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After May the atmosphere in Poland changed completely. The workers began to recover their daring. The repression generated by martial law fizzled out. Now everyone talks openly. Solidarity has its own legal press. Even the official media are forced to give quite honest reports of strikes and demonstrations.
The economic mess has stirred people up. A kilo of ham went up from 3000z to 6700z in one week. Parowka, one of the staple types of sausage, rose 10 times since July. Bus fares increased from 4z to 60z in two weeks. Jaruzelski talked about 'more freedom for the private sector' as a trick to disguise the government's responsibility for these price rises. But the increases will soon evaporate any illusions that some have about capitalism being a better system.
At the same time Stalinist rule has left threequarters of houses outside the major towns still without sewage systems. Many people in the country still draw their water from wells. Roads end in the middle of nowhere because of the lack of materials to finish them. Parkland, building sites and residential areas are all jumbled up together. Where I live, a burst sewage pipe spills out over a path where people go for walks.
Women on average spend about four hours a day queueing. It wears you down. You see someone selling toilet paper. You know there may be no more in the shops for months so you buy him out. You go home to your family. Someone else has got a pair of shoes your size. There were only four pairs in the shop so they quickly bought a pair for you. A woman is going home with a dozen packets of washing powder. People go up to her and ask 'where did you get it?' She tells them. They hurry off, hoping the shop hasn't run out and the queue isn't too long For some things you need to queue from three in the morning to make sure you are in the front when the shop opens at seven. That's no joke in winter when it goes down to -30°C. The leadership of Solidarity don't have a clue what they are doing. They say they stand for a 'mixed economy' with some elements of work. ers' control. It is a disguised way of calling for a return to capitalism, which the worst 'intellectuals' at the top surrounding and advising Walesa undoubtedly want, but do not dare say so in front of the workers.
They hope to 'use the next four years to erode the state monopoly of the economy, the media, the state apparatus and parliament' (where still only 35% of the seats are freely elected) in the hope that by the time of the next election there can be a nice constitutional victory for Solidarity.
There will be storms inside Solidarity, now the leaders have decided to go into a coalition government. They have already burnt up a lot of their authority. The consciousness of the Poland workers'
anger mounts In an exclusive, on-the-spot account from Gdansk, Jan Rokoczy, describes the growing anger of Polish workers over the actions of Solidarity leaders
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Gdansk
shipyard workers strike
(above and
overleaf).
neer rev
260
he old woman
"What Poland is is a lution"
masses is developing so quickly. Many especially in the Gdansk region, not activists, see Walesa as selling out.
One old lady in her seventies with only one leg, on her way to Czestochowa (a holy shrine) 'to ask the mother of God to kick out the communists' (read bureaucracy) and 'for her son-inlaw to be cured of lung cancer' says Walesa has sold out the masses. What Poland needs is a revolution. But we may have to wait a little bit. Warsaw is not hot enough yet.
The active workers have no illusions about the road Walesa is taking. They say we have a chance now to bring the masses out and overthrow the regime. But if we don't make use of the current opening in the political situation we will pay for it in prison or the graveyard.'
The Solidarity leaders dissipated the instinctive mood there was to strike in unison against the price rises. The Gdansk tube workers struck and got an 80.000z increase on their monthly wage (about 80% ). Other factories struck and were occupied all over the country. But each strike is settled separately, in a rush, by a desperate bureaucracy.
The one hour strike in the Gdansk region on Friday 11 August was an attempt by the Solidarity leadership to release a little pressure because of the mood building up from below. But Walesa insisted that the famous Lenin shipyard did not join the strike, because it has just been bought by an American entrepreneur 'Mrs Johnson' who, he says, 'the workers should not offend'!
Nevertheless,
was
workers, just the
support
the strike with factories, hospitals, all the other shipyards and workplaces coming out. If there had been a call from the leadership for an allout national general strike the response would have been overwhelming.
Strikes are still technically illegal. Fighting Solidarity and all the militant factions within the workers movement are illegal. The secret police are watching and waiting. This is not a road to democracy. It is a road to a new showdown like 1981.
Meanwhile the activists try and gauge the mood and test the possibility of calling a general offensive from below. Fighting Solidarity reflects the frustration of the activists with Walesa's politics. 'How can we have talks, never mind form a government, with a regime whose hands are dripping with blood?' is a typical remark.
In Gdansk outside St Brigitte's Church after mass on Sunday the priest, Jankowski, calls for a Poland without strikes, 'because strikes should not be necessary.' Walesa calls on the workers to go peacefully to their homes to reflect because we have a trying time ahead of us.'
Some activists from the shipyard strike committee, from 'Opposition 88', an illegal fraction within Solidarity, from Fighting Solidarity and from the RSA (Movement for a Socialist Alternative) unfurl a banner on a raised patch of ground. With a megaphone they address the congregation as it pours out of the church. 'The price rises are unacceptable. We propose a march to the town centre in protest against the regime. Teenagers, young workers, the old, and families all stop to listen. They cheer the call for a general strike.
Within minutes the church congregation has transformed itself into a political demonstration calling for the overthrow of the bureaucracy. A couple of policemen, who look as powerless as little boys, look down at the pavement, anxious. ly pretending not to notice this sea of 2000 angry workers shouting slogans at the top of their voices!
Witty leaflets denouncing Walesa's 'marriage' to Jaruzelski are thrown high into the air so that the distributors cannot be identified. As they flutter to the ground people scuffle to get hold of them and read them avidly.
It is not just in Gdansk either. In most of major towns there are churches where service can transform into a demonstration moment's notice.
Something like this happens every Sunday. But the demonstrations are getting bigger as the mood builds up. Anger is in the air. Over the last year several demonstrations like this were brutally attacked by the police. Now any spark could ignite a riot.
The authoritiesare powerless. Only Walesa and the Pope are keeping them in their places.
the the at a
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China