[The Sixth Congress of the Polish Communist party, held in December, naturally preoccupied itself with attempting to evaluate the lessons of the December 1970 workers' uprising in order to prevent such challenges to the bureaucracy's privileges in the future. The following analysis of the situation in Poland appeared in the December 4 issue of Rouge, the newspaper of the Ligue Communiste (French section of the Fourth International). The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
In introducing the draft theses for the Congress, a Warsaw newspaper wrote: "... The discussion now opening will be different from its prede cessors... the socialistconsciousness of our people has deepened; we have understood some bitter truths as never before, and we have better realized the dangers arising from the break in connections between the basic components of the party and society, which was so tragically revealed in the De cember explosion. ..." (Zycie Warszawy, September 7, 1971.)
An extraordinarily clear confession. In the last phase of the Gomulka period, the party had ceased to play its role as an effective tool for the bureaucracy's management of society. Party members were apathetic and insufficiently motivated. They defaulted in their responsibility of explaining the economic goals set by the leaders to their fellow workers, of convincing them of the correctness of these goals, and of urging them to work without protest toward realizing the goals "for the well-being of the nation."
And when protest did develop, these same members not only were incapable of derailing it, but, in their political apathy (and out of fear for their personal careers), they did not even report its existence through hierarchical channels so the leadership could be informed of the real sentiments of the masses. It is not surprising, today's leaders cry, that the
Gomulka crew should have become so divorced from the masses that it had been able to go so far as to de cree that monstrous increase in the price of basic foodstuffs, never fore seeing that the workers might take to the streets in response.
Such is the critique made by the present leaders. The party had be come too bureaucratized! It allowed popular discontent to overilow into channels that were totally uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Thus, the party could no longer insure the bureaucracy's domination of society. This is the danger they are trying to alleviate today.
But unfortunately for our bureaucrats, if the party has arrived at this point, the reasons do not lie on the level of simple personal deficiencies. They are profoundly embedded in the present crisis of the regime.
During the period of the initial in dustrialization, the bureaucrats' job was relatively simple. It was to explain to the working class that the task of the hour was the reconstruction of a country totally destroyed by the war; that this necessitated a great deal of effort and sacrifice from the whole society (they simply "forgot" to make any comparison between the salary of a bureaucrat and that of a worker), but that at the cost of belttightening in the present, a radiant future would be constructed within twenty years.
This explanation was easy to put over, since it was often propagated by devoted militants full of enthusi asm,' and was addressed to a working class that was numerically and culturally weak.
It was composed, in its great majority, of first-generation workers arriving in the city from the overcrowded countryside. They derived considerable immediate benefit from the industrialization (disappearance of the specter of unemployment, increased social advantages, the possibility of rapid social advancement in an expanding industrial apparatus, etc.).
Today, after twenty-seven years of the regime and in spite of an immense industrial development, serious difficulties persist, especially in the sphere of consumption.2 And it is no longer possible to replay the same old song with the refrain "in twenty years this will be paradise." Even the militants who were most devoted in the past find it hard to believe, all the more so since many of them were profoundly demoralized after Gomulka's gang liquidated the conquests of October 1956, in which they had placed their hopes.
Finally, the working class itself has undergone many changes during the industrialization. Today, it constitutes a modern proletariat of a high cul tural level, strongly unified, a majority of society; a proletariat that feels a growing discomfort at submitting to the tutelage of the bureaucracy. The young workers (whose weight within the working class is very great) do not consider the early industrialization as a conquest achieved at great cost, but as a natural basis for new conquests. For them, above all, the old song no longer has any credibility.
Finally, as the old cadres have be come increasingly demoralized, a new layer has increasingly asserted itself in the party. Careerists, largely de politicized in the image of the system itself, pour into the party, which they consider exclusively a device for ascending the rungs of society to as sure themselves the biggest slice of the pie. Devoid of conviction, care fully concealing from the top leaders the difficulties at the base so as not to compromise their personal careers, they are the motive force of the ossification of the apparatus. They subordinate the general interests of the bureaucracy to the interests of their own personal careers. It is especially to them that the present leaders refer when they complain, in the newspapers and in the draft theses for the Sixth Congress, of "comrades having a weak political consciousness, who do not belong in our party."
This layer of members seems to constitute the base of Moczar's group of "partisans."3 Moczar's group, fighting tooth and nail for the commanding heights of the party, rather well expressed the aspirations of all the careerists wanting to climb the steps of the apparatus, which on the whole is already well structured so that each jealously defends his already acquired position. The careerist layer was not at all bothered by the virulent anti- Semitism of the "partisans," which well served their personal interests. The expulsion from the party of bureaucrats of Jewish origin resulted in a certain number of vacant spots in the apparatus, which the careerists could take over. 4
To recast the party into a more efficient tool, better able to manage society, more attentive to the complaints of the masses, that is the fundamental concern of the present leadership. It is also one of the fundamental themes of the preparations for the Sixth Congress. Let us give some examples.
A big campaign had been launched in which the "activist" members (paid functionaries) of the party talked (individually, like good bureaucrats, to avoid collective discussion) with 1,- 200,000 members and candidates in order to politically remotivate them and expel a series of those whose "political level is insufficient."
We have no illusions about the effectiveness of this campaign. In the first place, the expulsions have not been very numerous. It was more a matter of frightening others, rather than creating any kind of "mass" movement whatsoever, which would
строих
MIECZYSLAW MOCZAR
at the same time weaken the forces of the party, the fundamental structure of the bureaucratic state.
Besides, the "activist" was doing the but there was no one to purging, purge the "activists" themselves. But the intensity of the campaign, the publicity it was given in both the press and the draft theses for the Congress, well testify to the importance the pres ent leadership group attaches to the problem.
The press overflows with testimony of party secretaries of certain factories explaining the functioning of their cells. Some of these are real "little handbooks for the good bureaucrat," presented as recipes for others to follow. The recipes are always the same: you must listen to what people say and know how to respond to their questions, or else they will find other ways of expressing their discontent; it is necessary for people to complain, but individually and in a recognized fashion; the factory management must bring its decisions into line with the requests of the party, otherwise the latter might get into fights with the management (to protect the confidence of workers discontented with the decisions) and this undermines management's authority, which is indispensable, etc., etc. ... All this bureaucratic cynicism is widely diffused in the press under a title that is itself revealing: "Authority and Frankness in Factory Life."
Lastly, we should try to explain why the new leaders sent the "partisans" on leave. This grouping has lost most of its pre-December 1970 positions, especially in the security apparatus. From the viewpoint of maintaining his own position at the head of the party, Gierek certainly had every reason to fear the "partisans." It is also certain that Moczar's demotion must have pleased the Kremlin, which did not appreciate his supernationalism. Finally, one must not forget that Moczar and his friends, as heads of the police, were directly responsible for the repression on the Baltic coast in December 1970, for which the workers demanded his resignation.
Perhaps the demotion also reflected the desire to get rid of the spokesmen for this most rotten element of the party, whose immobilization and incapacity had become so dangerous for the bureaucracy. In any case, the demotion does not mean that the fate of the "partisans" is settled. If the Gie rek team fails in its turn, if social tensions are again exacerbated, the present leaders will call on the "hard man" who, for the moment, is waiting in the wings.
All these machinations do not mean -far from it-that the present leaders count on regaining complete credibility in the eyes of the masses. To derail the movement of December 1970 Gierek turned to a "realistic" solution: he appealed to the church, demonstrating by that alone his conviction that Cardinal Wyszynski's words are better received in the hearts of the Polish masses than those of the First Secretary. That was already a damaging admission. And the cardinal did not disappoint the leaders. He called upon the people "not to accuse, not to rebel, but to harness yourselves together to the national plow, to bring out of the fields more bread for the fatherland." (!)
Today, the same admission continues. One of the regime's leading journalistss wrote, in commenting on the last synod of the Vatican, that this venture could be very useful if it served to induce the Polish clergy "to pledge itself to the virgin soil of society, to combat social ills more actively, such as alcoholism and hooliganism, and above all to foster the
5. The same one who in May 1968 referred to Daniel Cohn-Bendit in the Polish press as "the German-Jewish leader Cohn- Bendit." We may thus have some reason to express doubts about the purge of the apparatus.
maturation of the ethical ideal of work as the fundamental criterion of value in all society, and in the first place in socialist society."
Thus, after having persecuted the church during the Stalin era,6 today the Polish bureaucracy stretches out its hand, asking the church to provide a powerful contribution to its own police within the society.
Notes
1. They were principally worker militants, old prewar militants, and those of the Young Communist rank and file. But that in no way predetermined the composition of the party at that time. Just after the liberation, a considerable mass of people having nothing in common with the ideas of socialism attached themselves to the party, feeling that this was now the path to privilege. Among them were a significant number of servants of the old bourgeois regime, including some members of the old fascist movements.
2. The Central Committee theses for the Sixth Congress now officially recognize that in the course of the last five years living standards had stagnated and there was even a fall in the real wages of some categories of workers.
3. Before the December 1970 events, the ultranationalist grouping of "partisans" led a fight inside the leading organs of the party, which had given them complete control of the security apparatus and a good deal of control of the news organs.
4. In the same way, forcing citizens of Jewish origin out of the country meant that several thousand posts in society became free for the taking. That's how, after 1968, the bureaucracy tried to "attenuate" the social crisis produced by the slowdown of economic growth.