Solidarity is back. That was the message from Poland this spring. For seven years after the December 1981 imposition of martial law, Poland's independent labor movement survived as a clandestine organization. And despite its low public profile, it survived as the symbol of Polish society's material, democratic, and nationalistic aspirations. It has continued to represent what Poles call "the civil society" in its confrontation with an oppressive and unpopular state.
In 1987 Solidarity began to emerge from the underground and work openly to challenge the state-controlled unions at the shop-floor level. Last November Solidarity called upon Poles to boycott a referendum on economic reform. The boycott resulted in the first electoral defeat ever acknowledged by a Communist state and confirmed Solidarity's prestige in Polish society.
This spring Solidarity was again at the forefront of world attention with a wave of strikes around the country demanding wage increases and relegalization of the independent labor movement. As it was when Solidarity was born eight years ago this month, the Lenin Shipyard at Gdansk was at the forefront of the struggle this spring, and once again Solidarity leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa was in the occupied shipyard hatching strategy and raising spirits.
The news reports had an aura of deja vu. But a lot has changed in eight years. This time the band of workers occupying the Lenin Shipyard was much smaller and mostly very young. In 1980 the Polish authorities were afraid to use force against the strikers. This spring riot police and a so-called anti-terrorism unit recaptured a Krakow steel plant with clubs and percussion grenades.
Between the threat of violent repression and a general post-martial law wariness of mass action, the call for sympathy strikes went largely unheeded. Eventually the last holdouts at Gdansk left the yard peacefully having won none of their demands. The strikers did, however, serve powerful notice that Solidarity and the hopes it carries have not gone away.
In June this message was reiterated when an unprecedented number of Poles heeded Solidarity's call for a boycott of local elections. Turnout for the local elections was even lower than for the reform referendum last fall, indicating that the government's ruthless intransigence is only strengthening popular support for Solidarity. In Poland's current economic and political circumstances, a new round of confrontation between the state and the civil society seems inevitable.
ONE IMPORTANT PART of the Polish equation is glasnost. Poland's leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, claims to be the foremost Gorbachevian in the Warsaw Pact. And in fact, Poland has more freedom of press and religion and more toleration of independent activism than is found elsewhere in the Soviet bloc. This isn't because its rulers are generous libertarians, but because they fear a hard line might provoke popular revolt when they need political calm in order to address Poland's near-terminal economic crisis. Despite its intentions, however, this openness creates a measure of political space in which Solidarity and other opposition groups can function and grow.
Solidarity, being a union representing the interests of workers, is also interested in solving Poland's economic problems. It has its own reform program. If, or when, Solidarity regains its legally recognized status of 1981, it is prepared to enter consultations with the state toward rallying the nation around a consensus policy. But recognizing Solidarity as a legitimate and necessary player in Polish politics would require at least bending the iron law of one-party rule.
All reforms aside, this is a step which Poland's rulers still seem unwilling and perhaps unable to take. In fact, before the election boycott and the wave of strikes, they seemed to hope that their reform strategy could create official, and thus manageable, channels for diluted dissent that would render Solidarity irrelevant. Toward this end the state has attempted to co-opt the Roman Catholic Church into serving as a substitute for Solidarity.
This spring the state even proposed to recognize independent trade unions if they were organized under church auspices as "Catholic Workers Associations." During martial law the church became, once again, the only institution in Poland with a measure of independence. It used that autonomy to shelter quietly a wide range of opposition activities. Organizations that could not surface on the streets met in church halls.
During Solidarity's current resurgence, the church hierarchy has thus far sought to play a mediating role between the state and the opposition. However, the church has steadfastly and faithfully refused all attempts to make it into a surrogate for Solidarity and other popular organizations.
LOOMING OVER ALL OF Poland's political struggles is the threatening cloud of economic catastrophe. The causes of Poland's economic problems are in some respects similar to those Gorbachev faces in the Soviet Union. Bloated managerial bureaucracies, obsolete technology, and alienated workers bring on very low productivity. Despite the excessive expense of production, goods for the consumer market are kept underpriced to forestall popular discontent.
The resulting deficits leave no cushion for capital reinvestment and so further undermine the production process. In addition, Poland, like the Soviet Union, bears military expenditures wildly disproportionate to its economic capacity. This further drains the consumer economy.
Left untended, these problems will lead to stagnation and economic regression. That is exactly what has happened in Poland. Poles are starting to say that their country is becoming a Third World nation right in the heart of Europe. In the years since martial law, the real wages of Polish workers have shrunk from the equivalent of $110 per month to $16 per month.
Poland's economic woes are further compounded by two problems common in the Third World. Like Mexico or Brazil, Poland bears a crushing debt to Western financial institutions. And, like many Latin American nations, its ability to pay the debt is sapped by an unequal, neo-colonial economic relationship with a neighboring superpower. In this case, the colonial exploiter is that great enemy of imperialism, the Soviet Union.
A former Party official writing in an underground Solidarity paper, and using only statistics officially available from the governments of Poland and the Soviet Union, estimated that Poland loses about 24 to 30 percent of its national income due to unfair terms of trade with the Soviet Union. A recent Washington Post report on Poland's deteriorating health care system made this point in especially poignant terms when it noted that while scarcity of medicines plagues Polish hospitals, 50 percent of Poland's annual pharmaceutical production is exported to the Soviet Union.
IN ADDITION TO RE-NEGOTIATING the relationship with the Soviet Union, reversing Poland's economic decline would require a multifaceted, across-the-board program of reform that would slash the bureaucracy, decentralize management, reward efficiency, and raise worker morale through both material incentives and workplace democracy. Such a program would also require broader democratization in the society as a whole to legitimize the reforms.
Only a system with the trust of its people can afford to take measures which may, in the short term, result in higher prices and even some periods of unemployment. This is roughly the kind of program Solidarity proposes for Poland.
Despite the average Pole's sinking standard of living, the Jaruzelski government has resolved to attack the economic crisis by simply raising prices without instituting other measures to raise productivity and efficiency. These price increases brought on the wave of strikes this spring.
Poles are willing to accept some short-term economic sacrifices in order to get the economy moving. But they want the social costs to be equally shared and they rightly don't trust the Communist oligarchy to do that. The striking workers this spring made it clear that they would give up all their economic demands if the state would legalize Solidarity.
In the months ahead, the eyes of the world will no doubt be upon Poland again. In the age of Gorbachev, Poland provides an important test case for real democratic renewal in the Communist world. It may also provide the first indications of whether or not the Soviet leader's openness to human rights will encompass the right of self-determination for the Soviet Union's smaller neighbors.
Danny Duncan Collum is a Sojourners contributing editor.
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