[November. 10 strike that they think the banning…]

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November. 10 strike that they think the banning of Solidarnose by the military regime was an act of weakness rather than strength. Do you think that is right?

It was an act of strength in the sense that they now feel that whatever reactions they get from the Polish workers, they can still carry on pursuing a policy of repression and a policy of Party rule, which is what they are aiming for and that this is something they can deliver back to the Soviet leadership.

Nevertheless, the fact that they have had to make the decision at this stage and not earlier shows that they are not as muth in control of the situation as they would like to be..

I think they were probably hurried into making their decision because of the worry that if the continual stalemate continues, over possible future talks with Solidarity, which still seemed an option before, that possibly they may begin to start losing the argument, that they may begin to lose the moral argument even in their own eyes and in the eyes, perhaps, of some of their friends in the West. According to press reports the new. official so-called unions have had very little success in getting members. Do you think that is likely to continue and if so what is the reaction of the regime likely to be?

I think it is likely to continue. Of course, the regime doesn't really expect these new unions to get underway unțil next year. But there's no chance that Solidarnosc members will go into them en masse.

Nevertheless, the way the regime has spaced out its timetable for these unions, which is a period of two to three years, makes it possible for them to claim that the situation - is developing slowly and they may feel that they can carry on over the next two or three years without any, trade unions but still pretending that they are slowly getting off the ground. It will be a holding tactic, I believe.

What picture do you have of the continuing ; strength of Solidarnose?

Well it's as strong as you could possioly imazine in a country where there is so much _ terror. and L.so. much.

spoke to economic deprivation. There is no doubt that Solidarnose is relatively well organised in at least four major centres, to the extent that they obviously have a number of factory cells at given factory, and have a regional structure from that develop ing to a national structure.

They are still able to still produce leaflets'like 6,000 there are publications of one kind or another in underground Poland, and they obviously still have a considerable amount of support from the workers largely due to the fact that their leaders remair largely undiscovered. near is Occasionally we headline about somebody being arrested, but that i now a rarity. And of course the workers do come out or the days that the Solidar nosc leadership ask them to Do you think that is a sig! of organisation or is it spon taneous once they know thi date?

Well, it is a bit of botl because you do also hav demonstrations and strike on days which the Solidar nose leadership does no ask for. But when Solidal nose does ask for actior it does get it.

Do you have any report on recent events apart fror what has been in the press Do you think the pre: reports give a fair picture ( what is going on?

On the whole: ye though: it depends whic press you are talking abou We've been fairly unhappy : the reporting we've bee getting ine Cuardia: which seems to give th impression that Solidarno: "is keeling over to an, en But in general the press does tend to give the impression that the army crushes all attempts _at organising demonstrations and that it therefore has got the strength to do this.

What seems to be happening is that there are a lot of unreported demonstrations, which the army and the militia are in no position to repress. This happened particularly on August 31, where demonstrations took place in something like 700 different towns, and the militia were only able to cover 20-30 main ones.

Others took place and there were no countermeasures, and the demonstrations took place peaceably.

They are likely to take place again. Those people have not been terrorised, although the system of terror obviously still exists, but they have not been physically attacked.

It does suggest tilat the strength of the government is not as complete as the newspapers in the West put There is still going to be a possible critical moment when there aren't enough militia or special units to confront the demonstrators and they will have to rely on ordinary conscript units and these may fail the government at a crucial moment. What about the economic situation?

It is getting considerably worse for a number of reasons. This is partly due to Western sanctions, partly due to the fact that the workers are working as little as possible - there is a form of unofficial go-slow going on in most factories. At the same time there is an enormous shortage of the appropriate raw materials, particularly in agriculture, which will lead to new food shortages in the winter.

The enormous increase in food prices in February means that although certain foods are now available on the market, they are way beyond the reach of workers' family budgets.

There are also a lot of peoplę out of work and so this is going to be a very difficult period for workers in Poland.

Even the Ministry of - Internal Trade t cas predicted that there will be a 20% downturn in gross national product this year compared with last.

And last year there was a 40% downturn on the year previous to that.

So what has been the effect on the living standards of the average Polish worker since martial law?

Initially, during February and March, there was more food available. A lot JO people had sufficient savings from before February to be able to cope with the food price rises.

There is a shortage of disinfectant and medicine, not just in hospitals but for sale in chemists. There are also shortages of clothing, particularly children's shoes: The enormous cutback in public transport last year continues - sometning • like 60% of rural bus routes were cancelled in the course of the last two years, making it very difficult for people to move about.

These hardships will get worse. The only bright side is that because coal stocks are up, because they can't sell all their coal abroad, there may as a result be more coal available And with the run-down in industry this means that there may be more coal available for domestic energy this winter than there was last winter.

Do you think that this continuing pressure on living standards is one of the fac tors behind the continuing mobilisations?

Well, the pressure on living standards has existed before and it was one of the causes of Solidarnosc. Now that it is worse, it will make it that much more difficult arnosc, or whether that was for the government to try simply the natural way for and put over any programme of political stabilisation such developments to occur which doesn't also bring in in those particular countries, some kind of economic I can't say. improvement.

But on the other hand it there has been enormous support for Solidarnosc has will lead to a situation, possibly similar to the Soviet been the Baltic states within the Soviet Union. There Union, where the bread and butter issues of daily survival does seem to have been an attempt there - particbecome so important that it might undermine people's ularly in Estonia - to reattempts to get some kind of create some of the things that Solidarnosć was doing political reform.

through industrial action.

In those circumstances What do you think are the one could envisage the Polish government actually being in most important things to be favour of such a deteriora- done in the British labour tion of the economic situa- movement now? tion because it may eventually cut away the people's more evidence of British enthusiasm for Solidarnosc. labour movement support for Solidarnosc. There have Do you have any picture of •been relatively good resoluthe effects of Solidarnose tions at the TUC, there's in other East European been a resolution at the countries? Labour Party, supporting the It seems to have galvan- NEC statement, but what 1 ised some sort of interest think is going to be neces from the intelligentsia and sary, particularly in view of workers in Hungary and reports in the past in the Czechoslovakia. Polish national press that the . It had been a very TUC doesn't support popular and very dramatic. Solidarnosc, is that that supphènomenon in the Ukraine port has got to be more the previous year when Solidarnosc was still a legal. some form of demonstration organisation and Polish teleon December 12. The Polish vision news could be picked Solidarity Campaign is callup in Western Ukraine. ing a demonstration at which Solidarnose badges were sold for horrendous prices plicity of union banners, in that area. which can be photographed But its effect now would - the visual word is èven be difficult to judge. There stronger than the spoken have been workers strikes word. ania, which seem similar in in the Ukraine and in Rom- And we from Labour pattern to Solidarnosc, but organisations whether that was because they were following Solid:

progressive movements i Britain present there.

This will bring home ver! strongly to the • Polisi government - which is stil The other area where sensitive to a certain exten to this kind of pressure the fact that Solidarnos does still have the suppor of the workers in this coun try.

Solidarnose still need material ala, it still need help to . be channelle through the Solidarit Trade Union Working Grou as far as this country : concerned.

The campaign for adop ing prisoners should be cor Firstly we would like tinued.

Trade union delegatior to the Polish Embassy, # find, embarrass the Polis government. We can pr pare lists for any given unio of all those arrested from certain sector of industry.

So when the NUM wer to the Polish Embassy v supplied them with a list ‹ Polish miners who had bee interned or sentenced f trade union activities sin‹ the introduction of marti obvious, firstly in terms of Shop stewards at Masst Ferguson voted not to tour any • goods from Polar which had been produa we would like to see a multiunder the barrel of a gun.

And we want the Labo Party and trade unions break links with the state u ions and parties in Easte want banners Europe.

Parties, peace We were pleased that t and other Labour Party NEC voted n to invite Warsaw Pact Col munist Parties to this yea Labour Party conferen‹ The TUC has broken lin with the East German sta unions, but so far it has n extended this to the ott countries.

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Poland's workers have risen in revolt against the banning of Solidarnosc But what strategy to regain their rights? Decentralised erosion of the regime's power, or a coordinated uprising? For a new compromise with the bureaucracy, or workers' power? Martin Thomas reviews the debate in the Polish workers' movement.

Deleontes at the Solidaruson noncunna Inat unr arity in Britain August 31 National day of protest Available from SO, c/o 28 Middle Lane, London N8 8PL. 30p plus 20p p&p. THD dominant strategic idea of Solidarnoac between August 1980 and December 1981 was the 'self-limiting revolution'. Instead ' of directly challenging the bureaucratic regime for power, Solidarnose would hollow it out by everexpanding trade union activity.

. The ruling party would continue to rule - but its rule would eventually become more or less nominal, like the monarchy in Britain or the Netherlands. Thus Solidarnose would be able to gain the substance of its demands while avoiding confrontation.

The fear of a Kremlin invasion acted as an overarching limit on Solidarnosc's perspectives: but as the movement scored victory after victory in 1980-1, Solidarnosc leaders hoped that they had found a way. to operate successfully within that limit.

The Jaruzelski coup of December 1981 changed all that. And since then Solidarnosc leaders underground, in internment, and in exile have been debating new tactics.

Some concluded that Solidarnose had gone too fast. 'Within Solidarnosc, the radical workers' current triumphed: the young militants of the big factories set the tone. The experts were pushed aside because of their conciliatory approach ... We, the intelligentsia -timorous by nature - did not have the courage to brake the radicalisation...

For the future: proeeed slowlv and cautiousl •'There are too few killers for hire in this country to reduce 35 million people to slavery... If we are able to react and, instead of again setting the base of the state power against. us, if we Latest issue of Polish Solidarity Campaign News - articles on resistance in rolana ana soliaand abroad. begin to draw it towards us, victory is certain without shedding blood" .. (An anonymous group of militants, late December).

More commonly - Solidarnose militants saw their error as too much naive hope.

•We cherished the hope that perhaps in Poland this historic experiment would succeed, that the systém would be transformed in such a way that, while pre-. serving the leading role of the Communist Party and not affecting the alliances of the Republic of Poland with the USSk and the other countries of the Warsa! Pact, it would be poss sle to increase social er atrol over economic life, to effectively socialise the means of production, to permit the free development of cultural life and to create an authentic territorial self-government...

This experiment did not succeed and - as we can see only now - it was bound not to succeed... the existence of free - trade totalitarian system "Бỳ uninno im the +han definition contrary to its nature and as such impossible" • (Another anonymous group, early January).

Again: 'The 13th December clearly showed that Solidarnose was completely unprepared for battle with violence. This was, in truth, in complete accord with the underlying principles and statutes of Solidarnosc, but it also demonstrated the naivete of its belief that the ruling apparatus would be averse to the use of force ite holiaf that a univercal social will was enough for democracy to win without the use of force". • (Krzysztof Piotrowski, Warsaw, March 15).

And: "At the end of the road inevitably is the gen. eral strike. It will be different from December 1981, we will have to be prepared to defend the striking worknlares That is nur intimate JO VUI argument.. For the government -only gives way before force, and always gives way before force" (Bogdan Lis, April 22). • "For many years in my activity in the opposition I argued against all kinds of violence. It is my duty now to say that I consider preparation to eliminate the occupation [i.e. the martial law] through mass action is the lesser evil" , wrote Jacek Kuron from his internment camp in February.

In 1980-1 Kuron was one of the most cautious strategists of Solidarnosc. His influence was among the factors which halned diearm the movement politically, leaving it unprepared: tor the controntation that had to come.

His recent articles -which have provoked a lot of debate - now represent a more radical tactic than the underground Solidarnosc leadership. But in a curious contradictory way thev alan continna tha etrat- VANJ MIOU WVHWIUG VIK JUL CILegy of self-limiting revolution.

He points out a key problem with Solidarnosc's programme of becoming a 'co-manager' of society.

'One cannot become a co-manager if the manager does not desire partners. The authorities treated the programme as an attempted coup d'etat" (letter published July 14).

Yet he proposes in fact to try to force the bureaucracy to accept Solidarnosc as 'on-manaros' Ito mutlingo vu wuąge o vues two variants: either 'the rulers, or some of them, agree to arrive at a genuine accord with society" , OX, 'the rulers will provoke society into an explosion and rociety will overpower the leaders"

But he does not believe in the first possibility; moreover, he believes that all EApIUsIVI UI expius- aM1 aninoinn nenlan™ ions are inevitable.

"No appeal can stop the youth who want to fight... A massive and well-organised resistance is the only hope of the Poles... Only such a movement can limit the wave of terrorism and reduce the risk of a Soviet intervention in the case that the absence of a compromise, initiative provokes the inevitable social explosion" (February letter).

So he proposes that Solidarnose should consciously organise for a zeneral strike and armed uprising. i "A programme cannot be based on the hope that tha ananaslo and thai annua. we gentrai auu wut betIttaries will willingly accept a compromise. It must be admitted that violence will only retreat before violence, and announced clearly that the movement will not refuse to use force.

In my view, this declaration should be made precise by dating it, for example, for 'the summer' or 'the autumn ...

I imagine that the movement would immediately undertake, by all possible meanş, agitation among the soldiers and the militia-men...

The uprising we proclaim can, to be sure, take the form of an indefinite zeneral strike. But... it will be necessary to combine the strike with an attack on chosen centres of power and information, in agreement with those soldiers and militia-men who say they are ready to come over thar are roado to enmo nuer to us... " (Letter published in May).

But the purpose of this revolutionary uprising 1s -to impose a compromise! In' the event of victory, Kuron writes, "there is just a chance of avoiding Soviet intervention: if all institutions endowed with society's trust can rapidly take on responsibility for the situation.

They must immediately appoint a national government composea or peopie mant ramsorna d -- .1with influence in society and who, at the same time, will not be considered by Moscow as 'brawlers'. This government must instantly compose a declaration on the observance of Poland's alliance responsibilities with the USSR…. "9 (July letterl.

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The voice of caution and collaboration: an adviser from the Solidarnosc activists call martial law 'the occupation' 'Thus, the leadership of he resistance must prepare inciety both for major conessions to seek a comitomise with the rulers and or the liquidation of the ccupation by an organised jeneral uprising" (Febuary letter): -One member of the inderground Solidarosc padership, Zbigniew tomaszewski, seems to ave views close to Kuron. Asked by , an underround Solidarnosc bulletin h June), "What must one o to force the authorities to an understanding?' e replied: i "Begin preparations for general strike. We don't ive much time left for is. The strike should •gin in the autumn of is year, before the Brezhiv-Reagan. talks. Their iset will hold back the SSR from taking any astic steps...

It should be a general tike throughout Poland th the active defence of ices of work... Apart um this there would be monstrations and march• which would divert me of the forces of ting for butter at a Warsaw shop authority.

If the situation is very serious, the authorities will, in my opinion, be unable to count not only on the army, but also the militia. When one battalion refuses to shoot..

small unit of Cossacks went onto the side of the demonstrations, and a month later there was no more Tsar"

But the policy developed by the Solidarnose Coordinating Commission set up in April has been different.

Zbigniew Bujak and Wiktor Kulerski, members of the Coordinating Commission and like Romaszewski members of the Warsaw leadership, have replied to Kuron in the underground press (March this year).

An explosion, - says Bujak, would only lead to "a most brutal use of internal force" or ''external intervention". So: "l am in favour of a decidedly decentralised movement, adopting the most varied methods of action. Only such a diffuse and multiform movement will be elusive and difficult to suppress" • And it could "allow the creation of a whole social structure independent of the authorities' Kulerski points to: "a slow decomposition of the system, accompanied by progressive changes which could lead to a reconquest by society of an influence over its destiny... a situation where the -authorities control empty shops but not the market; workers' employment, but not their livelihood; state-owned mass media, but not the circulation of information; printworks but not publishing; posts and telephones but not communications; the schools but not education".

A declaration by the Coordinating Commission dated July 28 sums up this strategy:

'Our aim is to create a self-governing society - a Self-Governing Republic -on the lines adopted by the First National Congress of NSZZ. Solidarnose. In the present situation this aim can be achieved only in the form of an underground society.

We suggest the following basic forms of action: a] organising help for victims of reprisals, for people dismissed from work, for the poor, sick, and all in Brezhnev congratulates Jaruzelski need of material or mora assistance; b] organisins the flow of - uncensorec information... c] organising education and self-educat ion.. d] organising actions to publicise the existence ol the resistance move. ment. el economic activ. ity in the form of cooperat. ives and workshops..

This 'underground society', which "should be decentralised", will limit the régime and push it towards compromise. It "will on the one hand be a form of effective action to sécure our immediate aims - the release of political prisoners and internees, an end to the state of war, reactivation of an independent trade union movement - and on the Church at Lech Walesa's elbow other to secure the term aim, which is a Governing Republic"

They also state (July 9)

that still: 'We don't want to be either a government or a political party. We want to be an independent and self-governed trade union movement"' The Solidarnosc leaders compare themselves to the resistance to Nazi occupation during World War 2, and describe the martial law regime • as "the occupier"

But in many ways the perspective of Bujak and Kulerski is only a slight rearrangement of the same elements as Kuron's.

After arguing against Kuron's proposal of plans for an uprising, Bujak concludes: ""And an uprising, if it became inevitable, would be the last resort in the struggle for the national programme of reconstruction of the economy, culture, science, education and independence"

Kulerski, after contrasting his proposal for an "underground society" to Kuron's "underground state" nevertheless concedes that some clandestine centre is necessary. 'This embryonic underground state can only be an additional potential threat to the authorities. Its influence could spread within the underground society when that was necessary.

•Thus it is only in the final stage of the struggle that the underground state will find its extension and support in the underground society"

Kuron too, from all the evidence, would consider the uprising a 'last resort': he argues only that it is unavoidable and must be consciously planned for.

Nationalist

Both Kuron, and Bujak and Kulerski, seem to be both 'too nationalist' and 'not nationalist enough' -limited simultaneously by nationalist ideology and by insufficient boldness on Poland's rights as an oppressed nation. They hold back from challenging Poland's subordination to the Kremlin, yet hope for a national understanding 'between, Poles' to soften that subordination.

A radical critique of both Bujak and Kulerski, and Kuron, has come from Zbigniew Kowalewski, a Lodz Solidarnose leader now in exile.

Compromises with the bureaucrats may well be necessary, he writes (May 1982). 'The problem is that Kuron speaks of a strategic (or historic) compromise -an illusion when the regime can only have a totalitarian character. If it reaches a compromise, this will only be to gain time and accumulate sufficient strength to crush the working class and the whole of society.

In the long term, moreover, the working class can only preserve even its limited gains if it uses compromise to gain time and accumulate the strength to solve the question of power in its own favour"

What the rank and file of Solidarnosc think is more difficult to know. R.Kleniewski, a Warsaw activist, did a survey of opinion in his factory. A typical response: "No, I don't want to discuss with them (the authorities) now. Let them lift the suspension of Solidarnosc and then we can discuss, not necessarly with strike action"

Other rank and file contributions to the underground bulletins stress that force is the only language the regime will understand, and complain about the lack of boldness from the leaders. The spontaneous outbreak of strikes on the banning of Solidarnosc would seem to indicate that these contributions reflect the rank and file mood well.

Utopia For the project of an underground society within the Polish state is surely an utopia. The bureaucracy does not have the solidity and historic function of a ruling class; it is nonetheless something more than just an 'occupying force' Having imposed the martial law, it involves hundreds of thousands of people bonded by ties of material interest.

All the pressures: of everyday life which drive people to accept "accomplished facts' now work in its favour. It has strong material support from the relatively stable Kremlin bureaucracy.

If Solidarnose could not slip the threads of power from the bureaucracy's hands in 1980-1 - if the strategy of 'hollowing out' Stalinism did not work then - how will it work now, when Solidarnose is underground?

Kuron is surely right that a full-scale revolutionary uprising is the only road to victory for the resistance.

Such a conclusion does not exclude necessary retreats, delays, compromises. But to restrict the uprising, once underway, to a pre-established goal of a compromise with the bureaucracy - which anyway does not want to compromise - is to weaken it.

Such revolutionary mobilisations - as Poland itself in 1980-1 showed -always tend on the contrary to develop from more Limited to more radical demands.

To win even re-legalisation of Solidarnosc, Kuron and others conclude, the Polish workers must seize the factories and organise to defend them.

Republic

Having done that, should they give the factories back to the bureaucrats? Or should they on the contrary maintain workers' control and generalise it to wordemocratic planning of the whole economy?

That would mean republic of workers' councils — which is surely the only possible real form of Solidarnose's 'self-governing republic' Such a republic would face a threat of Kremlin invasion - but no more so than a workers' . uprising which limited itself to the aim of compromise. As Kowalewski points out: "if we allow ourselves to be intimidated by the threat of Soviet military intervention, there will be nothing left for us but to give up the struggle...

'(We should) give an example of struggle. to the workers of other East European satellites and the USSR itself, so that. they may follow our path and understand that we can only win through common struggle'.

*Quotations taken from 'Voice of Solidarnose' 'Polish Solidarity Campaign News' ', 'Solidarity with "Solidarity', 'Labour Focus on Eastern Europe' and 'Inprecor', with thanks.

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Socialist Organiser no.105 October 21 1982 Pagé 10

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polem KIOSK N- 12

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