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On Monday 16th a demonstration of "several hundred" in Warsaw was dispersed by police, and police cordons were

Women are the most militant because it is they who stand in the queues...

Marek Garztecki speaking at the Socialist Organiser/London Labour Briefing Poland What do you know about the recent demonstrations in About the demonstrations that are taking place now I know as much as you do until the underground bulletins reach us from Poland, which takes about two weeks.

One point worth noting however is that usually, Solidarity sources put the numbers of people participating in demonstrations ten times as much as the figures reported in the Western media.

The only explanation 1 can give for that is the fact that all Western correspondents have been kept in Warsaw since December, with only a few in Gdansk so that 95% of the country is cut off from the reporters.

How do you think the regime will react?

I think the regime plans to crack down. We are very worried about that because with all the anger and frustration, especially among young people, we are afraid that they may take actions which will be simply provoked.

Officially Solidarity is not disbanded. Officially it is suspended. We are afraid that the government will use it as an opportunity to totally disband Solidarity.

That will enable the government to change the status of the internees into prisoners, because then they will be members of an illegal organisation.

I said in January that the end of August and the beginning of September will be a crucial period, and 1 say it against now. The situation that will prevail at the end of September will prevail for the next three to five years.

Someone who came recently from Poland told me that the most militant people are the women because they are the ones who stand in the queues, and he said it is quite visible if you look at the demonstrations, that they are mostly women.

The problem for the government is productivity. It was dropping all the time but now it is non-existent. My recent visitor from Poland is an English businessman of Polish origin who goes almost every other month to Poland and he told me that nobody works in the country and they see no reason to work because they are not working for themselves - they are working for the oppressive governpolice.

stationed outside the Lenin shipyard.

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person before the national conference of Solidarity because it was a question of how many delegates each region was entitled to.

You cannot have a ten million member underground organisation. And we thought there may be no more than 10% left, which My businessman contact had visited Gdansk and Poznan and spoke to people there, including directors and managers who reckoned that no more than 20% left Solidarity. I was quite amazed to hear it. I think he is rather optimistic.

Do you have any picture what extent the protests whatever form they take -are organised and to what extent they are spontaneous?

Yes. A fortnight after they happen we always get the bulletins and information. Firstly, the 13th of each month is always commemorated with strikes, work stoppages, silent protest, laying of flowers at Wujek mine where the miners were killed on 16 December so the 16th also is commemorated in the factories, on the streets, in Workcould

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still makes a million people in the underground.