Polish Deal a Blow at
Socialist Press1981 1981-02-04Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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Kremlin leader Brezhnev with Poland's Kania For The basis on which the Polish trade union Solidarity called off its threatened one-hour general strike at the weekend represents a further retreat by the ruling Stalinist The deal falls short of Solidarity's initial demands.
But it does concede that Saturday working be reduced to one Saturday per month instead of the two wanted by the government.
And it does concede to the union the right to publish a weekly newspaper and present a weekly television programme.
The concession on Saturday The final months of the Begin government in Israel will be brought to an end, probably on July 7.
Elections will be held against a background of world record inflation, ministerial corruption, disillusionment with the governworking will cause economic problems for thè bureaucrats.
But the political threat represented by the free publication of an opposition newspaper and access of critics of the regime to the mass media is far greater.
Control
The bureaucracy clings to power in Poland not on the basis of ownership of the means of production but simply on its privileged position or contror or the nationalised economy and of the apparatus of the police state.
The continued weakening of its police powers and repeated challenges to its control threaten the regime with the prospect of a direct challenge by the working class for state power.
It is for this reason that concessions which may buy a temporary period of "peace" for the Polish bureaucracy do not necessarily lessen the chances of a Soviet military intervention.
And with the issue of recognition of Rural Solidarity-the peasants and • farmworkers' union-still unresolved the period of "peace"' may be very temporary indeed.
Overthrow
Solidarity has secured partial victory. But only the Walesa nnlitical. nuerthrow of the MUI Stalinist bureaucracy by workers in Poland and throughout Eastern Europe can prevent the danger that such partial victories serve as the prelude to a crushing invasion.