Polish Solidarity

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THE articles in Socialist Organiser on the recent conference of the Polish Solidarity Campaign require amplification in some respects.

A major issue at the AGM was whether PSC objectives were to be revised to contain an explicit call for a break with the state run "unions" and political parties withın the warsaw Pact.

SO supporters argued for the adoption of this position as policy, but against its inclusion in the constitution.

In the event, however, a strident plea by Robin Blick secured its inclusion in the constitution, despite the argument that such a course pointed the Campaign in the direction of becoming a sect rather than a broad based movement.

While Robin Blick and his supporters were hellbent on having this demand included in the objectives whatever the cost in terms of support, at the other extreme was the IMG who argued that this demand be contained neither in the objectives nor in the policies of the Campaign.

At a recent meeting of the Glasgow Committee, some IMG comrades argued that this is a purely tactical question; others, that such a demand smacked "Reaganism" , or exaggerated the differences between the "trade unions" within and outside the Soviet bloc.

Such an abysmal failure to get to grips with the phenomenon of Stalinism reveals a frightful intellectual paralysis within the ranks of the IMG. Years of heroworship of the recent host to the conference of the Soviet bloc "trade unions", , Fidel Castro, has blunted their political perceptions.

Searching desperately for progressive features of the "workers' states" they opposed blacking until forced upon them by the insistence of the demands of the representatives of Solidarnosc, and they now make a futile effort to artificially wall off the struggle in Poland from the obvious collaboration of the other Warsaw Pact regimes in ensuring the crushing of Solidarnosc and the installation of Jaruzelski.

They are also now attempting to disaffiliate local committees from the national Polish Solidarity Campaign, seeking to substitute a campaign built around the labour movement conference argued for by the Manchester Committee.

Can this be justified? Of course there were aspects of the AGM of which we would be highly critical, including the sectarian attacks upon "Leninists"

But anti-Leninists are not necessarily anti-socialists. Leninism is a distinctly minority strand in socialist thought in Britain today. Its adherents should beware of trying to depict all those who castigate our theory and practice of organisation as being necessarily pro-capitalist.

No one can deny the fruitful activity undertaken by the Polish Solidarity Campaign over the last 18 months. None of the socialist groups can hold a candle to the PSC in terms of fighting on behalf of the Polish people.

Those who refuse to recognise that, who want to break away and form their own rump organisation, are both afraid of putting their own inadequate ideas to the test and guilty of weakening the Polish solidarity movement in Britain.

IAN McCALMAN Secretary, Glasgow Polish Solidarity Campaign (in a personal capacity)