary, it is necessary to link the activity of social self-defense against the terror and repression to reviving trade-union activity in the plants by mobilizing the workers around immediate economic and social demands and in the strug gle for trade-union rights, civil rights and the rights of self-management.
The Human Rights Defense Committees will only be able to operate publicly if they are based on a rebuilding and reinforcement of Solidarnose's ground structures in the factories, on the resistance and the struggle of the workers.
The regime has just launched a very violent campaign against a number of Solidarnose and democratic opposition activists recently amnestied, and against those priests who continue to support the underground movement. It is a campaign of hatred very similar to the one waged against Popieluszko that preceded his
This is the government's way of trying to launch a counterattack. deal will depend on the movement's capacity to contain this new assault.
Financia Times, Notem de To darite, No 100, November 14, 1984.