Workers versus the “Vanguard”
In signing the Gdansk agreement in September 1980, the Polish government promised to allow independent trade unions, the right to strike, access to the mass media, free Saturdays, and to abolish the nomenklatura system by which the PUWP (the Communist Party) controls all important appointments. But paper promises and piecrust pledges are easily made, easily broken.
Every concession pledged on paper had to be struggled for. Last October the independent trade union was still being denied legal recognition. Free Saturdays and access to the mass media were still denied in January, five months after the agreement. When another strike was threatened, within ten days the number of work-free Saturdays was increased from 25 to 38 still less than originally agreed. Later the government “conceded” to the new unions 0.8 per cent of TV time and 0.2 per cent of radio time, subject to censorship.
Such concessions were wrung with difficulty from a reluctant government using every available form of dirty trick, provocation and intimidation. The union’s experience was: “Members are fully aware that . . . the only successes they had so far were in those instances where Solidarity was willing to stand firm. In all other cases there was no progress at all.” [1]
The Roots of Solidarity
“Nothing starts from square one: everything has roots in another time and another place”, said Andrzej Wajda. There were memories of the Poznan revolt when Gomulka came to power in 1956, and of the 1970 demonstrations over food prices and low pay, when Gierek came to Gdansk. “Just like the others I believed that they were real tears that ran down the gentleman’s cheeks as he spoke, and that while he remained Minister of Internal Affairs there would be no bloodshed in Poland.” [2]
But tanks attacked in Gdansk, in Gdynia strikers returning to work were fired at from helicopters, and in Szczeczin “the militia shot at random into the dense crowd of shipyard workers . . . They began taking the wounded away, and from that moment I became a union activist . . . We left the shipyard having won nothing . . . All that changed were the authorities at the top.” [3]
Gierek’s new economic policy brought a boom: foreign credits enabled industry to import machinery and expand. Each year 500,000 people left the countryside for the cities. In agriculture, the government discriminated against “family farms”. Private farmers were denied machinery and fertiliser, and the the state fixed prices too low for them to make a profit. The increasingly unprofitable farms are manned by an ill-equipped and ageing population, a third of whom are over sixty.
The tide turned in 1975, with rising prices and workers’ protests. Gierek introduced a new Labour Code, whose Article 52 was used in 1976 as an “anti-strike” law. He also changed the Constitution, stressing that “the Party is the leading political force in society”. This gave birth to an ‘‘unofficial opposition.”
In 1976 higher food prices caused strikes and demonstrations. Many workers were beaten, jailed or sacked. Some—like Lech Walesa—were blacklisted. In reaction to police brutality, KOR—the Workers’ Self-Defense Committee—was formed, and succeeded in getting an amnesty next year for all the jailed workers. NOWA, an independent publishing house, was set up to break the state’s “publication and information monopoly”. The number of uncensored publications increased. Along with other workers’ journals, the fortnightly Robotnik (The Worker) had a growing circulation from 1977.
In 1979 Robotnik published a Charter of Workers’ Rights, declaring that: “We have entered upon a course of action whose long-term aim is the creation of a self-defense system for employees, first and foremost, independent trade unions”. The Charter argued that the official trade unions did not protect workers, that Gierek’s 1975 Labour Code was used as an anti-strike law, and urged workers wherever possible to set up “free trade union committees”. [4]
Workers’ Grievances. . . .
As exports to the West dwindled due to the recession, repayment of Gierck’s foreign loans became increasingly difficult. This brought pressure on the workers. Poles had the longest working week in Europe-forty-eight hours. The four-shift system caused serious mining accidents, due to lack of maintenance. In October 1979, at least 66 miners died in 4 accidents in pits using this hated system. [5]
Where health and safety were concerned, the official unions were as callous as management: “these matters were totally neglected by the old unions. Bosses ordered the workers to do jobs that could damage their health: in theory it was possible to refuse but in practice there was always someone else willing to do the job, and besides the bosses would take revenge.” [6]
Workers’ living standards worsened. There was a staggering increase in cases of TB, especially in the 23-25 age group. In Poland TB is still the main killer disease, reflecting poor food and housing. [7] The government admit that “nearly 2 million people are waiting for flats. The average time of waiting is 7 years, in many regions it exceeds 10 years”. [8]
Hunger was already a major problem last summer, made worse by hoarding and profiteering. One of the strikers’ “21 Demands” was for meat rationing. This summer’s hunger marches drew the world’s attention to the fact that rationing did not end this man-made famine.
. . . . and the Gaffers
The official unions’ role was to enforce labour discipline by carrot-and-stick methods. For carrot, read the distribution of scarce goods, housing, welfare benefits, perks and privileges. For stick, read petty harassment, witholding benefits, fining workers and contriving dismissals. They acted as a branch of management against the workers’ interests.
Last summer the workers’ anger boiled over: “the official trade unions have not only failed to defend our interests . . . they have been more hostile to the justified strike action than the Party and State organs.” Szydlak, chairman of the Central Trade Union Council, said, “we will not give up power, nor will we share it.” Their angry reply: “He wants to represent us without our consent . . . Our mandate is for him of no consequence.” [9]
At that time, Gierek was still preaching—like Callaghan, Thatcher and Co.—that “rises in the standard of living have to be earned.” Like his crocodile tears of 1970, this was a lie: just consider his standard of living. In only ten years as Party boss, he had acquired a “luxurious residence”. Gierkowka stands in 3,000 acres. Outside, an illuminated fountain and a 2½ acre lake. Indoors, a swimming- pool, cinema, billiard-room and a grand reception-room, all paved with marble slabs. [10]
Corruption permeated the PUWP at all levels. In Walbrzych, officials used coal-mine materials to build themselves villas while “other materials were being ordered from abroad and charged to the mines while going straight into the officials’ private building activity”. The regional Party secretary, no less, was up to his neck in this embarrassingly entrepreneurial activity. [11]
Workers died because money was used for private profiteering instead of safety equipment! For over a decade, the “red Bourgeoisie” fattened itself unscrupulously. A top sociologist described the PUWP as full of “degenerate elements” for whom Party membership was “a springboard leading to riches, to positions of importance and power.” [12]
Every foreman, trade union official and factory manager owes his appointment to a Party committee. Through the nomenklatura system, these have the power to blacklist him from higher posts. If he wants to get on in his career, he will be only too eager to do the Party bosses any small favours they want. The nomenklatura system is still intact: today’s black-market profiteering in food in the starving cities is a consequence of this.
But even without corruption, no party running a state capitalist economy — whether as a dictatorship or as a lukewarm pretend democracy (the Party Congress reforms were only window-dressing) — can be expected to act in the interests of the working class, regarding our living and working conditions as a higher priority than profits. Governments are not philanthropic institutions; no reform will change this.
Strikes in a “socialist” country?
Sociologists, like politicians, were baffled by this theoretically impossible phenomenon: “what rational explanation could be found for the fact that the rightful owners of the means of production, and the people governing the country, rise up in revolt against themselves?” [13] So why do strikes happen, and not just in Poland? Russia, Ukraine, Rumania. East Germany — all so-called “socialist” countries have this problem. No sensible explanation can be found among Poland’s rulers but workers understand things better.
“The strike is the law of the downtrodden, who have been deprived of all other means of social action. It is a radical act of self-defence . . . The historical experience of the Polish People’s Republic clearly proves that the power apparatus does not represent the interests of the working class. (If it did, how can we explain the events of 1956, 1970, 1976 and 1980?). . . Between the power apparatus on the one side and labour on the other, a deep class conflict exists, which causes antagonisms and conflict in the social life of our country . . . (Labour’s interests are opposed to) the politico-state and economic apparatus, acting as a whole as a collective monopoly, as de facto private owners.” [14]
Together with this awareness that the wages system, under whatever label, is against the interests of workers, goes the knowledge that Poland’s “Socialism” is a fraud: “State ownership and social ownership of the means of production are two completely different concepts which should never be confused. The means of production may be owned by the state but this does not mean that they are thereby the social property of the working class.” [15]
From this point of view it follows that “the real liberation of the proletariat can only take place by means of the socialisation (something quite different from state ownership) of the means of production.” [16]
This is a minority viewpoint but one which has real support. Jednosc, the journal quoted, has had impressive support from local Szczeczin workers, especially the print workers, and by January this year its fortnightly print run reached 100,000 copies.
The Vanguard Party and “Dual Power”
“Solidarity” can only act as a trade union, to defend workers’ interests within the system. It gave up any chance of political action by signing the Gdansk Agreement which, instead of the workers’ demand for trade unions “free and independent of the party”, declared that “the new unions . . . will recognise the leading role of the PUWP in the state.” [17]
However, as no political organisation genuinely represents workers’ interests, any organisation which purports to represent their interests takes on the role of an unofficial opposition, whether or not it organises as a political movement or even has a declared platform. As one Party member commented: “Solidarity represents all those who define themselves as ‘we’ against a Party and State defined as ‘them’. A system of dual power is gradually emerging.” [18]
Solidarity’s policy has been clear from the start: “in the cause of independence we will not link ourselves, let alone subordinate ourselves, to any political or social organisations.” [19] Yet the Government and its Moscow puppet-masters continually attack Solidarity as subversive enemies of the state. Such tactics are familiar to trade unionists here: Reds under the bed or CIA agents of Counter-Revolution, the same ploy used for the same purpose, to discredit union activists and prejudice public opinion against the unions.
Kania has made every effort to delay, minimise or renege on his signed agreements. Realising that — for the time being, at least — brute force, tanks or truncheons could not be used, the government strategy was to play for time while harassing, provoking or intimidating the union and its supporters.
The Chief Public Prosecutor circulated instructions on how to frame union activists. From his circular (leaked to Solidarity) we learn that the forces of “law and order” were in the habit of raiding workers’ homes to such an extent that “the large number of sequestrated objects — typewriters, duplicators, paper, and above all illegal publications — in some cases creates problems of storage”. Prosecutions were brought against workers distributing leaflets (“dropping litter in public places”) or wearing badges “without permission”. [20]
A Politburo member, Zabinski, privately reassured the security forces that Kania’s apparent concessions did not mean any underlying Wetness. There was a Machiavellian strategy behind the concessions:
“The aim was to quench the strikes, calm the nation and consider the situation later . . . (The workers’ committees should) taste a little power: it will have a cooling effect on them.” Ending the four-shift system would cause redundancies: “these workers’ commissions are to suggest who is going to be dismissed from the mines. Let them do this untypical work . . . These inter-factory workers’ committees have to fire them. We have to involve them in a thousand problems.” He concluded: “We should see to it that, first, they do not get rid of Party members, second, that they do get rid of the ‘KOR’ people, and then the rest must be simply slowly broken up.” [21]
This strategy, whose failure is self-evident, is based on the special fear felt by all Bolsheviks when workers form an alliance with “intellectuals”. Like Lenin, Kania and his colleagues believe workers are helpless without intellectuals to lead them. Lenin wrote that “the history of all countries shows that by its own forces the working class can only arrive at a trade union consciousness.” [22] The corollary to this is that only if workers unite with “intellectuals” is there any risk to the powers-that-be.
In Poland the KOR intellectuals supported the militant workers, and vice versa. Did the result support Lenin’s view? In the Gdansk strike, the workers took the initiative and the KOR “experts” were much less militant than the workers. The “intellectuals” were moderates while “the workers were really very opposed to the system, to the point where they wouldn’t even touch it, still less reform it”. [23] The workers wanted a trade union that would be independent of the party. Negotiating behind closed doors, the experts presented them with a “definitely agreed” formula which acknowledged “the leading role of the Party”. The workers “were very annoyed … (they) wanted to throw all the experts from the shipyards”. [23]
Lenin’s theory is insulting baloney. Workers can have a clear understanding of their real interests and of their actual strength when united and militant. The “experts” and KOR sympathisers were nervous of Russian intervention and more easily intimidated. (They were also more soft when appeals to the “national interest” were tried.) From fear of putting the cause of “free trade unions” at risk, they shackled the new unions with “the leading role of the Party”, which meant the continuance of the nomenklatura system.
One lesson of the Gdansk negotiations is that workers should do their own negotiating, openly. They are the experts.
The Self-Limiting Revolution
Socialists have a special interest in the development of independent trade union movements in totalitarian state capitalist countries. Embryo movements have sprung up in Russia, under enormous difficulties, and still operate underground, as used to be the case in Poland. [24]
In Poland the achievement has been greater, but — like Marx — we realise that “the real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever- expanding union of the workers.” [25]
We are not uncritical of Solidarity. Its policy is made by leaders. It is influenced by the Catholic Church, an influence which gives the “national interest” a higher priority than class interest. It has taken up the cause of the peasant farmers whose demands — higher food prices and private ownership of land — are in conflict with Solidarity members’ need for cheaper food and, ultimately, for common ownership of all means of production, including land.
However it has established a strong organisation of at least 10 million members, voluntarily enrolled, without any “closed shop” agreements or coercion of any kind. It is capable of defending workers’ interests.
Its existence has demonstrated that state and party control of the media cannot forever stifle the voice of the common people, and that police brutality and draconian penalties cannot prevent determined, class-conscious workers from striking and organising on the industrial field.
But, even if all Solidarity’s demands become reality, not mere promises from a Party notorious for breaking them whenever expedient, Poland’s workers would remain wage-slaves. Solidarity is not a revolutionary organisation. It is a trade union, whose role is to defend workers interests within the wages system. Meanwhile the PUWP still holds political power, dictates economic policy, laws, and — the ultimate sanction — controls the police and armed forces which protect the property of the state and which can be used, have been used and may be used again, to “defend the national interest” against the working class.
The PUWP’s power-monopoly will continue until Poland’s workers organise themselves for a political struggle as effectively as they have organised themselves on the industrial field. There is still work to be done. But until they get up off their knees, stop genuflecting to Popes, Cardinals and suffering Saint Lech Walesa, stop saluting the national flag, become deaf to appeals about the “national interest”, and take their stand exclusively on their class interest, they will fall short of becoming a revolutionary movement. They will remain mere heroes of protest.
References
[1] Solidarity communique. Jan. ’81 (Information Centre for Polish Affairs)
[2] Anna Walentynowicz (Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, winter-spring ’81)
[3] Stanislaw Wadolowski, vice-chairman of Szczeczin Solidarity (Labour Focus, ’81)
[4] Full text in Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, spring-autumn ’80
[5] PSC News (Polish Solidarity Campaign), March ’81.
[6] Interview with Two Gdynia Workers (Labour Focus, ’80)
[7] Solidarnosc Strike Bulletin, 28 Aug. (Labour Focus ’80)
[8] State of the Economy Report, July ’81 (Polish Press Agency)
[9] Solidarnosc Strike Bulletin. 20 Aug. (Labour Focus, *80)
[10] Information Centre for ‘ Polish Affairs, 14 May ’81
[11] Labour Focus ’81
[12] Prof. Markiewicz, Kultura 21 Sept. ’80 (Contemporary Poland, official digest of media and government statements)
[13] The same
[14] Jednosc, no. 16, 12 Dec. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’81)
[15] Statement of the Inter-College Co-ordinating Committee of Solidarity (Szczeczin region), Jednosc no. 14, also printed in Kommunikat, the Warski shipyard workers’ bulletin (Labour Focus, ’81)
[16] Jednosc no. 11, 30 Oct. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’81)
[17] Full text of the “21 Demands” and the Gdansk Agreement (Labour Focus, ’80)
[18] Article by B. Rogowski, 14 Nov. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’80)
[19] Inter-Factory Founding Committee of the Independent Trade Unions of the Coastline, statement, 17 Sept. ’80, published through KOR (Information Centre for Polish Affairs)
[20] Full text in Labour Focus, ’80
[21] Transcript of secret tape published in The Free Unionist, 5 March ’81 — Information Centre for Polish Affairs
[22] Lenin, What Is To Be Done?
[23] Jadwiga Staniskia, Experts and the “Leading Role” — (Labour Focus, ’81). Her statement that workers disliked the “agreed formula” is supported by another “expert”, Geremek—interview in Que Faire Auiourd’hui? (no. 9)
[24] See Workers Against the Gulag, ’79 (Pluto Press)
[25] Communist Manifesto
CS