[The following article appeared in the February 16 issue of the Frenchlanguage fortnightly Inprecor, published in Paris. The translation is by Intercontinental Press]
The accompanying statement of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International was written before the results of the eighth plenum of the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP) Central Committee were known. The outcome reveals that the position of the Kania wing was strengthened.
Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski was named while retaining his prime minister, position as minister of defense. And several supporters of a "dialogue" with the Solidarity trade-union federation vice-premiershipsgiven were particularly the chief negotiator of the Gdansk agreement, and Rakowski the editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Politika.
This confirms that the top ranks of the bureaucracy do not feel strong enough to test their strength right now against the massive, organized movement of workers, students, and farmers. They prefer to approach things indirectly, win some time, spread things out, and count on attrition, divisions, and exhaustion among the workers, in order to begin the "normalization" process.
But in no way does this signify a new retreat by the bureaucracy. On the whole, the situation remains as it is described in the statement.
On one hand, the independent mass movement continues to organize and consolidate itself, winning some partial victories. The Bielsko-Biala strike that won recognition of the farmers' right to form an association independent of the government (although not a trade union), and the recognition of a students' independent union are two examples of these partial victories.
But the government continues to take back with one hand what it gives with the other. It continues to challenge the Gdansk, Szczecin, and Katowice agree ments; and it continues to try to restrict Solidarity to actions around "pure" material and economic demands, which is obviously impossible in a nationalized and planned economy like Poland's, where every economic problem automatically touches on political questions.
At the PUP's Central Committee plenum, Kania and Jaruzelski continued to hammer away at the "antisocialist and counterrevolutionary" elements who are "manipulating" the 10 million Solidarity members. They did this despite the fact that the leaders and advisers they characterize as such-especially Karol Modzelewski and the Committee for Social Self- Defense (KOR) representatives-have issued many conciliatory statements, and stated and restated daily that they will in no way oppose the PUP's exercise of political power or Poland's membership in the Warsaw Pact.
Kania and Jaruzelski, moreover, are being pushed hard by the Kremlin, which doesn't think twice about denouncing the entire Solidarity organization-some 80 percent of the Polish working class—as "counterrevolutionary." It is possible that Moscow may have to tone down its language in the near future. The reports at the Soviet Communist Party Congress, which is about to open, will be revealing on this question.
But no one doubts that the very existence of a mass workers organization that is independent of the Polish state and the bureaucracy and is capable of taking action and exercising the right to strike, is structurally incompatible with the survival of the bureaucratic dictatorship. The Kremlin understands this perfectly well and it acts on this basis. Any hesitation has to do with the pace, forms, and time span of normalization, not with the need to rein in Solidarity-that is, destroy it—as the independent and democratic representative of the working class.
In this context, the conciliatory statements by national Solidarity leaders and KOR representatives are understandable. They want to exhaust all the mechanisms of negotiations, so that the movement's strength will not be eroded in repeated partial strikes. But it must be stressed that Solidarity's strength, growth, and future depend in large measure on its ability to remain the voice of the entire working class.
Not giving active solidarity to any sector of the movement or to the radical elements or "dissidents" against whom the bureaucracy takes aim, will cause deep divisions inside the working class, whose radical sectors are not ready to give up to Kania's "salami" tactics. Any excessive centralization of the union and any retreats on the issue of internal democracy and the rights of the rank-and-file would have even more disastrous effects.
The coming weeks will show the extent to which the masses' tremendous combativity-which has not been broken by the very difficult winter period-can thwart the bureaucracy's maneuvers and the waffling of the national trade-union leadership itself.
utterly unfounded and can be easily refuted. It is simply not true that there is no material basis for a considerable improvement in the workers' living and working conditions.
The best example of the barefaced lies the bureaucrats are spreading is the argument that granting a five-day workweek would automatically entail a 10 percent reduction in production. This is totally refuted by concrete investigations conducted by workers in many workplaces, which have shown in facts and figures that any loss in output through a reduction in working hours can be more than offset by eliminating bureaucratic mismanagement of the economy.
For example: by stopping the discontinuity in the flow of raw materials and energy, which means that many machines remain idle part of the week; by stopping bureaucratic waste and theft, which means that a significant part of the actual output does not reach normal distribution within the framework of the planned economy; and correcting the unbelievable disorder, and lack of proportion and equilibrium within Polish "planning," which could be better characterized as "non-planning."
If the bureaucracy refuses to recognize these obvious facts, let them "open the books" of the national economy to Solidarity and to the entire working class! Let the Polish workers and small farmers extend workers control on a national level! Let Solidarity work out and present before the mass media an economic counterplan that concretely shows how it is possible to assure better living and working conditions for the masses without any reduction in production.
It is not true that an increasing "moderation" of Solidarity's leadership and a gradual abandonment of all democratic demands and all demands for radical change with respect to economic manage. ment, will be a sufficient deterrent to military intervention by the Kremlin. This argument would only hold up if the objec tive factor of the rise and massive radicalization of 10 million Polish workers is disregarded.
And no moderation, even that of a "skillful" tactician, is going to stop the workers on the road towards gaining complete control over their economic, social, and political conditions.
For this reason, whether such an intervention actually occurs or not, and at what moment it occurs, depends upon the Soviet bureaucracy's judgement of the advantages and disadvantages of such an inter vention from the viewpoint of defense of the conservative bureaucratic caste's power and privileges. That judgement is strongly influenced by the evolution of the relationship of forces inside Poland, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union itself, and on a world scale.
Everything that weakens the unity and cohesiveness of the Polish proletariat, even without sucessfully breaking its basic militancy, can only objectively tavor a military intervention by the Kremlin, as it would reduce the price the Kremlin would have to pay for it.
A policy of "moderation" and conciliation by the trade union leadership, which in and of itself cannot halt the upsurge of the Polish masses, would have the precise effect of disorienting and demoralizing one sector of the proletariat, even though other sectors would continue to radicalize. Let us not forget that in Czechoslovakia, the Dubcek leadership followed a similar policy of "moderation" and this did not at all prevent the Kremlin from intervening militarily.
Conversely, everything that increases the unity, cohesiveness, and determination of the free trade unions as a whole, can only convince the Kremlin that in case of military intervention, every Polish factory will become a center of resistance.
Guns can achieve many things. But they cannot force 12 million workers who refuse to do so, to collaborate with a hated management or to work harder-except by resorting to extreme terror and a bloodbath on a scale which the Kremlin did not even dare to carry out in Hungary in 1956, not to mention Czechoslovakia in 1968.
So a resolute defense of workers' interests, a resolute struggle for the full implementation of the August agreements, and for a national program of workers control, and the strengthening of the workerfarmer alliance is a powerful, although by no means sufficient, deterrent to military intervention.
A strong worker-farmer alliancethrough the legalization of Rural Solidarity and "farmers self-management" —could lead to a solution of the food crisis. Today, this means that while defending the small farmers' right to own their own farms, they will begin to understand and implement the advantages of free cooperation and collective ownership of tractors and other modern agricultural implements, because "self-management" on one-hectare farms just doesn't make sense. In any case, this could be a much more powerful weapon than an unprincipled policy of conciliation.
It is worth noting that up to now, Kania's line has not been able to stop the growth of workers' struggles, nor prevent them from being victorious. So, his credibility in the eyes of the bureaucracy and the Kremlin is quickly eroding, as is the credibility of the "conciliationist" elements within Solidarity.
In this context, the forces within the Polish and Soviet bureaucracies who favor open repression (like the Olszowski- Grabski wing in the PUWP), who are conscious that a situation of dual power is beginning to spontaneously develop in the country, can only grow stronger.
I1I
It must be stressed that world imperialism and the international bourgeoisie have significantly changed their attitude towards the social and political struggles unfolding in Poland.
For revolutionary Marxists, it was clear from the beginning that imperialism feared the tremendous upsurge of militancy and independent organization by the Polish working class, which is as explosive for the capitalist system as for the bureaucratic dictatorships. The example of the Polish workers can easily inspire workers in Western Europe and elsewhere, as it can inspire and serve as an example to workers in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and China.
While at the beginning, imperialism covered up for this fear by making verbal declarations of sympathy with the Polish workers and used their justified fear of military intervention by the Kremlin to step up its anticommunist hysteria as a justification for an intensified arms race, things radically changed when the fiveday workweek became a central issue in the struggle in Poland.
This change in attitude came about not only because the struggle for a shorter workweek is today the central focus for workers defending themselves against the onslaught of the capitialists and their governments throughout the world (especially the struggle for a thirty-five-hour workweek in Western Europe), but above all because the Polish bureaucracy owes Western banks some 20 billion dollars.
The bankers and the International Monetary Fund, anxious about their "assets," exercise a growing pressure upon the Polish bureaucracy to take all "necessary measures to be sure the goods are delivered," i.e. imposing austerity measures upon the Polish working class instead of granting it new economic concessions.
This was confirmed quite openly by a January 10-11, 1981 International Herald Tribune editorial and by an article written by a key economist in the January 25-26, 1981 French daily Le Monde, which preached "moderation" for the Solidarity leadership, exactly as did the pope, the Polish Catholic hierarchy, the Kania wing of the Polish bureaucracy, and the Kremlin. They urged them to abandon the "unrealistic" goal of immediate implementation of the five-day week. The Soviet news agency Tass also approvingly quoted the conservative statements made by French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on the events in Poland.
This is an additional reason why the international working class, its trade unions, and especially the CP-led unions in Italy, France, Spain, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere, must give full and unconditional support to the Polish workers' just demands for a forty-hour week. This is also further reason why Solidarity should make seeking fraternal solidarity from these unions and their members a priority. This in turn would create additional embarrassment for the Kremlin if it decided to launch a counterrevolutionary intervention.
It should be noted in this context, that most of the CP's throughout the worldfrom the Hungarian to the Cuban, from the Italian and French to the Mexican and Brazilian-have aligned themselves with the Kremlin-inspired Kania line of trying to break the workers' upsurge by rallying together all the conservative forces inside Poland.
All these CP's characterize large sectors of Solidarity as "antisocialist" and "counterrevolutionary." This politically prepares the ground for military intervention by the Kremlin. It is for this reason also that audacious initiatives and appeals for solidarity with the Polish workers, directed towards CP-led unions inside and outside the workers states, are so urgent.
IV
One of the key weaknesses of Solidarity and its active membership is the fact that, while their enemies know what they want and apply a consciously worked out and deliberate strategy to get it, the militant workers, the radicalized young workers, the radical left among the intellectuals, and the Solidarity leaders, as well as the left oppositionists inside the PUWP, still operate in a dispersed manner. They have • no common, overall program and no clear understanding of the way to politically advance in order to get the support of the overwhelming majority of the workers and poor farmers in the coming, unavoidable confrontation.
There are many reasons for these weaknesses:
• The newness of the movement and the the upsurge, which has not yet allowed for a new, nationally recognized leadership to emerge;
• The regional structure of the movement, which is not compensated by democratically elected, national union structures;
• The ideological confusion created by decades of large-scale depolitization, Stalinist miseducation, and the deep influence of the Church;
• The reactionary role of the powerful Catholic hierarchy, which thanks to the Stalinists, has the prestige of having been the only semi-legal oppositional force for twenty-five years;
• The programmatic confusion that exists among many of Solidarity's radical cadres and among the left wing in general; and
• The absence of a strong, national, democratically centralized structure of the free trade unions which, in the best of cases, will appear only after their first national convention.
In the meantime, the movement must face the onslaught of a well-knit national, bureaucratic apparatus, albeit divided and increasingly unsure of the line to follow.
We believe that at this stage of the movement, these obstacles can still be overcome. But the longer the delay in taking the minimum steps necessary to achieve these goals, the harder it will become to achieve them.
The most important minimum measures to meet the onslaught of all the conservative forces head-on are:
1. Let the central idea of "solidarity" be fully implemented: one for all, all for one! No discrimination, no repression, no exclusion, no administrative dismissal of any cadres of Solidarity! United, 10 million Polish workers can successfully oppose Kania's "salami" tactics. They must be convinced that the campaign against Jacek Kuron and Adam Michnik and the campaign against the Gdansk, Warsaw, Szczecin, Katowice, Lodz, Torun, Bydgoszcz, and Radom radicals is a campaign, which if successful, will be the beginning of an overall onslaught to break the independent trade union movement.
2. The beginning of a national, programmatic, ideological-political discussion in the framework of preparing for a truly democratic congress of Solidarity, and to move towards a national unity in action between all the militant, radical forces and the left-wing inside Solidarity, including the oppositional forces inside the PUWP.
In this discussion, the first answers for resolution of the present economic crisis could be put forward. The left, the radicals, the activists, and the left oppositionists of the PUWP should try to map out a concrete program for workers control, workers workers power, self-management, and around which millions of workers and poor farmers can be rallied.
The discussion, which has already begun in Solidarity and in the PUWP, on the need to build a revolutionary party-a real vanguard party that could lead the workers towards the definitive realization of their aspirations-should be advanced.
This is the only way forward towards socialism in Poland and the only way to unmask the slanderous propaganda of the Kremlin and its stooges, which asserts that the defenders of such a program are "antisocialist elements" and "counterrevolutionaries." Meanwhile, the pope, the Catholic hierarchy, and the international banking community have apparently become the supporters, or at least the "loyal allies" of socialism. This will inevitably lead to the need to assure the right to form tendencies inside the trade unions.
To attain these goals, the setting up of a national network able to circulate throughout the country the rich ideological and programmatic discussions taking place would be a big step forward. During the last weeks, this has been going on at a regional level-in the many local and regional bodies of the union. But this still remains largely unknown to the large mass of Solidarity's membership.
In the same way as the KOR and Robotninik's small network prepared and assisted the big strike wave of July-August 1980, just by breaking through the bureaucracy's monopoly on news (censored and full of lies), and informing the workers about what was really going on, the immensely more powerful unions can today break through the barrier that forbids them from having access to the mass media by circulating information throughout the country on the renewed ideological discussions and the radicalization going on at the regional levels.
3. After the present CP leadership failed in its attempt to divide the movement during the battle over free Saturdays, and given the rise in the degree of unity that the working class displayed in this confrontation, the PUWP leadership faces two alternatives. It must either grant important, new concessions to the working class or prepare a military offensive against the worker's movement.
If the party leadership opts for confrontation, a national mobilization of all Polish workers will be necessary. In this situation, the soldiers-just like the workers, farmers, and students-must think about their own independent, democratic organization.
While being conscious of the serious
*we of the For taco threat weighing upon the Polish workers'
tional, along with the mass of activist and radical Polish workers, have no reason to underestimate the tremendous power of the Polish working class. The mass movement continues to be on an upswing. The battle for the forty-hour week, for the abolition of censorship, and for free access by Solidarity and all the tendencies within it to the mass media, can and must be won.
If the left unites, it can carry the overwhelming majority of organized workers and poor farmers in a resolute struggle against the bureaucracy's counteroffensive.
No austerity policy against the Polish v00 bearD
responsibility whatsoever for the economic mess created by bureaucratic mismanagement and corruption!
Forward towards workers control and workers self-management on a national scale!
Forward towards socialist democracy!
Forward towards a counterplan by the workers against the bureaucracy's miserable economic bankruptcy!
Forward towards complete respect an rue national sovereigntv of the Polist nation!
Forward towards the Polish workers' solidarity with workers' struggles and anti-imperialist battles the world over!