(The following statement on the June 25 Polish workers demonstrations was issued in Warsaw in July by Jerzy Andrzejewski, one of the most prominent novelists of postwar Poland. He is best known for his novel Ashes and Diamonds, on which a celebrated Polish film made during the post-1956 liberalization was based. The text of this declaration has been translated by Intercontinental Press from the August 27 issue of La Breche, the fortnightly paper of the Ligue Marxiste Révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Marxist League) of Switzerland, the Swiss Trotskyist organization.]
To the Persecuted Members of the Workers Movement:
"Poland is not only our common country but our collective property."
I have been filled with concern and sadness by the persecution and injustice that have been inflicted on you, feelings I am convinced are shared by many of my fellow writers and by the broad masses of progressive intellectuals, and this conviction is confirmed every day. In these difficult times, I address you with respect and solidarity, but also with hope and compassion.
I realize that when you are facing long terms in prison; the violation of your rights; the physical violence to which you have been subjected; the humiliation that has been inflicted on you; the powerlessness that oppresses you every day, a frustration that is one of the most grinding amidst all the tortures of the human spirit; when you are facing the collapse of the material bases of your existence because of massive firings, my words are only words, and they weigh very lightly as against your sufferings.
But these words are the only way I can express my solidarity with you, my sympathy, and my indignation. At a time to the process of national reorganization does not lie outside, but rather within, the armed forces."
The cause of this developing crisis is not the opposition between an alleged democratic desire on Videla's part and the socalled rightist terrorism. It is the crisis of the military putschists' political and economic plans that explains the conflict that is taking place in the different echelons of the Military apparatus.
The workers must intervene in this crisis, which can come to take on more violent forms than those that appeared among the police. This intervention cannot take the form of support for any sector of the military. Rather it must be totally independent, with an effective program for the rule of democratic rights.
For a united front of all organizations and citizens to fight for these rights.
Polish Workers when the government, through the press, the radio, and the television, is trying to delude public opinion and divert attention away from the real causes, aceusing you of "antisocial behavior," "destructive anarchism," or even "banditry," I want you to know that there are people in Poland who have become immune to the lies, who can still tell truth from falsehood. I want you to know that there are people in this country who see you persecuted workers not only as the defenders of a just cause, but above all as fighters for genuine socialist democracy. And without this socialist democracy, liberty has perished, the government's lying rhetoric dominates public life, the nation is endangered, and individuals are smothered.
The hearts and minds of these people who know the truth turn toward you, and all Europe, the entire world, waits anxiously to see if the Polish government will dare try to deny its responsibility by putting the blame on those who demonstrated against its wrong decisions and kept them from being carried out.
I want to promise you in my name and those of my friends, Polish writers who have already sent a written appeal on your behalf to prominent political and cultural personalities in Europe, that we will not halt our efforts to stop the persecution to which you have been subjected and which continues to threaten you.
We demand an amnesty, the rehabilitation of those persecuted and slandered, the right to jobs for those who have been deprived of them.
As long as even one among you, one member of the workers' protest movement, is still threatened by force and violence and denied full rights as a worker and a citizen, we are going to go on defending you, even though our means are very limited. Poland is not only our common country but also our collective property.
We must defend it.