Polish Workers' Lon Struggle Against Sta

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For the Polish Spring in October, as it had been hopefully dubbed, turned rapidly into a long, grey winter.

The economy was in a mess. and while an opposition emerged over economic strategy, workers and poor peasants were paying for it.

The central agreement between those who advocated à thoroughgoing modernisation of the economy and those who held back was that there could not be for some time an improvement in workers' living standards; rather the reverse.

Gomulka From 1969 Gomulka swung behind the economic reformists. To the established policy of shifting resources to intensive investment and cutting real wages, was added a new system of incentives and penalties relating to the achievement of production schedules. This inevitably meant a further lowering of workers' living standards and, in any case, was not enough. The only way the bureaucracy could see for obtaining more capital for investment was by cutting home consumption, especially of food, leaving more available for export to finance the purchase of technology and machinery from imperialism.

Increases

On 12 December 1970 increases were announced on a range of essential items, mainly food; eg. beef (19%), lard (36%) flour (16%), bricks (37%). By a logic which the bureaucracy could scarcely have believed convincing, these rises were declared to be compensated for by reductions in the prices of eg. washing machines, records, television sets. Workers did not, unsurprisingly, accept this as a mere Te-adjustment'-they understood it as a further attack on their living standards and responded by rising as a class against the bureaucracy.

Gomulka might perhaps have felt secure from such a respanse because, firstly, he had recently won from West Germany a recognition of the eastern border line of Poland, which should have appealed to the 'nation': secondly, because the working class had largely failed to respond to the student demonstrations which had spread across. Poland in March 1968. The sympathy of the young intelligentsia with Dubcek's "progressive' movement in Czechoslovakia, and the thwarting of their own 'freedom' • in Poland, : were ignited by the banning of an allegedly anti Soviet play and the expulsion of two dissident' university students in Warsaw.

A 4,000-strong • Warsaw student demonstration was brutally broken by the militia. The following day 10,000 students fought the militia on the streets.

For about a week students demonstrated in Warsaw, Lodz. Poznan, Katowice, Wroclaw and Cracow. Extreme physical repression against the demonstrators was increased when young workers-'hooligans' began to participate.

(In its campaign against the movement the bureaucracy also resorted to a crude antiSemitism to discredit its opponents-listing student trouble-makers with Jewish names; one party leaflet pointed to the concentration of Jews in the pre-1956 PUWP and police. The tiny remnant of Jews left in Poland after Hitler's holocaust were made to seem huge malignant force in soviety; once again, claims of a 'Zionist conspiracy' served the forces of reaction. By such principled methods 'order' was restored in Poland; general oppression increased.)

Working Class The struggle of the students in March 1968 did not rouse the working class. When workers and intellectuals fight together as they did in Poland and Hungary in 1956 it is always on the basis of the revolutionary strength of the proletariat although it sometimes appears empirically-as in Hungary -that the workers move into struggle behind the movement of the intelligentsia. But in 1968 the Polish workers as a class stayed on the sidelines. When the proletariat rose in December 1970 to defend its own basic interests the intellectuals were largely silent.

On the recently industrialised Baltic coast, workers' opposition to attacks on their living standards had been building up for some time prior to the announcement of price increases. Isolated strikes occurred as they did in other industrial centres.

In Gdansk, workers in the naval : shipyard struck. An elected delegation was arrested when they set off for Party headquarters to protest at the rise. Insurrection broke out in the whole region, to be violently crushed during the following week.

On Monday 14 December, several thousand Gdansk workers marched on the city. singing war hymns and the Internationale. Fighting broke out as the militia and police tried to prevent the demonstrators from reaching Party headquarters. The next day striking dock-workers joined the street fighting. Party and police buildings were attacked and the fighting reached levels which led to the importing of massive reinforcements to swell the state forces. Death, injuries and arrests followed. A curfew was imposed in the three linked coastal towns of Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot. When the forces of repression won the streets, shipyard and dockworkers occupied their factories, surrounded by tanks and militia:

The authorities promised wage rises, but the occupying strikers pressed their demands; for wages increases of 30%, improvement in housing conditions, cancellation of the price rises, recognition of the elected workers' committees.

Central Demand This last demand is always central whenever ronsA WorKers mobilise around their class interests. I here is an immedlate sweeping aside oi the elaborate system of bureaucratic union and party organisations designed to control the workers, that is to 'represent' them. Workers

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spontaneously turn to the building of independent strike committees responsible to themselves and under their control.

The demand for the recognition of these organs of the workers' struggle and for direct meeting between them and high Party officials occurs whenever the class mobilises.

In Gdansk street fighting broke out again and strikes continued. But brutal repression triumphed and by the 18th workers were beginning to return to their jobs.

In Gdynia the events of Gdansk were repeated. The strike committee from the 'Paris Commune' shipyards on the 17th, but the announcement of this was made ambiguously as it also demanded an immediate return to "normal life'. When, on the morning of the 17th, workers arrived at the shipyards -whether to work or to occupy -they were confronted by closed gates and guns. The militia and the army killed scores of workers in a day of relentlessly savage repression. .: On Thursday the 17th, workers in the Warski Shipyards in Szczecin went on Scenes from the 1970 riots Part two of an by Geoff Harris. strike: a workers' assembly and its elected committee presented their demands; for strike pay, wage increases, the withdrawal of the price rises, for independent unions, accurate reporting of the strike by press and radio, for no victimization, for an end to bureaucratic privileges, for the withdrawal of troops, for a meeting with their Parliamentary members. When we obtain satisfaction we will resume work properly and honestly'.

The workers marched on the city with banners, red flags and the words of the Internationale, and were joined by a large part of the city's papulation. They arrived in front of the Party building which was surrounded by police. Fighting broke out; party buildings and a bureaucrat's villa were set on fire.

Fraternisation

Workers fought the militia with chains and Molotov cocktails. There was reportedly a large degree of fraternisation with the army. All the city's 76 shipyards and factories were occupied by striking workers. Szczecin and its central strike committee became the epicentre of the Polish workers' struggle in the month to come. A true workers' republic in which all bowers were exercised by the " FUrT.... strike committee' Negotiations with the authorities ended , on the 20th and the armoured units left the city. For the time being the workers returned to work in response to an appeal from Gierek and promises that there would be no reprisals against their leaders and that they would receive pay for the strike period.

Industrial Centres The revolt was spreading across the industrial centres of Poland. Workers in Warsaw's main factories declared that they would come out on Monday the 22nd. Gomulka was faced with a mass movement as strong as, and • more threatening, than that which brought him to power in 1956.

The bureaucracy was in ferment and sacked Gomulka and his followers with the blessing of the Soviets.

Gierek became the Party leader and tried to convince the workers that this was what they had been fighting for by offering a few concessions. Although the price increases would remain, they would be frozen for two years-but so would wages. Promises were made of 'democratisation ' and 'the real participation of workers in co-management and collective decision-making'.

The lowest industrial wages were to be raised. There were promises that the situation of women would be improved and housing problems-a very real consequence of the enormous growth in the urban population-would be resolved:

The immediate aim of Gierek and his new Prime Minister Jaroszewicz was to. induce the workers to return firstly to work and then to the bureaucratic structures that governed their lives. As " a concession, the army withdrew from the large centres and the police became more discreet.

In their first speeches on radio and TV, Gierek and Jaro szewicz appealed to all elements of 'the nation' to help restore 'calm and order' Gratitude The Church was a willing element. Cardinal Wyczynski's Christmas message called on all Poles-Catholic and nonCatholic-to 'work so that the country can produce more bread' . The Party showed its gratitude to the Church by promising the restoration of its former properties in eastern Poland. A Church announcement on February 14th of a 'day of prayers for the nation' recognised 'the necessity of maintaining order and peace at the present time which guarantee the independence of our nation and of concentrating the efforts of the entire society towards working in order to increase the well-being of our country'. And Church and State found themselves united in a campaign for Women in the Home. , which coincided with the firing of women (60% of Polish women are workers) in order to furnish jobs for young people.

But although Gierek succeeded in temporarily defusing the situation, workers were ready to resume their action should he prove unsatisfactory. They were still demanding 20% wage riseswhich would mean the effective cancellation of the price increases which were the immediate origin of the wave of strikes, occupations and street battles.

In the first three weeks of January 1971 strikes broke out again, most notably in Gdansk and Szczecin, taking up the original demands centred round wage rises, the abolition of the new production norms and the formation of free trade unions based on the elected workers' committees. A vital part of the bureaucracy's strategy was to reduce the workers' councils that had emerged in December to being merely "improved' versions of the former factory committees which were, in turn, mere degenerate descendants of the organisations forged by the workers in the fire of 1956.

Workers correctly saw this strategy, which was consciously and rigorously pursued in early January, as an attack, and this was a prompting factor in the new wave of strikes.

In Szczecin shipyard repair workers went on sit down strike and were joined by 12,000 workers from the Warski shipyard, and by city transport and railway workers. The shipyards were surrounded by troops, reinforcements were mobilised in readiness around the country, water and supplies were cut off.

The ruling bureaucracy was split on whether to attempt a crushing military defeat on the workers. It was recognised by all of them that they were threatened by a repeat of the December insurrections. Gierek had refused to recognise the workers' committees as 'legitimate spokesmen' (The Party is not obliged to negotiate with just any group of citizens, and even less so under pressure'.)

However he opposed the immediate application of the military option--a joint action was already planned with army,, airforce and marine commandos -and so played his secondlast trick by humbling himself before the workers.

On January 24th he came to Szczecin, accompanied by leading bureaucrats and generals, and negotiated with a council of 500 worker delegates. He warned of the possibility of Soviet invasion if calm was not retored in Poland. Gierek conceded some of the demands -free election of delegates to workers' councils, discontinuation of the production quotas, reorganisation of the PUWP in Szczecin,. and some wage increases. The December price increases remained in force.

Partial Victory With their leadership accepting this partial victory the workers returned to work. A similar solution resulted from Gierek's meeting the following day with workers' delegates in Gdansk.

With the subsidence of Szczecin and Gdansk the main thrust of the rebellion was broken. But just as Gierek was hoping that all was over, 10,000 women textile workers -the most oppressed sector of Polish industry-went on strike in Lodz and occupied textile plants to back up their demands for the revoking of the December price increases and for higher wages. The Prime Minister Jaroszewicz and three Politburo members went to negotiate with the workers delegation, while protests resurged in other cities.

The Times reported: 'Look this is where we work' , the women shouted as the air thickened in the unventilated workshop and condensation dripped down on the heads of the delegation. Some women wept as they asked how they could make ends meet with the higher food prices. Petitions and grievances were handed up in writing and shouted from the floor. The Prime Minister struggled to make himself heard. Then came a revealing moment. 'Do you support us?' cried the Prime Minister. 'Yes' replied the workers. Will you help us?' No' said the workers, 'help us first"

Theintransigence oftne Lodz workers and the threat posed by workers throughout the country led the bureaucracy on 15 February to cancel the price increases made in December. In Lodz some two weeks later a union official speaking at a meeting. of chairpersons of factory and workers' councils stressed the fundamental importance of restoring the authority of trade unions and of gaining the confidence of large numbers of people. The Polish December' was over.

The workers had gained a substantial victory, but the bureaucracy remained in power with its privileges intact. It had been powerfully reminded, though, of the strength of the working class and its determination to fight in defence of its interests.

1976 The uprisings of 1970-71 were prompted by Gomulka finally adopting the strategy of a thoroughgoing technocratic economic reform which the Gierek faction had long been arguing for. Gierek came . to power, then, with no option of seeking to finance economic growth by raising prices and cutting the workers' living standards. The reforms made to the peasantry-the ending , of forced quota deliveries and the introduction of a rural health service-might help to stem the sullenly passive opposition which affected agricultural production. An increase in the level of mechanisation and better planning were also necessary if food supplies were to be able to feed the cities, improving the workers' living standards, and also be available for export. Technological developments in Polish industry were no less vital, as was the necessity of increasing the production of other consumer products to cater to a working class that was on the offensive.

With basic food prices frozen for five years as a result of the uprisings of 1970-71, and the impossibility of tinancing growth by cutting wages, and with the central need of effecting a swift and real increase in the standard of living of the Polish masses, the bureaucracy had little choice but to turn to international credit-sources.

Early in 1971 the USSR had made Poland a loan of $100 million, but the main source of credit was to be the Capital expenditure from 1971-76 rose by a massive 125%. By 1975 Poland's debts from long-term loans amounted to some $6000 million. (In 1980 they total some 20 billion dollars). Repayment of these debts absorbed increasing amounts of Polish export earnings, with a consequent huge increase in the balance of payments deficit. Capitalist inflation, to which the bureaucracy had made Poland even more vulnerable, made and makes things worse still for the Gierek "The credits were to be used to import a new set of means of production for Polish industry which in turn would use the new equipment to export to the capitalist world, pay back its credits and thus generate sustained growth. Institutional economic reforms were to be gradual and small, mostly geared to the most dynamic and export-oriented sectors of the Polish economy.

At the same time increases in real wages were to be gradually tied ever more closely to productivity deals, piecework, measured day work and bonus schemes" • (MacDonald, Workers Opposition in Poland Critique 7)

Food prices remained an obvious, though certainly dangerous, point of attack for the bureaucracy. When it announced large increases in the price of meat earlier this year, the bureaucracy was reacting to the fact that meat subsidies cost the half the total food subsidy bill which, in turn, is about 6% of the total budget.

The price increases announced on 24 June 1976 were, enormous-an average of 39% including 70% on the price of meat. They expressed both the urgency and depth of the economic crisis, and the PUWP leadership's resolve to overcome it •by a single harsh blow at that consultators at local level coupled with the presentation of the fait accompli to the workers would induce them to recognise and accept the 'necessity" of the increases.

Workers responded otherwise.. Several plants in the Warsaw area immediately went on strike; shipyard workers in the Baltic ports stopped work on 25 June. A broad strike movement exploded right across Poland-the only important area to remain relatively quiet seems to have been Silesia where the miners-comparitively highly paid because of the importance of continuous coal production for internal use and exportcontinued working.

Once again the bureaucracy was threatened by workers' power and the threat of the reemergence of those independent organisations of workers' struggle which had been SO effective-and so potentially dangerous to the deformations of the workers' state-in 1971.

Gierek backed down immediately, promising continuation of the price freeze, pending "study' and "consultation'. He then proceeded to unleash bloody repression at the centres of proletarian opposition.

Consultations in Radom; thousands of striking workers marched to the Party headquarters, demanding an explanation. After waiting two hours they stripped the building and, defying police attacks, attempted to burn down. Street battles ensued which many people died.

Barricades up

The barricades remained up and fighting continued for three hours after the announcement of the backdown on prices. Reinforcements were flown in and 'socialist order' was restored; several hundred socialists were arrested.

Consultations in Ursus: a fifteen-man committee elected by the 5000 workers of the tractor plant presented wage demands to the factory management. Management refused to talk and sacked the committeemembers. The workers took their tractors and blocked the Warsaw-Paris railway-line.

When the militia reacted, the workers ripped up the tracks, built barriers and held the Paris train hostage.

They learnt of the withdrawal of the price rises and many retired feeling they had won a victory. Then the police attacked violently. Six hundred workers were arrested - seven of them later sentenced to 3 - 5 years imprisonment for sabotage) and 1000 workers were suspended from the factory 'for three months.

• Consultations in Plock: oil refinery workers presented a series of demands. 1500 marched on the Party headquar ters singing the Internationale. Hundreds were arrested and sacked. They were allowed to return to their jobs 3 months later only by taking reduced wages.

The success of brutal repression across Poland reduced the victory that. had been earlier gained. Satisfied by his consultations with the people' reimposed the price increases ICloUsou though at only about half the previous level.

But the bureaucracy's problems remained; the economy is still in a mess; the working class which had three times in the history of the bureaucracy's rule proved its power and militancy, had also proved its contempt tor the puppet organisations spawned in the factories by the Stalinists to control the workers.

pay These factors have again clashed in 1980, and the Polish workers have again engulfed the Baltic ports with their implacable refusal to pay for the bureaucracy's inefficiency and its privileges.

Trotskyists, who have. no need of proofs of the revolutionary strength of the working class, will hail that strength and the independent workers' organisations that spontaneously emerge in struggle.

But they must also build the conscious revolutionary vanguard of the Polish proletariat, as a part of the revolutionary vanguard of the world working class.

Then the Polish workers and all the workers of Eastern Europe will rise and overthrow the Stalinist bureaucracy which represses it and feeds on its sweat and blood.

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Donald Anyone living in Scotland with an iota of knowledge concerning the workings of government and politics is well aware that community councils are officially recognised organisations of local government-established by the

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