ștruggle in Europe.
anti-working class will create a the West.
The Polish began to HOVe enfeebled. Gierek regime had become so drunk with its own euphoric propaganda that it thought it could assert some aullonl ov prices on 1 July. The worker: hit back by demanding wage increases.
When these increases easily, sections of the working class felt confident enough to launch a The Catholic Church wants more than a word political ding rights that would -and oureusve in Walesa's ear of 1970 Socialist Challenge 1 January 1981 THE UNFOLDING drama workers' struggle for political rights is the key to the entire development of the class If the Polish workers are defeated the Europe will be greatly strengthened. If the Polish workers win and hold power this crisis for bureaucracy and the imperialist powers in workers when Ine systel.
raising meat mass strike action wor LOTCS demannumber the price rises.
million people died.
the ceremony.
about visiting political use.
wur tirst stop Warsaw regiona Solidarity. Even speaking Polish the busy mus onere wal Huge notice boards with peo. ple taking notes; small groups f activists discussing; queue of the Polish forces throughout the Stalinist did — drive a shipyard crane through the Stalinist political Above demanded and won indepen•dent trade unions.
During the course of the strike wave struck in over S00 tactoriec in the Gdansk region. They cam in the MK$ Inter-Factory Strike Committee. Workers in dozens of facSzczecin region created a similar body and the same type of organisation was also created in the Wroclaw On December 16th 1970 an unknown of mainly shipyard workers Gdansk/Gdynia shot by the police for protesting against Ten years later the new independent unions held a rally of half a to commemorate 120-foot high monument to those who Along with other worker militants from around Europe, I went to Poland to meet Solidarity members and attend The editor of Socialist Challenge rang me La union/management meeting at work told us we would be laid off over Xmas. So with sponsorship from my AUEW branch this was a unique chance to turn the capitalist crisis in this country to was the been without ui salsatul. infectious: StHI weak Jeans and constan!
total million.)
vanguard popular deserted by • CRAS upper they turmoil.
trade workers SCCI Prague the such area were day before the routine million. The union has only and the level in some arcas Is examioic Katowice only 50 per cent of the miners are members and Upper Silesia areas Between 14 August and 1 September over one million workeis were on sunike ror tne same central demands (out o work-force of 12 The Gdansk victory pulled the entire working class, the middle and poor Dcasdlil. and the mass of students and cultural intellectuals over the side of the working class The bureaucratic lackea any base support. It" was its own working membership, levels of bureaucracy were thrown into Internationally, emergence of an independent union Poland was catastrophic prospect by the bureaucracies ir and East Berlin: became established and legitimised it would be a gigantic beacon of hope to the East German and Czechoslovak workers.
In Czechoslovakia the
Solidarność
pieces the stalinist rule regime tried to seal This IVoLCNCal against for repression.
East German Solidarnosc, the agent: in dependent the coexisting has to give.
by •rOISA workers would ușe a lever like • smash entire cauace. oi So the Husak off the country from news of Polatd for as long as possible WaN however, impossible for East Germany, so Honecker has swung over to a cold-war line West Germany create the right atmosphere The rank and file of the CP has been tor sarada Walesa leader is a CIA other words, any East German arguing for intrade unions deserves ten years for spying But all this horseplay is only a stop-gap: there is no chance of genuinely independent trade unions in Poland indefinitely the Stalinist set-up in Eastern Europe. One side or the other . The basic international Stalinist line is that the union must be crushed either government alone or with the help of ar
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Photo: RAB BIRD (Sociallat Challenge) Half a million people came to Gdansk to remember the dead'
(Socialist Challenge Photo: RAB BIRD