[The opening sessions of the first national congress of the Polish independent union federation Solidarity took place in Gdansk September 5-10. A second session of that congress began September 26.
[The following editorial, assessing the results of the first session, appeared in the September 28, 1981, issue of the French-language fortnightly Inprecor. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Against the backdrop of a sharp economic crisis, the mass movement in Poland has radicalized and is forcefully and decisively confronting the bureaucratic regime. It is calling for the election of plant managers, is organizing a movement for self-management, and is challenging the right of parliament (the Sejm) to decide by itself the Law on Self-Management.'
The First Congress of Solidarity marks a new stage in the activity and organization of the Polish workers. The Soviet and Polish bureaucrats are reviving their warnings. The Kremlin is openly threatening Solidarity. Major confrontations are in the offing.
The Political Bureau of the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP) published a front page statement on the congress in the September 16 Trybuna Ludu under the banner headline "Against the Political Adventurism and the Attempt to Destroy the Socialist State."
According to the PUWP statement, "The First Congress of Solidarity aroused a great deal of interest and hope in numerous layers of society. These hopes were totally dashed. The way the first part of the congress unfolded, and the resolutions adopted, saw what had seemed to be only the kernel of tendencies and phenomena develop into the official program of the whole organization. As a result, the agreements reached in Gdansk, Szczecin, and Jastrzebie were unilaterally broken. They were replaced by a program of political opposition that attacks the fundamental interests of the Polish nation and state and moves in the direction of a confrontation that threatens to lead to bloodshed."
This statement clearly shows that the bureaucracy's attempts to integrate and divide the union, which went under the name of the policy of "renewal," have come to nought. The PUWP statement follows proposals by political bureau member Albin Siwak demanding that Solidarity be banned, and comes after a new ultimatum from the Kremlin.?
Deepening radicalization
The economic crisis has continued to worsen since the new party leaders took up their posts. An incredible number of basic necessities-meat, sugar, milk, butter, soap, and the like—are tightly rationed and some are becoming impossible to find. Even tea is beginning to be in short supply. The lines are getting longer and longer. To buy meat you must get in line at the butcher's shop the night before.
The Polish proletariat's response to the deterioration in living conditions and the dislocation of the economic system has been clear. In June in Gdansk there were massive demonstrations against pollution and against the authorities' negligent policies in this regard. In July, women in Lodz organized hunger marches, which spread to other towns in August. There was the central demonstration that Solidarity organized in Warsaw.
Demonstrations by the Consumers Federation have increased. During the summer numerous strikes from Radom to Olsztyn expressed the workers' refusal to continue to accept the terrible working conditions and the PUW leadership's attacks against the workers in Solidarity. Several protests by journalists and workers were staged against censorship by the authorities. And finally there was the fight waged by workers at the LOT airline and in Huta Katowice for the right to elect their company managers.
In the course of each of these situations the broad masses learned a little more about the bureaucracy's profoundly parasitic and reactionary nature, its desire to retain all the reins of power in its own hands in order to safeguard its privileges, and its inability to provide even the beginnings of a solution to the economic crisis.
Although enraged, up to now the bureaucracy has only called on the police and the army to contain the July street demonstration in Warsaw and has used the police only to harass and arrest a few Solidarity activists. But in mid-September for the second time it refused to free the political prisoners who are members of the Confederation for an Independent Poland (KPN), even though a lower court had ordered their pretrial release. Finally, the authorities ended the inquiry into who bore responsibility for the police provocation by Bydgoszcz with the claim that it was "impossible to determine who was guilty."
Workers councils
Pushed forward by the deepening economic crisis, the movement for self-management is leading to the establishment of workers councils and is more radically threatening the bureaucratic regime. In fact, in recent weeks the establishment of workers councils in the factories-or organizing committees for self-management-has entered a new phase.
The number of councils has increased by a factor of ten. In the Lodz region, by mid-September councils had already been established in the majority of factories, although in June there had been only a few. In the region around Jastrzebie in Silesia, the mine workers are also in the process of setting up councils.
In addition, regional coordinating committees (Workers Self-Management Regional Organizing Committees) have been set up in a number of areas and have begun to discuss what should be done to get out of the economic crisis. For example, a call issued by wellknown Solidarity members in Lodz on August 24 stated:
"Being cognizant of the negative results of the movement for self-management in 1956- 57, and conscious of the strength represented by the united and mutually supportive activity of the workers, we feel that it is imperative to take steps leading to common discussion and work by the workers councils on a regional level throughout the entire country.
"We are convinced that joint work, reciprocal solidarity actions, coordination of activities, and joint representation of all workingclass self-management bodies on a regional, and very soon national, scale is a natural stage in the development of the working-class selfmanagement movement and is the potential source of its strength. Therefore we take the initiative to call for the establishment of a constituent regional committee of workers selfmanagement for the Lodz region."
The relationship between the factory workers council and the self-management bodies at the regional and national level is still under discussion. It has not been resolved whether the regional coordinating committees should simply be places where views are exchanged or whether they should be decisionmaking bodies.
But the rapidity with which the self-management movement is growing reflects the workers' conviction that to get out of the present crisis they themselves must take things in hand, in the economic as well as the political arena. This too was one of the new and striking features of the First Congress of Solidarity: Question of power
It appears that big developments are in the offing. The acceleration of the social and political process is such that, whatever form it takes, an overall confrontation between the mass movement and the bureaucracy now seems inevitable. The discussions at the congress showed that a large segment of the Solidarity membership is now aware of this.
The question of power, which is posed in practical terms by the movement for self-management, was expressed in the congress, not only through the motion that Solidarity itself should hold the referendum on the self-management law, but also in various proposals by delegates to elect a central apparatus of the self-management bodies, a second house of parliament for self-management.?
"Solidarity must not be afraid to get involved in making political decisions,
" one member from Krakow stated from the congress's speaker's platform. "We know what the population expects from us. To carry out a referendum on self-management does in fact go beyond the strictly trade-union framework and poaches on the regime's game preserve. But we must be very conscious that there will be no other way to get out of the crisis if we refuse to take this step. And what is more. refusal would mean that our movement had bogged down and been consigned to a slow death."
Some delegates proposed that parliament not be approached at all: "Solidarity should organize the referendum itself. We know that the authorities are big on words. We should not expect anything from the regime. We know they will not do anything."
But delegates from Lodz and Wroclaw explained to the congress why it was necessary to call upon parliament and the regime on this question. It is essential to convince the broad masses... It is necessary that the population clearly see that parliament refuses to organize a referendum demanded by 10 million people. That is the precondition for getting the totality of workers in this country to involve themselves with us in this movement," Karol Modzelewski explained.
By basing themselves tactically on the constitution and by utilizing it as a tool (one used by the PUP itself before 1948) to push forward the movement for self-management, the delegates of the self-management movement - the delegates defending the idea of a referendum and of backing the regime against the wall-showed deep political sense.
The delegates demanded that from the very first session the agenda should include discussion on the program itself. This shows they understood the need for the workers to provide their own answers to the crisis. "We must propose solutions to get out of the crisis and we must not leave here without at least having defined the broad lines of the program that will have to be adopted [at the second part of the congress] at the end of the month. The working commissions that will have to meet in the interval must know on what basis to work and we must be able to go back to our regions and verify that the path we propose accurately reflects the demands of the ranks.
The call that the congress addressed to the workers of the other "People's Democracies" illustrates the politicization of the masses and their desire to prepare themselves to have it out with the Soviet bureaucracy and its stooges. The enthusiasm that swept the hall when the appeal was read says a great deal about how far they have traveled in the past year.
The caste in power in the USSR, from its vantage point, has clearly understood this. It is gearing up. It is increasing all types of pressures, seeking initially to stop the momentum that the first part of the congress reflected and deepened. Among other things, the maneuvers aim to get the more moderate elements in Solidarity to exert pressure so that the second part of the congress mutes the movement's directly political demands.
Inescapable confrontation
The radicalization of the workers, on the one hand, and the hardening position of the bureaucracy, on the other, have again led everyone to see that a head-on confrontation is possible, Each camp is preparing for it, including in hopes of avoiding it by forcing the other side to make decisive concessions.
It is illusory to think that on the basis of "national interest" or even a government of "national unity" it would be possible to reconcile bureaucratic power, which though declining still exists, with workers power, which is spreading more and more but is not yet centralized. The two can coexist in the course of a rising revolution. But in the long run they are irreconcilable. One can only survive by eliminating the other.
The thrust toward centralizing the councils on a territorial basis, regionally and nationally, is epitomized today in the demand for the immediate election of a second chamber of parliament based on these councils. Along with becoming more specific about the nature of selfmanagement—to be real it must be democratically planned and exclude any domination by market mechanisms this demand responds to the growing desire of the masses to pose the question of political power, their class power, the power of the workers.
The new advances of the political revolution in Poland accentuate the need for the international workers movement to broaden its campaign in solidarity with the Polish workers:
Against the threats of repression by the Polish bureaucracy and Soviet bureaucracy!
Against the economic and financial pressure from imperialism, the international banks, and the International Monetary Fund!
For the cancellation of all of Poland's debts!
Solancono
Emest Harsch/IP
Regional conference on workers' selfmanagement held in Warsaw July 20.
Notes
1. "This is an ultimatum," said one of the members of the parliament's Economic Commission regarding the Solidarity congress's demand that parliament organize a referendum on self-management. "How, in such a situation, could I exercise my sovereign right to say what I think?" Another added, "it's as if someone put a gun to our heads."
2. Published eight days later, the Kremlin letter is dated September 10.
3. This proposal in effect goes against the slogan of free elections to parliament. It incorporates the initial but rapid development of the organs of workers power.