A FRONT LINE WHERE BLOOD IS
(....) We can say that the first clear impression that strikes one - and this explains the complexity of the Polish events - is the contradiction between their real nature and the form in which they appear. Nobody intervenes in an open way against socialism.
Nobody makes direct attacks on socialism as in the past. They speak essentially of
But all these people who are so preoccupied with the future of socialism in
People say to me. It is question of rhetoric. Well yes and no. The specificity of the situation is such that the enemies of socialism keep well hidden or rather hide their
Apparently even those individuals who not so long ago called themselves
'dissidents' (those who 'think differently from the socialist regime and people's power') have concealed their ferocious hatred of socialism. Even those people are wearing the new colours of 'defenders' of the workers and partisans of a 'restored' or
'improved' socialism. But what sort of socialism? A socialism that is understood as be-
Felix Kouznetsov
NOT SPILT
Worrying Questions
Poland, are they really so sincere?
intentions.
73 in the light of Poland
'improving', 'correcting' or 'restoring' socialism.
pears advantageous for these militants to keep in the shadows, behind 'worker militants' — contenting themselves with providing the 'brains'
In the same way the links with their allies — or rather with their foreign' masters
- are hidden, camoflaged and kept in the dark. These links are mystified, deformed, embellished and are passed off as something else. The affair is presented as if the revolutionaries who are playing a dangerous and risky game in Poland, but rather supports a large mass movement aiming to 'restore' socialism and 'new trade unions'
Today in Poland it is difficult to directly attack the idea of socialism but one can disfigure it, misrepresent it and through that even destroy it. That is the particular tactic of the counter-revolution in Poland today. The adjective 'creeping' applied to this tactical variant of the counter-revolution is much more precise and correct. To be frank, this tactic has unfortunately borne some fruit - which is furthermore not negligible - because they have skilfully known how to take into consideration and use the objective and subjective factors which have facilitated the activity of anti-
Without a doubt the principal paradox — and the essential particularity — consists in the fact that anti-socialist extremist forces, in their struggle against socialism, have banked on the very qualities of the working class and the Polish people - to a great extent educated by socialism. In trying to manipulate the consciousness of the working class, they have played on its consciousness of being the leading force, on the sense of social and civic responsibility of the working class with regard to all that happens in its own country, on its rejection of the violations of Leninist norms, of the least injustice and of the workers' genuine disapproval of the economic management
The distinctive characteristic of the Polish events has been that these forces have based themselves essentially on the youth, on the youngest generation of the working class. A revealing and striking fact is that whereas in the sector (branch or 'official') trade unions it is mainly workers over 40 who have remained, the first members of Solidarnosc were young people from 20 to 30 years of age!
The enemy has simultaneously used the moral maximalism of young people, which has grown under socialist conditions and its inexperience of life and society, its political immaturity, as well as the fact that in its majority it is the first generation of only just left the land. All this has facilitated attempts to manipulate the working class - of which the KOR have been past masters of these past few years - above all by refusing all moral norms and principles.
As we have already said, the principal and extremely perfidious character of the tactic of the anti-socialist forces (who from the beginning have chosen the strategy of a slow 'peaceful', 'creeping' counter-revolution in Poland) is the fact that the enemies of socialism in shamelessly deceiving the working class, have carefully hidden from the latter their true aims and intentions - which are profoundly anti-
The specific tactic of creeping counter-revolution in Poland demonstrates better than anything else how socialism - the most human and just social order - is deeply rooted in the hearts and thoughts of Polish workers, to the extent that even the most vehement enemies of socialism do not go to the masses with anti-socialist slogans. On the contrary, they have suddenly put on the mask of the 'workers friend' even using the corresponding name of the 'Committee for the defence of working people' (KOR).
The KOR - the most strident of the loudmouths that Lenin in his time defined as ultra-left - developed from a group of the Trotskyist tendency, the 'Union of the
74 ing without communists,
'pluralistic'
West does not in Poland... an authentic socialism if you like!
socialist forces in Poland.
Manipulation of Consciousness of the country (malaise, inconsistency, and wastage).
workers who have socialist.
Without the leading role of the party, a 'national',
', 'Polish' socialism with a 'human face' support the KOR, the 'dissidents'
International Marxist Review
'. For a certain period of time it ap and inveterate counter-
Young Rebels'. Today the KOR, 'parasiting Trotskyist-style' on the youth, has abruptly started, in a stronger and more persistent way than other forces, to demonstrate its preoccupation with the quality of socialism in Poland, with the 'needs and interests' of the workers. It has begun to lead a sensationalist, furious and rowdy struggle against the insuffiencies and 'deviations' of socialism in the People's Republic of
Quite openly, anarcho-syndicalist ideas and conceptions have been recuperated, cleaned up, restored and once again put into the circuit of history — a tried and tested method used by petit-bourgoeis ideologists to deceive the workers movement.
Anarcho-syndicalism, which emerged under the direct influence of bourgeois anarchist ideas, benefits from an enormous enthusiasm and concern among today's Trotskyists and the 'New Left' in Europe — of all nuances and colours
— up to and including the 'Red Brigades'. The essence of anarcho-syndicalism has always been the hope of a social revolution organised by the 'trade unions', the professional unions who are supposedly capable of replacing the ruling political power and creating a society governed by a free association of professional unions. The universal method to achieve these ends for the anarcho-syndicalists is the 'economic' general strike, with the aim of taking power and running production.
capitalism, these 'leftists' and Trotskyists that have just surfaced in Poland have tried to lead hard general strikes against the social sytem — cleverly taking advan-
This was the carefully masked bourgeois consciousness which, for several years has been introduced with persistence and masterly skill into the peaceful movement of a certain sector of the Polish working class and produced an ideological diversion.
The latter was discontented, not with socialism but with its faults, its errors, that is to say with the unfinished, incomplete side of socialist principles in the life of contem-
A real plot against socialist Poland has been worked out, presented as a complex, stage-by-stage programme of ideological actions which includes bourgeois nationalism in all its different forms as well as anti-Sovietism and hatred against Rus-
This plot, skillfully and intensively put into practice, has unfortunately borne some fruit. The saddest and most important balance-sheet we can draw is that a part
As one can see, not only the revolution but also the counter-revolution can have its national peculiarities and nuances. It is this particularity, this unforeseen specificity of the class struggle unfolding today in Poland which determines the con-
This figures also in the project of the enemy - to force the party to endlessly justify itself, to sow a guilt complex among all communists even though the fault of the errors that have been made does not derive from socialism but from the leaders of the socialist regime who were not all mature enough for socialism on the level of ideas and morality. Enemies are trying to push the party to defend itself. It has to be said
This conspiratorial, extreme right-wing (i.e.counter-revolutionary) organisation which is organised in foreign countries and injected into Poland has just as quickly taken on the colours of the extreme left, Trotskyists and anarchists. In Poland it is known that in his youth Kuron, who claims the role of ideological leader of the KOR, idolised Trotsky and his theory of 'permament revolution'. The Trotskyist 'Union of the Young Rebels' and later the 'Open Letter to the Party' written by Kuron - on openly Trotskyist positions - together with the long-time expert of Solidarnosc on press matters, K. Modzalewski - such is the origin of this grouplet which tries to put into practice the 'creeping' revolution in Poland. It is precisely these Trotskyist, anarcho-syndicalist 'leftists' ideas — by their external forms of expression and their
Felix Kouznetsov
Poland
However, tage of the errors committed in Poland.
porary Poland.
sian culture.
KOR if previously the methods and objectives of the working class, essentially the youth, has been tricked crete strategic and tactical tasks of the party franky, the counter-revolution has done a lot of damage.
75 aimed against were
76 International Marxist Revieu methods of application, which correspond perfectly to what Lenin understood in the phrase 'they go to the left but end up on the right' - which forms the basis of their anti-socialist activity.