By O. MacDonald TWO YEARS after the great strike wave that Poland's independent movement, Poland's resistance mobilising and protests aimed that working class support for their independent tions remains as ever. The campaign will reach its climax on 31 August the second anniversary of the Gdansk Agreements which marked the Stalinist capitulation to the of the workers in 1980.
The coup d'etat Jaruzelski in December last year was a bad defeat for the Polish but it failed to Solidarity.
Jaruzelski regime have been pressing for second wave of violence to try to finish underground resistance once and for all.
Others, the so-called liberals' like deputy Premier Rakowski, favour a mixture of repression of key working class activists with a prolonged period of political manouevring to Solidarity and wear it down, using the exhausting economic crisis and the conciliationist stance of the Church hierarchy as weapons in this In every major city, activists have regrouped around networks of factory clandestine bulletins which the police have been incapable of penetrating and suppressing numbers. Since April a national co ordinating committee Solidarity's leaderships in four important areas Gdansk, Warsaw, Huta Cracow-Nowa demonstrations at the start of May and very widespread token strikes on 13 May marked strength the present mobilisation will mark the second key test for Solidarity.
So far the movement has remained tirmv united in any significant breaking of ranks. But debate Solidarity on the aims that the moveSocialist Challenge 28 August 1962 pago 6 launched Solidarity's labour Walesa Solidarity, underground movement is in the demonstrations other organisastrong as bring change, system.
government's demands different union' by General will workers' crush Some elements within the the and off the moverue lu within Solidarity's committees and circles movement significant linked declining. nas regional Wroclaw and Huge union first show of under OlHO The without within ment should persue. A big part intellectual together with some leaders like Lech are prepared to acknowledge that Solidarity went too far in the past and are ready to make basic changes organisation's structure transform it into a non-political trade union and accept a lengthy strike ban because of the economic crisis. On the side the underground activists see Solidarity's basic aim to be a mass movement to fundamental breaking up LIC bureaucratic structure of the political Linked to these disagreements on aims, the two groupings seek to adopt tactics. The "pure trend argues for tactics that re-assure elements within regime that they can achieve lasting co-operation and good-will Solidarity if they are ready to restore its legal rights.
On the other hand, the activists of underground movement tactics which will eventually force the regime to grant major concessions or face the prospect of a second revolutionary upsurge on the Gdansk commune of 1980.
At present the Jaruselski regime has no intention of entering into any serious negotiations with any section Solidarity and the the nave therefore become a political factor of the first importance. The government has been hoping that the more conciliationist trend within the leadership of Solidarity, aided by the pressure of the Church hierarchy and prominent intellectuals around the would gain the hand, as the movement saw the level working class If such a trend were to develop then the need to have serious negotiations with Solidarity would and an entirely new structure, entirely control Biencau established The mobilisations up to 31 August will therefore be crucial strength for both Solidarity and the Indications SO cluding Jaruzelski's hurried the Crimea to see Brezhnev last week, suggest that the regime fears it may nave underesumated tne scope or support for the Solidarity undergound.
of advisers up meat prices.
to demands. conceded, workers' per cent trade the because there strike. ing' shook favour nation-wide scale of the ford it.
tee, differences mation bureaucratic upper support AS the trade specifically shipyard. could be August, LOSI tar, in -visit to were tivists, of Polish workers were killed. Again in June 1976 a 69 per cent increase in the price of meat led to nation-wide rioting.
On 1 July 1980 the Polish introduced a price system for meat, which effectively transferred some of the better, cheaper meat, to the so'commercial' shops reserved for bureaucracy. This time there were immediate i rio. But, no sponexplosion. as workers began to see and feel the effects of the move, work began to stop in some of the major factories, including the Ursus tractor factory, the Mielec aircraft factory and a vehicle parts factory The workers were demanding wage rises to compensate for the government's measures pushing This was just the start of a vast wave of strikes. Under orders not to put up too much resistance, and to get the matter over with as soon as possi ble, the factory managers began concede the workers But, as the managers the scale of demands increased, so much so that some of the workers who had already settled for five well on strike demanding more. In some places the wage increase demands were as much as 20 per cent.
There was no national strike leadership to co-ordinate such was workers' However a series of 'rollstrikes took place the regime. Party leader Gierek went on television on 10 July to say that there would be no increase claiming the country couldn't afAt this stage a new force came onto the scene. The KOR, the Workers' Self-Defence Commitbegan to co-ordinate intorabout the strikes eventually became an active force linking up the factories in struggle. During July some 150 plants took strike action. After years of mismanagement, the Communist Party leadership was seeing the emergence of a generalised challenge to its rule.
the whole knows, the major challenge to the bureaucray started to emerge at shipyards in the huge At 4.30 am on members of the semiclandestine 'Free Trade Union of the Coast' gathered outside the gates of the shipyard to meet the 7,000 workers going In.
demanding the instatement of one of their acAnna Walentynowicz, long-time supporter of free trade unions. All the guiding nucleus of wide strike movement.
were taken up recounted many times.
the the top of the the manager employee Lech in the morning.
negotiate tions on the 'commercial' demanded eventually the shipyard management.
Commune
again Gdansk began to day 16 August committee which zloty sion by the ment.
area, and of the strike strikers. The now over Gdansk, that the Lenin greeted Walesa changed to the Lenin shipyard.
They re- mittee, the Solidarnosc, radical minority had effectively by the management to sack Anna as the opportunity to bring the Lenin shipyard behind the nationFrom 4.30 am onwards the workers started to give out their leaflets. Eventually their demands inside the yard The scene that followed has been Workers addressed the shipyard employee La crane. They were successively addressed by unfortunate shipyard Gniech and by exWalesa who had been helped over the wall earlier The meeting went indoors to Walesa and others from the Free Trade Union were at the forefront of the negotiafirst day. The workers demanded a one-third in crease in pay, re-instatement ot sacked workers, earlier retirement and the abolition of the special shops. They a monument to the workers who had been killed by the police in 1970 - a demand conceded the The strike spread. The Paris shipyard in Gdynia came out. Workers throughout go on strike The demands of the workers hac gone far beyond the narrow concerns of the shipyard. By Saturat the negotiating the Gdansk Monument to strikers killed in 19: shipyard was on the verge of reaching agreement — on a 1,500 month increase reinstatement of sacked workers and no victimisations. This agreement represented a major concesshipyard manageBut the negotiating committee of the workers at the shipyard was getting out of contact with what was happening in the rest of the numbers workers were striking. The ending by the Gdansk shipyard would have led to the government picking off the other strike committee split but a majority voted to settle. A delegation from the Gdansk public transport garage arrived to demand that the strike be conLech Walesa's announcement the public address system strike was heckling Then his mind and went round the shipyard demanding the strike continue. Delegations from other plants swarmed That evenMasses jubilant at shipyard gate. ing the Inter-Factory Strike Cominitial nucleus of was The majority by broadening thei strike base. They drew up their list of 1 committee at the Lenin shipyard demands, later increased to 2 outflanked the which became the negotiatin
general The ther. 25,000 Pyka, deputy Gdansk party leader television a reform unions, the posals right to union had stumbling block.
Deputy
to Trade Union of the Coast, into a confrontation government over basic workers' rights. From now on the negotiations at Gdansk became a focal point for the whole movement.
strike spread even furworkers strike in Szczecin, including in the Adolf Warski shipyard. Tadeusz one of the government's prime ministers, to negotiate government. As the tension rose, Gierek and pay and food allowances, bette welfare provisions, an investigation into workers' conditions and CRZZ. were unacceptable - the with the went on went to for the went on promised bette official trade These pro-