Extracts passed by the Secretariat of the Fourth International on 10 January ON DECEMBER bureaucrats took the initiative and unleashed the political counter-revolution in Poland. They struck this blow to block the rise of a powerful mass movement that was moving towards the establishment of democratic workers power.
The imposition of martial law was imperative to hit Solidarnose before a leadership was formed capable of facing up to tae question or power. ine situation of dual power that opened up in 1980 could not be prolonged indefinitely.
A defeat has been inflicted on the Polish workers but the working class is not crushed as it was in Hungary in 1956. Solidarnosc is very disorganised irom the repression, and a large part of its leadership has been removed. But the breadth of this trade union and 'social' movement, together with he acpun or popular nauca agalist the Military Council Salvation, has created an extensive resistance including the establishment of underground networks.
A long period of localised and Fragmented clashes is opening up. It is he duty of the international proetariat to support with all its strength the struggles of the working people of the repression against Laruzelski and Brezhnev. :hiS solidarity *arkers will learn the 4n-kers' democracv periences of self-management from he Polish workers' bitter struggles.
The declaration of martial law, mass arrests of those who are ..a!; active and free-thinking i the imposition of an undisguised - diorsip acmonsales yet agall there can be no 'reform gradua! democratisation' of such a Since August 1980 the sheer inana of survival of the bureaucratic apparatus led it to reject the existence and development of a mass, indepentent and democratic trade union. it sio not carry out any real reform or renewal'. Its concessions stemmed irom a policy of immediate selfjefence. At the same time it was brnging logelner an the clements 101 d : ounter-offensive.
The cynicism of the bureaucracy's charges against Solidarnosc cusations OI 'anti-socialism' 'counter-revolution' - are Sucu proportion to the privileges that the to safeguard.
Military Council is not fighting today against "capitalist agents is thousands of representatives of the working masses.
It stands exposed as the Military Council for the Salvation Bureaucracy!
By imposing martial law and setiing Lne Military bureacracy has modified its tradicional methods of rule. This indicates *he extreme weakness of its socia base and the deep crisis of institutions :hrough which established political hegemony.
The ruling Communist Party had begun to fall apart under the impact of the mass upsurge of the last 18 months. Hundreds of thousands had left it and joined Solidarnosc. had the so-called 'renewal' congress of last summer significant change.
Even the Sejm (parliament) had begun to develop an initial autonomy the party, happened at the time Prague Spring. On 3 October the Seim refused to adopt the emergency measures proposed by Jaruzelski.
This institutional crisis left only an increased resort to the armv as a last solution for the bureaucratic caste's counter-offensive, acting liaison with the armed forces of the USSR.
Socialist Challenge 21 January 1982 of National of Through Solidarnosc lessons ot the •eXacand The imprisoning of the Council the Nor continuous any system of acceded to the position leader, openly the paratus.
close administrative apparatus.
the Since 1980 there have been almost joint military manoeuvres; an alternative paralle communications was established; and General Jaruzelski Not parti reflecting this drift towards basing bureaucratic rule on military/police repressive aply.
In late October some 883 military units were sent into the country to resolve 'local conflicts' — in reality to facilitate a military takeover of the And on 2 December there was the militia attack Military student occupied with the support of Solidarnosc, to test the determination of Solidarnose to respond to repressive provocations.
But it is not the case that the army has come on to the political scene as a "third force' independent of bureaucracy and the Communist ParThe top officer corps represents the hardline nucleus of the party. All the generals and colonels are members of the party and the massive majority are graduates of the USSR military acaucines The immediate objective of the Council bureaucratic order, spontaneous wave broad resistance throughout the major workplaces and regions. After this first phase OI resistance shape. Workers use their control over the productive apparatus to check the 'normalisation' bureaucracy.
The 'spirit of already evident in the underground appeals issued by the union and in the support organised for the prisoners and their produced by the coup, and the fragilipresent dispersal of a leadership of the resistance, does not favour the development broad-based mobilisations against the regime at the present time the resistance there can however be no doubt that the breadth of the movement of the workers Solidarnosc means that it cannot be totally liquidated. In the next phases of struggle against the dictatorship new cadres will come forward. This is a significant difference with what happened after Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
workers' democracy with its emphasis on lass partipalion, against bureaucratic corruption, and for workers' self-management. In the weeks martial law there recution ships the need thoroughgoing struggle against bureaucracy strikes' organised councils, for workers' guards, and a workers' counter-plan to the government's economic proposals. Such a perspective of struggling for workers' power was the only real alternative to the continuing bureaucrats.
But Solidarnose had not grasped the full meaning of the conflict of interests between the workers and the bureaucracy. Any long-term application of the strategy of 'self-limitation' of the struggle failed to tackle the danger of the inevitable bureaucratic counter-revolution against the emerging WOrkers power. political current fluence within Solidarnosc was needed to fight for the preparation of the masses the workers' nower The Polish regime needs the creation of a new political hegemony not entirely dependent on the barrel of a scene runs up against a series of major problems. It necessitates the painful reconstruction of a stable party for the the bureaucracy underway, or a new one.
Any project of political recomposition also requires a much better economic situation. The crackdown has to facilitate the imposition of a vast austerity plan, unemployment, reduction of social spending and inbreak creasing work discipline. But in such a co-managing the workers.
direct any curectors The to sufficiently in- of Jaruzelski already been The repression is extensive with a Solidarnose and other workforce, the Solidarnosc full- SUNS It But the extraordianry spirit of the struck a led to a semiof strikes and millions of active opposition now taking world scale ureaucrauc Plans masses shoulder Solidarnosc' bureaucratic families. But the trauma The of the police of Whatever the different phases of organised d'etat.
bureaucratic tervention Solidarnosc provided a model of creased.
The preceding the imposition of the was growing among the local leaderfor more the • the need for 'active by the workers' the same peoples perialism.
rule of the break sion Within A conscious revolutionary national indevelopment of Ine pollucal the - either the existing wholescale purge Anchical price increases, dictatorship!
the regime's Plaus would not find any resonance among Such an austerity plan would go hand in hand with an attempt bonuses to the and Wallacella. administrative staff to enable the regime to try and win itsell a new social Dase Church heirarchy remains the master cards which has congratulated for moderating role. In the Vatican, just as in Warsaw there is a tear that more active workers' resistance might lead large scale confrontation, resulting in Soviet intervention which would threaten the Church's conceswas certainly easier for the bureaucracy to declare martial lan than to win the war of 'normalisation'. Never before has a bureaucracy had to reorganise its system or powel at all levels and on such a vast scale The imposition of martial law has terrible blow whole of the international proletariat. The struggle since August 1980 of workers in Solidarnosc was one of the most advanced examples of proletarian struggle on a struggle between government and the we are totally shoulder the masses. The workers' state was not undergoing imperialist assault capitalism. On the contrary it was the degeneration the workers' state that was under attack.
proletariat was tending radicallv challenge the power of a privileged minority based on the force A common theme runs through all the declarations or bourgeols and im perialist forces on Poland: the Polish workers went too far, in this way they bear some responsibility for the coup Washington is using the Polish step up its campaign to justity a re-militarisation drive and the stepping up of aid to the bloody Central American dictatorships. The danger of counter-revolutionarv in.
and Grenadian revolutions has inFourth will commit all its weight inside the international labour movement to develop solidarity Lavall the Polish workers. All those who today refuse to develop this mobilisation vide tne workug masses in ten own country and internationally. To organise active solidarity with the Polish workers facilitates preparing support for the mighty struggles of the Central American against American imAll the links established between the international workers' movement and Solidarnosc must be used to the isolation which Jaruzelski wants to keep the Polish workers. Material, food and medical aid should be stepped up. And trade union commissions of inquiry should be set up to find out about the represagainst Solidarnosc workers movement Marxists should develop a systematic explanation of aims, and internal democracy of Solidarnosc.
Revolutionary Marxists oppose all proposals for a boycott by the imperialist countries of Poland and the USSR. Such a campaign can only play into the hands of the anti-communists like Reagan. Such a campaign would effectively mean calling on the banks and imperialist powers to strangle the Polish economy still further with all consequences TOT the Polish masses themselves.
The Fourth International will link campaign of solidarity Solidarnose with efforts to stimulate mobilisations against the imperialists' war drive and against the efforts of noelast Central America and the Caribbean Down with the bureaucracy's military Solidarity with Solidarnosc!
THE POLISH workers' resistance to martial law is growing daily. continuing arrests, loyality ings, there is workers' co-ordination. the workers' fighting spirit has not been crushed.
An extensive national undergrouna co-oraination has set up led by Zbigniew Bujak, former head of Warsaw Solidarnosc. Regular Despite the government's oaths and sackdeveloping underground All the signs are that bulletins are appearing in Solidarnosc journals have appeared elsewhere under different names Fighting Solidarto Day in Lublin, Fighting Information in Wroclaw.
The resistance has gone so far as to hold press conferences for Western journalists. On 13 January two Solidarnosc ICI COCHtatives Warsaw told reporters that some 20,000 people were now organised resistance networks round the country, which were planning to hold a one-muluie s suerce la the major plants round the country on 13 February.
"The people put up with hunger and misery, to which the government has accustomed them, they will not allow all the gains sinse August 1980 te lost', said the spokesperson. also unconfirmed reports of continuing sit-in strikes in the Bielsko-Biala region.
In Poznan, the governZbigniew Bujak ment received another well publicised rebuff when a stage-managed junket for Western press went badly wrong Journalists SpoKe lo workers al une massive Cegielski engine wore Solidarnost badges worker added: •Solidarnosc is alive and well, and we will win. Worse Things got worse for the government when Poznan's regional Solidarnosc leader told reporters.that his statement martial law which the authorities had publicised had been made duress I now withdraw the statement... was made under duress, before I had a full picture of what was going on,' he explained.
Within the internment camps themselves now renaoly esumalca lo nave up to 20,000 occupants, there is a new hunger strike underway in the Bialoleka camp, and a newspaper Free circulating within the themselves Meanwhile government repression has been stepped Even Archbishop Glemp, who has done his best over the last month to defuse any militant fightback, has admitica inal more peopie nave been interned The purge of public o dissidents and officials goes on Latest to face the chop is Henry Samsonewicz, rector of Warsaw University, •retusing to allow his staff and students undergo the government's 'loyality' test Thousands have been sacked or prohibited from returning work for failure to sign the govern ment's 'good behaviour pledge - some 4,300 in the Szczecin shipyard.
'independent' newspaper has been started up, Rzeczpospolita (Republic), by the authorities which they ob viously hope will be less discredited than the other official media semitic propaganda against Solidarnosc has also been stepped up in the party paper.
The army daily, Zolnierz Wolnosci, launched regular attacks on Solidarnosc leaders and well-known dissidents. singled out Jacek Kuron and Adam Michnik from KOR and Jan Rulewski and Źbigniew Bujak fron Solidarnosc as nothing other than a gallg political adventurers.
It went on to outline its ConceDuoi COT ans new trade union in Poland should function: "The time will come to build a stricti Lade on organor purely working oralisalon wilnoul rase advisers, developed regional tures, without 43,00 officials and withou political adventurers.' Blame Leader of 16= restatile Zbigniew jak, in an interview wit York Times asserted that spontanec. 1 costauce to the regi.. was growing, , and stinging reply to all thes who apportion blame the union movement 'My answer will s÷ brutal. many Western poi : cians believe that if :. had been wiser could have avoided tragegy But know that "wisd Tor us meant consoe tion with the state laboration that nave beer against the worke s the intellectuals men of culture and :.: arts would become another anner:
the totalitariasystem, creating Oniy Him oression democracy. This mius: not be demanded of us our Solidarit union.... Truly indepen. dent unions can exis only in conditions democracy. Thus continue and remain in dependent the unior must fight for democracy and become its guardian 'So struggle struggle and yet more struggle.