Poland: the Police Chief Takes Over

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same way. their party.

tionary. will not change the nature of The replacement of Edward Gierek by police chief Stanislaw Kania as Polish Communist Party leader took place as strikes continued to spread throughout the country demanding the extension of the gains won by the Gdansk strikers and the ousting of local party chiefs and management.

Most of the industrial plants in the 200,000-strong city of Bialystok came to a halt demanding changes of local leaders.

Sulphur miners and sulphur process workers in the South of Poland also struck, demand changes in local government.

And isolated strikes broke out in North Eastern towns as well as Lodz, Kalisz, Sielice and Tarnow.

Farmworkers

Workers on a state farm in Lubaczow are reportedly on strike demanding an independent farmworkers' union.

The breadth and continuity of the strike wave underlines exactly why the Stalinist regime has been obliged to give concessions.

Indeed it is now clear that the country was within a hair's breadth of a General Strike: Silesian miners walked out on the Friday before the momenThe Tory anti-union laws are now in full force: and in particular Prior's reactionary restrictions on picketing now make it illegal to mount a mass picket.

It is under these conditions that strikers at Adwest Engineering, Reading, now in their 18th week of strike action for reinstatement and union recognition, have called for labour movement solidarity in their mass picket on Monday September 22.

Reinstatement

The strike-for the reinstatement of the TGWU convenor, shop stewards and other workers victimised for taking strike action-has pinpointed the refusal of the TGWU leadership to confront tinpot antitous settlement in Gdansk. The Silesian strikes-taking place in his old power baseput the final nails into Gierek's political coffin even before his heart attack. Now Kania 30 years a career bureaucrat in the Polish Stalinist apparatus, faces the difficult task of re-establishing control over a militant workers' movement.

Changes Heart As a step towards this the Polish Parliament has witnessed a sudden change of heart by MPs who have now-atter the event-hastily begun to criticise the past. The Parliament has duly endorsed the concessions made by a beleaguered regime.

And alongside the new words are a clutch of scapegoats. One was the luckless Gierek: Another is the Minister of Information, removed last week, and reportedly under investigation. for holding £400,000 in his personal account at a London bank.

He allegedly owns a Mediterranean island, a private sheep farm, 10 limousines and has no less than 900 pornographic video cassettes stowed in his office!

If even a part of this is true, it is clear that the remainder of the party leadership must have known about it-presumably falling over stacks of pornographic cassettes each time they visited him!-and that many top union employers.

Now it has become one of the first test cases of the effectiveness of the Tory anti-union laws in deterring militants from giving active solidarity to workers in struggle.

Left Groups Previous mass pickets have attracted around • 100 trade Negotiations in the Lenin Shipyard bureaucrats must live in the But new man Kania has at made it clear that he intends to uphold the political ositions of the bureaucracy. le is no liberal, and no revolu He declares that:

"Socialist Poland's international position is a great achievement of the policy of our party. The line of the consistent, stable foreign policy of our TO: Steven Willett This "consistent foreign policy" is of course the policy of "socialism in one country" and collaboration with capitalism. It is a policy of appeals and indebtedness to imperialist bankers, and opposition to the independent struggles of the working class.

Fearing the loss of its own bureaucratic privileges, the Polish bureaucracy has consistently opposed revolutionary movements both within Workers Party [Polish CP] Poland and throughout Europe.

Instead it has actively Such statement is scabbed on major strikes-inclu- damning indictment of 33 years ding particularly shipments of of Stalinist rule and burgeoning Polish coal during miners' bureaucracy. strikes in Britain and fascist Kania of course cannot and Spain.

stalinis state apparatus which is organised to protect Kania however faces a ond perpetuate the privileges daunting task. He admits that he looks forward to the time when: deformed Polish workers' state. oureaucrad "Polish workers will again appomtment has been speak of the Polish United welcomed by the Kremlin StaliAUSTS chief of the secret police he is well-known becaus they know or will miss no opportunity to check the revol utionary movement and restore the stability and authority of the state.

He will endeavour to do this in the first instance by drawing strike leaders into the bureauOminously Lech Walesa of the Gdansk Strike Committee has announced that he will no longer work the - shipyardseven though his reinstatement was one of the major gains of the strike Instead he is moving his government-supplied •ICI is holding meetings with arcin Wyszinsky and the Central Committee of the official trade unions.

But with the regime issuing increasingly sombre warnings the thousands of workers still Walesa feels far from secure: according to a West German newspaper he still fears arrest, declaring "my head is already on a block..

The gains that have been won struggles are very Tea. historically cedented: but it is only through arrymg through the complete political overthrow of the Stal inist bureaucracy and the estab, revolutona