Polish workers need a Leninist
Socialist Press1980 1980-09-03Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 4 →
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Last Tuesday a meeting was called by 'Solidarity' and individual members of the Labour Party to discuss solidarity action with the Polish working class.
Robin Blick, a former Trotskyist, opened the meeting.
After making a series of correct observations about the events inside Poland he launched an attack on Trotskyist parties in Britain. This set the pace for the rest of the evening.
Speakers from the platform -comprising both Polish and British strands of reformism, an anarchist and a libertarian 'Marxist' all joined in on an attack on Leninism.
They declared that the main development in Poland was the rejecion by the Polish workers = Leninism', and that the events in Poland proved that workers by their own autonomous actions were capable of carrying through a successful political revolution.
For this motley crew of ex-Trotskyists and Anarchists this is indeed an easy solution. Just let the workers get on with it: who needs a revolutionary.
Not yet won Of course what was missed aut was that the Polish workers despite their courageous Feels, have not yet won.
How many more concessions == =he Stalinist bureaucracy Ll i before they have to interteak altariy?
Trikyists can see the qualitative difference in the class struggle in Poland in 1980 to 1956, 1970 or 1976.
In the last ten years the Polish workers have learned not to trust the broken promises of the bureaucracy.
But it seemed to me on hearing this crowd of intellectual Libertarians that what the Polish working class needs in 1980 more than anything else is a principled disciplined revolutionary leadership to carry them through to victory.
Silence
One correct point Robin Blick made in his introduction was the silence from the official leadership of the British late E movement on the histori sesa taking place in Poland.
All trade unionists and members of the Labour Party should be fighting to bring up the question of Poland and demand to know where their leaders . As a member of the WSL! correctly pointed out, the connivance of the leaders of the British trade union movement with the Stalinist bureaucracies of Eastern Europe reflects their own disquiet at any attack on! privilege.
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