Banks for Tanks

Dss oli darnosc has been held incommunicado since the clampdown them. According to a report in the December 21 Wall Street Journal ‘‘many US bankers see Soviet—style authoritarianism as their best hope for recovering the 1.3 billion dollars that Poland owes “Most bankers think authoritarian governments are good because they impose discipline’, said an executive at a bank with millions of dollars in Polish loans. . .

“Who knows which political system works?” says Thomas Theobald, senior executive vice-president in charge of Citibank’s international division. ‘The only test we care about is: can they pay their bills?” And a report in the December 13 Sunday Times reveals that British bankers feel the same way. ‘‘Speaking only as a banker, it would be a good thing if Russia invaded, because then she would be obliged to honour Poland’s debts”, said one London banker.

No Hope Pope Another supposed defender of the Polish people is the Pope! According to the Sunday Times the Pope was advised about the military clampdown two hours before it took place by the Polish Ambassador, The role of the Catholic Church in Poland has been hand in hand with the authorities as long as the regime leaves the church room for manoeuvre. Accordingly the Polish Archbishop has spent his time pressurising Lech Walesa to tone down his demands,

cand so forth are not made according to the greed for profits.

BEHIND MARTIAL LAW Poland has a “‘socialised’? economy where industry is owned by the society as a whole but where decision making ‘is in the hands of asmall elite group. It still has to trade with the capitalists who are forcing the Poles to tighten their belts in order to pay back the loans they owe.

In fact Polish workers are suffering from the same kind of cutbacks that people in Ireland are suffering from under the Thatcher and Fitzgerald governments. But in Poland the fight is not against local capitalists but against the bureaucracy which runs the country and has allowed this situation to develop.

That’s why the bureaucracy introduced martial law. Through SOLIDARNOSC the Polish working class had begun to fight for a real socialist democracy, a society in which the workers themselves will decide how industry and the economy is organised. Since August 1980 a political revolution has been unfolding in Poland aimed at changing society from top to bottom. This revolution will never be successful until the power and privilege of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union is broken. The Soviet bureaucracy are terrified of the Polish example spreading to other Eastern European states, including the Soviet Union itself. They are terrified for the same reason that the Polish bureaucracy is terrified: because they too would lose their enormous privileges.

RESPONSE IN THE WEST Nor do the imperialist politicians want to see SOLIDARNOSC triumph. The forms of struggle chosen by the Polish workers — strikes and factory occupations — are under attack by the Tory government in Britain and the 6 Counties. The Coalition Government proposes to make such actions illegal and has already thrown the Talbot workers into prison. And one of the first actions of Ronald ‘Cowboy’ Reagan’s administration in the United States was to shackle in chains the trade union leaders of the Air Traffic Controllers. The only reason Thatcher and Reagan pretend to support SOLIDARNOSC is that it is a pretext to continue their cold war against the Soviet Union. Similarly the rightwing leaders of the trade union movement in the West will make plenty of pious speeches but refuse to lift one finger to provide real material and financial support to Polish workers. It is vital that the anti-imperialist movement in Ea Ireland act in support of the Polish working class. If we fail to do so we allow the imperialists to pose as “defenders of democracy” and get off the hook for crushing it elsewhere. We need to be in the forefront of the fight within the trade unions, the community organisations, the student movement and women’s movement And within our own organisations we need to put every pressure on the leadership to start building this solidarity..

WHAT YOU CAN DO 1. Put a resolution of support for the Polish workers on the agenda of your trade union branch, tenants association, etc. 2. Ask your trade union branch, tenants association etc to invite a speaker from the “Solidarity with SOLIDARNOSC” to address your meeting. (Contact Alex White, Trinity College Students Union). 3. Organise a petition demanding the and political activists in Poland and send it to General J aruzalski. 4. Collect money for the Polish resistance.

JOHN MAGEE The to win solidarity with SOLIDARNOSC:

aiding them. situation.

release of all imprisoned trade unionists to surpluses. 7 Acceptance of free trade unions independent of the Communist Party and of enterprises, in accordance with convention No 87 of the International Labour Organisation concerning the right to form free trade unions, which was ratified by the Communist Government of Poland. 2 Guarantee of the right to strike and of the security of strikers and those 3 Compliance with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, the press and publication, including freedom for independent publishers, and the availability of the mass media to representatives of all faiths. 4 (a) Return of former rights to:

— People dismissed from work after the 1970 and 1976 strikes, — Students expelled from school because of their views. (b) Release of all political prisoners, among them Edmund Zadrozynski, Jan Kozlowski and Marek Kozlowski.

(c) Halt in repression of the individual because of personal conviction. 5 Availability to the mass media of information about the formation of the Interfactory Strike Committee and publication of its demands. 6 Undertaking of actions aimed at bringing the country out of its crisis situation by the following means:

(a) Making public complete information about the social-economic (b) Enabling all sectors and social classes {o:take part in discussion of the reform programme. Paha 7 Compensation of all workers taking part in the strike for the period of the strike, with vacation pay from the Central Council of Trade Unions. 8 An increase in the base pay of each worker by 2,000 zlotys (app.£30) a month as compensation for the recent rise in prices. 9 Guaranteed automatic increases in pay on the basis of increases in prices and the decline in real income. 70 Full supply of food products for the domestic market, with exports limited SOCIALIST REPUBLIC PAGE 5.

----- pull-quotes -----

The 21 demands of the Inter- factory strike committee at the Gdansk shipyard