Polish Workers Resist Stalinist Regime

ANNA Walentynowicz was a veteran activist of Poland's free trade union movement and a crane driver at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk.

Many times the management had victimised Anna for her union activities. On 31 January 1980 a hundred workmates led a four hour strike for her reinstatement after she had been moved from the yard.

In August later that same year the management moved to sack her again, and opened the door to the mighty strike movement that rocked the whole of the country. “The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves.”

Since August 1980 when they created the free trade union SOLIDARNOSC, thé workers of Poland have been putting this old slogan into practice. They have been fighting for the right to organise independent trade unions, for an end to censorship, for a minimum wage, adequate food and decent health care and housing.

The fight began in July 1980 when there was a series of strikes against increased meat prices. These strikes Declaration of Solidarity individual farmers.

Salsehoods in education and Polish culture.

(parliament) and the people's councils.

editorial or trade union activities.

miners of decent living and working conditions.

accords, Anna. Walentynowicz reached their peak in August when 100,000 workers in the Baltic Sea cities of Gdansk, Gydnia and Sopot had stopped working. By this time the workers were demanding freedom of expression and the abolition of of censorship, release of all political _ prisoners, recognition of the right to strike and free unions, abolition of privileges for police and Communist Party officials, and full discussion of the economic problems of the country.

After the government was forced to accept most of these demands the way was open for the organisation of the nationwide trade union federation, SOLIDARNOSC. More than 12 million Polish workers joined. This LECH WALESA SHOWED HIS SUPPORT FOR BOBBY SANDS DURING THE HUNGER STRIKE. NOW IS THE TIME TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR THE IMPRISONED WALESA AND ALL THE OTHER JAILED TRADE UNIONISTS AND POLITICAL PRISON— ERS IN POLAND. SOLIDARITY WITH SOLIDARNOSC! Congress, 10 September 1987 The supreme aim of the independent trade union Solidarity is to create dignified conditions of life in an economically and politically so vereign Poland, a life freed of poverty, of exploitation, of fear and deceit, in a society organised democratically and on the basis of law. Today the nation expects:

1 The improvement of food supplies by the establishment of control over production, distribution, and pricing, in collaboration with the Solidarity union of 2A reform of the economy, through the creation of authentic selfmanagement councils in the factories and through the liquidation of the party ‘Nomenklatura’ (Ed note: the system of party appointments to key jobs).

3 The truth through social control of the mass media and the suppression of 4 Democracy through the introduction of free elections to the Sejm 5 Justice through the assurance to each of equality before the law, the freedom of prisoners of opinion, and the defence of persons charged for their political, 6 The protection of the nation’s health, through the protection of the enyironment, an increase 11 the funds channelled into medical services, and a guarantee to the handicapped of the rights which are due to them in society.

7 Coal for the population and industry, through giving a guarantee to the He will achieve these aims through the unity of the trade union and the solidaritv of its members. The activities of a variety of forces creating a feeling of exterior danger will not remove from us the desire to struggle for the ideals of August 1980, for the implementation of the Gdansk, Szczecin and Jastrzebie Poland still lives!

ee ae comprised the great majority of the Polish working class.

In the months following, SOL:DARNOSC mobilised millions of Polish and reforms and to win new ones. One of the most important victories for the union was winning a shorter working week, a 5 day week. It also paper and have access to the state radio and television. It even forced the government to build a monument to those workers gunned down during a previous revolt in 1970.

Lech Walesa, leader of S At the risk of our lives and our freedom, in defiance of the draconian measures of martial law and despite the attempt to paralyse us, with fear, hundreds of thousands of workers and Polish patriots are on strike and demand the lifting of the state of siege, the freeing of all those arrested, the restoration of all trade union and democratic rights won by our people since August 1980.

Support us in our struggle with massive protests and by your moral support. Don’t stand aside with folded arms and watch the attempts to crush the beginnings of a democracy in the heart of Europe. Be with us in these difficult moments! Solidarity with Solidarnosc!

(Strike Committee of the Warski Naval Shipyard, Szczecin) workers to safeguard newly won rights won the right to publish its own newsThe example set by the Polish workers again. was followed by other sections.of the population. Students organised their own student SOLIDARNOSC while small farmers and peasants in the countryside organised a Rural SOLIDARNOSC. The hopes and determination of the whole of Polish society were raised by these struggles.

WORKERS RESIST MILITARY The imposition of martial law in December 1981 dashed these hopes as brutal military repression was launched throughout the country. The initial response was a stunned disbelief strengthened by the lack of information due to rigid censorship. But this soon gave way to strikes in In the Baltic regions of Gdansk and Szczecin, the Silesian region and Katowice, Lublin, Lodz, Poznan, Wroclaw, Legnice and Warsaw there were massive shutdowns. The city of Radom, the centre of military equipment and ammunition factories was totally sealed off by the army. The resistance and repression set into a pattern. The workers occupied the big plants like the Katowice steelworks, the Ursus tractor plant near Warsaw and the Gdansk shipyards. Tanks were used to smash a way in and the elite ZOMO riot police were sent in to break resistance and arrest “ringleaders”, But by the next shift workers had re-occupied only for the army to start breaking them up Despite the arrest of key leaders and tens of thousands of SOLIDARNOSC members, the union has continued to function as an organiser of resistance. Resistance is generally passive sabotage of production and is widespread. In the first week of the repression only one tractor was produced by the 14,000 workers at the Ursus plant. At the FSO car factory the workers changed the tolerance levels of the machine settings and the cars produced disintegrated.

THE FAILURE OF BUREAUCRATIC PLANNING’

The Polish workers will battle on because these events are a reflection of deep-going social problems that can only be resolved by fundamental changes. The main social problem is that political power is exercised by a small number of bureaucrats in senior government positions and in the top layers of the Polish Communist Party. This layer is incapable of planning society in the interests of the great majority because it is primarily interested only in its own privileges — its own special shops, the better access to consumer goods, decent housing and education and above all political privileges in decision making. As a result, serious economic problems have occurred.

Poland owes more than 21 billion dollars..to-European. and US banks due to falling markets for their products in these countries and increases in the cost of imports. These are the familiar signs of the economic crisis in the capitalist world where prices keep going up, markets keep shrinking and more workers lose their jobs. Although the economic problems of Poland are in the main caused by the economic Crisis of the capitalist world, Poland is not a capitalist country. It doesnit:suffer the ups and downs of business that cause unemployment, inflation and wage cuts. Polish industry isn’t owned by wealthy businessmen and decisions on what a factory produces, how many workers it employs