Press Gang

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Capitalist Crisis and Socialist Alternative' , a detailed study of the breakdown of the boom, by Bob Sutcliffe. 50p plus postage from PO Box 135, London N10DD. mean to praise revolutionary democracy. They praise instead the fossilisation of this power - its finished form, surrounded Secrecy, House of Lords, and civil service bureaucracy, which permits a harassed bourgeoisie to rule while presenting a democratic facade.

The state in Poland rests its authority on the Russian Revolution. Demands from the state that critics accept the leading role of the CP have bizarre parallels with demands by right-wing Labourites that the left accepts the all-sufficiency of Parliament.

While the established authority of MPs is upheld in Britain's Labour Party by witch-hunts, in Poland the bureaucracy rests on bayonets and tanks.

Whatever the different circumstances, there is a common theme - the rank and file workers should not kick over the traces.

even strident advocates of Cold War have backed the modarates in Solidarity against the radicals. The Telegraph and the Mail as much as the Guardian have expressed hopes that the tripartite agreement between the CP, Solidarity, and the Church would work.

The Daily Express says that above all western bankers must bail Poland out - at least up to the point where Russian tanks roll in.

Now the collaboration ha failed, and despite all the anti-Soviet rhetoric the British press blames the radical wing of Sol idarity.

The Daily Mail published a perceptive piece by Stewart Stephen over three pages. But his true feelings soon broke out.

After listing Polish opposition • developments over the last 18 months. Stephen writes, "Inevitably not everyone who joined or who even became part of the leadership underStin stood the limitations implicit in the very kind of democracy they were calling for"

Later he asserts, "People denied a political voice for all of their lives - and the majority of Solidarity's leaders are young enough not to have known any other political system save communism - do not know how to exercise it once they find it.

'Lech Walesa did know, but he was accused by his own National Committee of acting like a 'medieval monarch' when he sought to meet the government halfway without first consulting his colleagues".

Finally Stephen compares Poland to a huge debating society, exciting and exhilarating - "but it was not practical politics"

When pushed to the point, the British press is hampered in its attacks on the Polish regime. After all, workers here might be infected by the same disrespect for established institutions as in Poland.

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2 sau4 18R1 ül tun d von manegid tora:? Socialist Organiser no.66 December 16 1981 Page 4

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WORKERS REViEW 1