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POLITiCAI, SOCIOLOGICAL AND /l~11LITARY AFFAIRS
- CFOUO 3/81)
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JPRS L/9576
. 2fi February 1981
_ EAS~ EUROPE REPORT
- POLI7ICAL, SOCIOLOGICAL AND MILITARY AFFAIRS
(FOUO 3%81)
CONTENTS
POLAND
In~eI.lectual Krall Elaborates on Motivations of Current Polish
'Revolution'
(Marcin Krol; COI~SENTAIRE, No 12, 1980-81) 1
�
'L`EXPRESS' Report on Solidarity Legalization Noted
(Emile Guikovaty; L'EXPRESS, 15 Nov 80) 12
'L'EXPRESS' Views Flimination of 'Gierek Clique' as Hypocritical
(L~~~ss, ii o~t so) i~
~ - a - [III - EE - 63 FOUO]
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t
= POLAND
INTELLECTUAL KROLL ELABORATES ON MOTIVATIONS OF CURRENT PULISH 'REVOLU'SION'
Pari~ COt~~NTAIRE in French No 12 Winter 1980-81 pp 537-544
~Article by Marcin Krol: "Poland: A Dif�erenL Revolution"; French translation
_ from the Polish by Ewa Berard~
~Text~ Given the events in Pcaland, we offer our readers an
analysis by a young Polish~intellectual: Marcin Krol. Born in
1943, he is a historian. His graduate thesis was on the
political views of the Jacobins. He has published a book (with
W. Karpinsky): "Political Profiles of the Polish 19th Century"
(Warsaw, 1977). A lecturer on research at the Polish Academy of
Sciences ~antil 1978, he is now not regularly employed. He
~belongs to the category of those whom certain�Westerners call
"dissidents" but whom it would be more appropriate to call
simply free men. It is an immense cansolation to know they are
so numerous~and so lucid in Poland today.
~ COMr~NTAIRE
The events of the past three months have taken us all by surprise--except, of
- course,~those for whom each day that 8awns is but an opportunity to predict
"~extraordinary~happenings,"~enabling them,to clarion facile a posteriori "I told
~
~ you so s. Wlzy were we thus surprised? Why could�we not have foreseen them? And
why have we continued to be tnistaken at each step of the last 3 months? Why have
we been unable to grasp what was actually happening? For, no one among the -
intellectualsl believed for one single moment that inc3ependent unior.s could ever
be formed. Wherefrom, then,.did this new freedom arise--a relative freedom, of
course, but a freedom of action nonetheless? What obstacles did it have to
confront? How car� we benefit from it today, or rather, how can we learn to make
use of it? _
1. Except possibly Jacek Kuron, whose ideas are not necessarily shared by all the
- comrades of the Worker,s Defense Commit{:ee (KOR). A~discussion of this opposite
viewpoint, however, is beyond the scope of this essay; it warXants a separate
article. _
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An Unforeseeable Revolution
I t all stumbled into being. Today, of course, we are in a position to recognize
several of its determzning factors: the ~Catholic~ Church and the p~pe's visi~,
the oppositi~n groups, wnich had been active over the past 4 years, the serious
economic situation, the price rises-~the~price rises.�that were actually the
immediate cause of the strikes. Had there not been this measure, it is possible
that the strikes and the political and.social upsets that followed it might never
have taken placa. Had there not been the lies and the shabby tactics of the
government r2presentatives who were sent to the coastal region during the.early
- d3ys of the strikes, the strikers and their comrades would probably have settled
f~r the wage increases and same minor pnnpoint concessions by the authorities,
such as, for example, authorization to erect a monument t0 the memory of the
victims of 1970. The events of August would therefore not have been unavoidable;
= and, what is more, they were not even consistent with the logic of social develop-
ment. The sociologists who, totall.y taken aback, recognize:today that their
surveys had never revealed the existence of ~uch a potential for revolt among the
workers should not feel too guilty. Their findings were "correct"; it is:the
events that were not.
History knows of no revolt born of wea'riness and.mistr.ust_alone. Weariness and
~ mistrust, even occasional anxiety and an awareness of the adversary's weakness,
cannot in themselves explain a revolutionary explosion, not even as rest~ained and
conscientiously control.led a one as in Polatid's.case. In no way can these be but
secondary causes, and the authorities could easily have avoided such an explosion
if they had only beEn capable of a more rapid and more effective reaction.
During the Iatter half of the 1960's, a system of gov~rnment was formed, based on
corruption~ Such a sy:;tem may be condemned from ttae juridical or moral stand~
poir:;s; the fact remains nonetheless that political systems based on corruption
have not been Lare historically. They k~ave endured for decades at a time and have
operated no less effectively than the.others. Gierek's regime was relatively
benevol.ent and let people live (the people, that is, who gave and those who took).
A system based.pn cosrup~:ion is, by de�inition, a.lax one. And corruption and
an aberrant propaqanda have b~stowed upon the system--and tk~e party--the indis-
pensable aura of an isolatecl realm unto itsel.f. Within that universe, the
government and those who carry out its orders have felt secure, have felt warm
and snug, ~nd the only thing that concerned them was to remain there. They thus
preferred to ignore the alari~i signals that reached them from outside their world,
from a reality thut refused to disagpear. They made believe they perce~ued
neither the grave economic situation nor the emergence oE inde~endent influences.
To allaw these phenomena to enter their field of vision would be to place th;:m-
selves in the position of having to react, ta take decisions; and this, they felt,
not without rc~ason, i.rivolved major risks.
Their fears turned out to have been weTl founded, for, in the end, it was
- a decision, a decree, that finally triggered the crisis. Actually, there had been .
peaple within the governing elite itself who had, for clearly different reasons,
critici~ed the system of corruption. In early 1980, some extremely mild reforms
were outlined. But the framework of the system remained unchanged and its feeble
effort could have done none other than set off the debacle.
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It is useZess to seek the causes of the crisis either in tne pressures the workers
and our society as a whole had for some time been brinqing to bear on the govern-
ment, or in the measures decreed by the latter, no matter how unpopular and harsh
they may have been. The causes of the crisis were many; taken separately,hoWAVer,
nona of them was determinant, and, taken as a whole, they could have led to
another solution. In any case, as regards the period that preceded the crisis,
it is more exact to speak of the weakness of the government than of the forceful-
ness of society.
A Moral Revolution...
The causes of the crisis must therefore be sought in the psychologia?? tactor.
The strikes were, ~or t;ne workers, less a protest.against a wea~k~ discredited and
inert government than the explosion of their spontaneous, genuine, sincere feel-
ings, the opportunity they rose to the occasion to seize, to feel, even were it
to be only for th~ space of a few days, like men: united, capable of exercising
t~eir will and of acting accordingly. Basically, t;~e workers struck for their
inner selves, to prove to themselves that it was possible to tear themGelves away
trom the cogwheels of an absurd and corrupt system. There was no social "revolu-
tion," and mucY~ less a political "revolution"; there was a moral "revalution," _
an existential one. Its ol~ject was to prove thzt we still ex~st, that we have not
yet lost our essential human qualities, and that we are still capable of friend-
ship, of genuineness, of kindness.
...Misunderstood By the Intellpctuals
~ Is it surprising then that these unprecedented strikes were not understood by the
intellectuals--at least, at their inception? ~Je, the intellectuals, plunged into i
a search for their economic causes. Then, when it became clear that the wages ~
issue was not sufficient to explain the behavior of the coastal region workers, -
we evoked with relisn their political and civic m~tivations. The fact is, how-
ever, that it would have sufficed to reac3 the famous list of the 21 paints, where
the most disparate demands paralleled each other, to unders~.and that the workers
were setting as much, if not even greater, store on the act of demanding as�on
their concrete demands. Thereafter, for the strikers, confronted by the govern-
ment's repr.esentatives, winning--that is, obtaining the signing of the a~reement ,
and its implementation--became a matter of honor. This, howe~~eX, in no way
derogates the premise that the.origin of all their demands, including the most
important one--the creation of independent unions--was less social than existen- -
tial in nature. The workers were fed up with being "represented" by the official
unions. It was to these, above all, that the workers wanted to prove the fact
of their ~xistence and that the distorted existence handed down to them by the
official system was not the only possible one.
The intellectuals, for by far the most part, experienced no similar need. I want
in no way here to idealize the workers, attributing to them a special need for
identity, nor to put down the intel].ectuals. The latter, by reason of their
- profession itself, have simply adju:~ted better to the system in place. This .
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adjustment, which was inevitable, made them forget the existence of absolute
values; o~, more exactly, they lost the intellect~aal link binding them ta those
values--for, in Poland, one can always count on the survival of moral reactions,
if only thanks to the national tradition. Ii: was thus neither absolute values nor
social values that governed the behavior of the intellectuals, but rather situa-
tional value~. Everything had become ambiguous and relative. Concepts no longer
had any meaning of their own; a book, an article, a comment had no value other
than the impact~tYiey might have on the current situation. Thus, one and the same
article could produ~e many different reactions, while its social value and, with
all the more reason, its absolute value were passed over in silence and, at best,
treated as secondary. The eXample of the Experienee and Future (DIP) group2 is
highly characteristic in this regard. This group was held in differing esteems--
from good to bad--depending on its situational value, this in turn being dependent
upon the judgements made of its efforts to create intermediate links b~tween the
= two adversaries: the government and the intelligentsia. It is also to be supposed
that for the group itself it was situational value that counted above all others.
The initial approach to the strikes by the intellectuals was based precisel.y on _
situational values. The appeal for solidarity set in motion among the intellec-
tuals collected 23Q signatures. It was~an eminent and unitary display by.the .
intelligentsia. A success! Yet, we intellectuals continued to doubt that the
workers could succeed in obtaining independent unions. The arguments we advanced ,
in this regard were many. Politicacl arguments: The government could not possibly
agree to this or that~demand. Theoretical arguments: The system of parallel
unions could never work in Poland. Practical arguments: The creation of new
unions would run into innumerable difficulties. The fact was simply overlooked
that the workers' mo~.ivations stemmed.��rom another dominant: the.existential one.
_ Our arguments, therefore, assuming they were even heard, could not have convinced -
them .
Tadeusz MazowiecKi,3 in a distinction that has gained celebrity, postulated two
_ types of realism: the realism of the coastal region workers and that of the
Warsaw :.::celligentsia. How is this distinction to be interpre~ed?
The reaZism of the workers was nurtUred by despair; that of the intelligentsia,
by fear. The realism of the workers was nurtured by pride; that of the intelli-
. gentsia, by the hope of~a compror?ise. I am not advancing a value judgement.
These ~wo different attitudes had different motivations: existential motivations
in t.he case of the workers; ci.rcumstantial ones in that of the intelligentsia.
_ The 'two groups moreover had differer.t interests at stake: The intelligentsia had
much to lose if the Gierek reqime fell; the workers, for their part, nothing. The
2. ~Editor's note): A group devoted to critical comment, which brought together
- Ca~holic intellectuals and former Party cadres.
3. (Editor's note): Editor-in-chief af the Catholic magazine WIEZ (The Link), and
member of a group of experts who worked together with the Gdansk Inter-factory
Strike Committee (MKS) in August. -
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intelligentsia ~evoted its time to speculating on just how far the gover:~ment
coul go in making concessions; the w~orkers devoted fheirs to formulating their
~~llands .
_ What explanation can there be for this forc~ and genuineness of feeling an?ong the
w~orkers? For this sudden existential thrust among the workers and its virtually
total absence among the intellectuals? The reasons are many; I will cite only
two. The first is negative: Nbst Polish intellectuals had litt].e b~y li:ttle� becozae
recoaciled to their existence in the universe of circumstantial values.~.�To -
preserve their identity in that universe of compromise, these intellectuals
plunged feverishly into research on the engulfinent of art and creative thought by
ideology and politics. The interest they centered on Stalinism, fascism, Orwell,
Milosz and, generally speaking, on all demystifying writings was a seeking for
immunization against an enmeshing mechanism they were coming to know more and
more. The thinking that guided their researches was negatively oriented: It.point-
ed to what had to be done to avoid the tra;:, to avoid becoming enmeshed or enmesh- -
_ ing the others in it. The concrete cases o� enmeshment serving as:examples clearly
offered little or nothing of arciatic or intellectual worth. We learned, there-
fore, thanks to these researches, to recognize the bad and the dangerous and
' ta guard ourselves against them; but we scarcely learned to recognize the good
and the beautiful and showed little interest in the processes leading to them.
The result of this was that what we were learning from our demystification quests
was more often than not alienating us from the world of social problems and
plunging us~ into Hermetism, into pure thought, into aestheticism, into art for
the sake of art. This is not to say that what we learned were worthless or
detrimental to creative thought or to art. On the contrary. But I do believe _
that such "splendid isolation" could but atrophy our need for social involvement.
Each intellectual, taken separately, found himself or herself enriched, but all
together, as a social force, they were weakened by it.
The Role of the Church and of Rel.igion
The second rea~on lies in the roles fultilled by the Chur~h.and~by ze~ligion in the _
Poland of today. A clear distinction must be drawn between the role of the.Church,
with its institutions and its tradition, and that of religion. The Church in- .
~ Paland~;need.it be r.ecalled?--represents a force. An organizing force, but also
and above all, a spiritual force. This force of the Church rests on the
patriotic-religious synarome, a syndrome we can all recognize whether it manifests
itself in our societal and:political life or in its symbolic form. The Church is
the only true ally of all those who~ no matter how sligh~ly,.~reject power poli-
tics. Polish intellectuals have very well understood this function, above all
during the 1970"s, and have used it to.full advantage, more often than not with
the tacit or open consent of the Church itself.
On the other hand, the social function of religion, of the practice of religion,
and of the emotions of the world of the sacred is to constitute the only system
that can be used as an infallible reference in a universe of generalized mistrust.
Religion is the sole source of genuine emotion and reflective tho~ght. It is
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clear, therefore, that the roles of ~he Church and of religion are widely dif-
ferent. To invoke the impact of the pope's visit as a factor that bore decisively ~
on the air af calm and dignity that characterized the coastal region strikes is
to adduce the role of religion and not that of tHe Church. Even though the
~uthority of the Polish Church was st.rengthened by the election of the pope and
by his vi~it, these had no direct effect upon the strikes. And although the faith
was fortified by them, they also had no direct effect on event.;. On the other
hard, what did p3ay a capital role was the consolic3ation of religion as a system
9 of reference and as a fountainhead o� authentic emotion and reflection (and not
exclusively religious but also patriotic ones, for example). Somewhat schemati-
cally speaking, we might say that what counted for the workers was religion as a
_ system of reference, whereas what counted for the intellectuals was the Church as
a force. We might add that this perception of the distinct roles of the Church
and r~ligion has been growing increasingly sharper recently, in proportion as
certain decisions by the Church's hierarchy have been exhausting the confidence
, that had been placed in the authentic and "noncircumstantial" character of its
leadership. '
To remain within the terms of reference we have adopted, we will call the realism
oi the workers an existential realism, and that of the intellectuals a circum-
stantial one. This is not to say (above all, taking into account the threat of -
Soviet bntervention that is ~ever present in the minds of all Poles) that the
realism of the workers is devoid of moderation and level-headedness. Moder.ation
and level-headedness have, since August, become intrinsic characteristics of the _
Poles. This is an unforeseen evolution, although, already during the pope's
= visit, the Poles had shown evidence of these characteristics. flow was such an
evolution possible in a society that had not really had an opportunity to radical-
ize its political experience and develop its own political culture?
~
Polish Maturity
The level-headedness or, as it is obligimqly termed, the maturity of the Polish
society never ceases to astonish the entire w~orld, beginning with the Poles them-
selves. Everything comes about as if the Poles had decided to abandon their
romantic image and their traditional role as idealists given to ].ight-horse-
cavalry charges against tanks, to play another role in which they are seen as ~
merchants in bourgeois dress calculating down to the last penny the largess of
their gestures. The Poles have indeed switched roles.4 Coming as it does on the
heels of the romanti~ pathos, the camedy of middle class manners obviausly borders
on the profoundly boresome. Thus it is that, contrary to all expectations,
student meetings for the creati~n o~ new university associations are down-to-earth
and moderate,~hence boring. Students and intellectuals, as well as workers and
all the new labor union leaders, are.taking stock of reality. `:They are~~fully
aware of what they can do and, above all, of what they cannot do. They all _
respect very scrupulously the point of agreement at which the steadfast character
of our system of our alliances is confirmed. '
4. (Editor's note): The French term ~emploi~ was used in the original ~Polish~
- text.
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The farther removed one is from the decision centers and from the major strike
centers, the more this scrupulous respect takes on magical forms. This accounts
in particular for the evocation of "antisociaiist forces" inside Foland and of
- "hosti~e.forces that interfere in our internal affairs" abroad, in the West. The
frequent questions on the links that bind the new unions to the KOR, as well as
the not less frequ2ntly voiced mistrust as�regards Western journalists, have their
origin in this particular variant of level-headedness and moderation. The often
heard expression "The coastal region strikes are a Polish internal affair" had no
other function in the beginning than that of a protective screen~ Today, it
- approaches a certain xenophobia and an~ideaZization of Polish characteristics.
It finds expression, in turn, through, among other things, the indifference of the ~
, new unions toward the experience of the Western l~bor union movement. This
attitude is easily understood: It attests the level-headedness of the workers,
who must take into account the views of the magic world of their interlocutor, in
this case the Party, behind which looms the shadow~of the Soviet Unian.
The Poles owe this level-headedness, this maturity, to a historic experience
_ extending from the Warsaw uprising in 1944 to 1976. These characteristics are
being nurtured, as I have already said, as much by the desperation of the Poles as
by their faith in a compromise. Their level-heacledness will harden as and to the
extent that the independent unions harden. It must not be forgotten, however,
that this level-headedness is not that of the democratic nations, which have
behind them a long tradition of free public life. If the Poles have opted for
tevel-headednesa and moderation, it is because no other choice is open to them and
because only this line of conduct offers them prnmise of a beneficial improvement
in the political situation. Should such improvement not be quickly forthcoming,
this level-headedness and moderation will again give way to desperatioi~ and
indifference, in short, to political idealism.
Level-headedness and moderation mean first and foremost, today, forgoing the
exercising of influence in domains specifically reserved to the government, to
exercise it fully within new associations and new labor. unions. This entent may
be stated in very simple terms: Leave us free ta act within our damain and we
allow you carte blanche, leaving you in peace.
The realism involved consists of not voicing demands that, in the general view,
could put to question the very base~ of the regime and that, as such, would be
totally unacceptable to the communist powers. The question involved, then, is not
whether this or that agreement /will ~in italics1/ but rather whether i.t /aan ~in
italics~/ be respected--in other words, whether the new relationships among the
social forces can evolve along the lines being envisioned by all those who are
talkzng in terms of entente, of compromise and of the.social contract.
The Future of the Polish Revolution
There ~an be no doubt that the authorities will try to confine the union movement
to the strictly social problem area. They will surely adopt the same approach to
the new university associations and the newly ~armed or restructured.researchers'
and artists ' associations. To the extent it can, the government will limit the
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freedom granted to these associations to socioproftssional matters. Should this
new freedom be accompanied by measures reducing the extent of censorship, ii: will
appear to everyone in the beginning, and not without reason, to be a substantial
victory. What may satisfy a scientific association, however, will shortly fail
to satisfy a labor union; the more so, I repeat, since t.he motivations behind the
even*_s of August were existential, not social, the fact notwithstanding that it
was the unions themselves who, guided by their realism, agreed to limzt their
domaine of intervention to specific and isolated social and economic problems.
Demands concerning censorship and access by the Church t~ the media did indeed
come up during the August negotiations, but as incidentals; and the government
could easily reject them in the future as i~ssues not within the province of the
~nions.
If, atter having passe~ the organizational stage, the workers movement does not
- expand its field of intervention, it stands, regardless of the movementss inherent
farce, .ta 3,ose .its ~thrust and its power of attraction. The stage at which -the -
- workers movement, pla~ec~ out, wiZl then no longer be able to influence the govern-
ment will signal the death knell of th~ initiatives of the intelligentsia--initia--
tives t:~at will have behind them no in~iependent social force whatever. Unfortun-
ately, we know very well that the new unions cannot, and moreover have no desire
- ~o, ex~rcise inf~uence in the affai.rs of state. What then should we be doing?
The future of the changes now taking place in Poland is ~inked to the extension
of the union movement to the nonoccupational social categor.ies: local and regional
communities. In other terms, the future of these changes demands that the
= process of formation of authentic citizens, the~.conctetiaation-of autzhentic-con-
cepts of societal life, be extended to the en tire population, and that the
_ population learn to conduct itself as a socie ty and no longer as a group of
persons subjected to the sole power of the state. The extension of these changes
must of course take place gradually, but an absence of progress in that direetion
would be a bad sign. Similarly, a oontinuing lack of understanr3ing of the
essenc~ of the "revolation" in pragress would also be disquitiing. It raust become
clear tha4 the "revolution" that is currently under way no longer consists of
wresting from the governing power some new little niche of t~e~space ove~ which
it has reigned entirely unto itself, but it is precisely an existential "revolu- .
tion"--that is, a process ot:revival of things, of institutions, of problems in
a new, independent, self-managed light. For, the hypothesis carenot be excluded
- that following the death of the intellectual assoaiations, the uc~ions w~uld in _
turn find themselves reduced by the dynamic of the system to wsesting concess~ons,
one by one, and to conducting gurely circumstantial actions, subjected to the
hazards_.of internal strife among factions within the party. True, such a state
of things would still be preferab].e--need it be paint~d:out?-:-to the situati:on -
- that existed prior to the August even.ts; but it is also nonetheless true that it
would seal the doom of the Existential, absolute, noncircumstantial motivations.
All of this adds light to ~he source from which the strikers draw their realism,
their maturity and their c3ignity. The man whose actions are inspired by existen-
tial motivations aspires first of all to affirm his existence and, only after he
has done so does he think of consolidating it. He is dra~an rreither toward
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_ revolutionary destruction--for, his purpose is to ~~eate, not to destroy--nor
toward compromises within the existing framework of relationships--for, tr.is
threatens his newly regained identity. Thus, the obliteration of his existential
motivation, of his yearning for identity and a free will, would mean the end of
his realism, of that very realism we admire so much today. In a society that
- has neither a democratic tradition nor a political culture of its own, the
disappearance of realism would create a void that nothing could fill in its place.
The Questian of the Program
Independence, self-reliance, self-management: these are the demands most fre4
, quently heard today. These are merely formal demands (and not only because their
realization would require juridical changes); they are in a certain sense empty
demands. They all reflect.the same aim: to free the unions, the universities, the
publishing houses and the movie industry from state control. The analogy ends
there. The publishing houses will continue to publish books--they will publish
more of them, faster, and better ones. But as for the unions, the intellectual
associations and the university organizations, their undertakings and objectives
_ are far from being definable with such precision. True, they have concrete
missions: the defense of their interests and of their members; but,,-as we have
seen, this horizon is viewed too narrowly. Hence, ouz ever-present concern: the
question of a program.
Be it in student meetings or in workers meetings, we hear repeated..discussion of
the need for a program of action, a union program or an association one. It would
seem that what is involved is a set ofcobj~ctives that would, at one and the same
time,.be more general than the defense of special interests and more concrete than ~
- the defense of human rights. Actually, what is needed is to discuss not a set of ~
objectives but a set of concepts, at one and the same time apolitical and more
_ concrete than th~se of truth, justice and generosity. We stress that thzs:need for
a.progr-am extends beyond the level of the missions that are the province of the
unions and of the university associations; it is equally evident that .the ambi-.
tions and inherent potentials of those same unions and associations, for their
part, also extend beyond the level of their provinces. We might add that the pub-
lishing houses and movie producers, to stay within the example I have just cited,
should be free to decide for themselves what is to be their agreed upon cultural
policy and to make their own choices of concepts and values.
- The independence of the uni.ons and associations i.~ not to be confined solely to
their independence oE decision; it must also mean a creative competitiveness as
- much in regard to practical action as in regard to spiritual action. The formula-
tion of program5 must be worked out thzough debates that address concepts, values
and world views, more so than through confrontations between ideologies or politi-
cal views that would moreover be difficult to debate publicly. Now, concepts,
values and world views are precisely the field of the intellectual elite. It must
be recognized, however, that over the last few years, even though we know the
causes, the elite have not been equal to the demands of their tasks. With the
dawn of a certain freedom in August has come the appearance, on the~scene; of the
post-revisionist attitudes, the moralizinq attitudes, inherited from the indepen-
dent socialist tradition, generous but intellectuall~ sterile, and of attitudes
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in support of the social doctrine of the Churcr, or rather of what remains of it.
None of these attitudes--for, they cannot be termed systems of views and much
lPSS, conceptual doctrines--is capable of inspiring the programs of the new insti-
tutions and organizations. A sound pluralism of concepts, or, at-the very leasti~
of opinions, can materialize only on the express condition that the independence
of these r.ew initiatives anc3 the authenticity of societal behavior, spontaneous
but nonetheless diversified, be preserved. In practice, this means upholding the
broadest possible de:;entralization.
I can already anticipate the comments: Our strength lies in unity and in negotia-
tion with the governing powers. This has been~clearly un3erstood by the intel-
lectuals, who for years now have declined to debate concepts and have opted for
closing ranks in their quarrel with the governing powers. But what they have thus
gained as a community, they have often lost as individuals. Onl~ certain ones
among ~hem, at the price of efforts.beyond�measure, have succeeded in preserving
their individual views and in structuring them independently, without allowing
themselves to become buried in intel~ect~al and ideological polemics.
We have already mentioned above the sterilizing effect of the interest.that has--
justifiably, moreover--surrounded the "captive thinking" phenomena. But the
- intellectual attitude that consists of limiting itself---in the name of the prin-
ciple that "our strength lies in our unity" and of the struggle, fully justified
though the latter may be, for the social freedoms and for intellectual freedom--
to expressing itself in half-terms and through allusions: this attitude is
certainly nc more enriching. For the intellectuals, now, at the height of the
social explosion, to raise the problem of freedom of thought is not only highly
_ commendable but, even more so, indispensable. But for the entire i;~tellectual
potential.to find itself mobilized, throughout the many years the struggle for
freedom must needs last, for the purpose of stigma~izing, ridiculing, denouncing,
simply Ieaves little or no room for the cultivation and flowering of independent
and creative thought.
Can we th?n ~se to advantage the new fteedom that has been won by the workers?
Yes, provided wc fulfill two conditions: First, we must extend the changes now in
progress to all of society. Secondly, we r?ust stimvlate the rebirth of intel-
lectual life. It is intellectual life that must p~ovide the thrust that will
ena6le the new attitudes, the new views, and the new ideological options to
concretize. Tt is intellectual life that must provide the fountainhead from which
the new social groups and movements must draw the conceptual inspira~ion and the
program that are so cruelly lacking to them toc~ay.
The Instituting of Freedom
"He who seeks in freedom something other than freedom itself is born to serve,"
wrote Alexis de Tocqueville. Freedom is a value unto itself, and the aspiration
to freedom is an alienable value. "Do not ask me to analyze that sublime drop;
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it must be tasted. It finds its own way into those great hearts that God has
prepared to receive it; it fills them, it swells them. It can never be understood
_ by those mediocre beings who have never felt it."5
- The ~revolution" that has just occurred in Poland has no precedent either in
Poland�s past nor in universal history. The dif�erences are clear. Never before
ha~ ~ existential motivation and the aspiration to freedam for its own sake mani-
fested themselves in such pure forms. If there is a precedent, it is that of the
American Revolution. It also was less a revolu.*.ion than an expression of aspira-
tion to freedom, an existential manifestation. To admit this compari son, slightly
exaggerated though it may be to accept that the Polish "revo'lution" was neither
a revolt of the poor against the rich, nor a revolt o� the oppressed against their
oppressors, nor a revolt of the masses against tyranny, but rather a constructive
act assertive of freedom --is to recognize at one and the same time that the
"revolution" because it is exactly that and tlhat alone is but a beginning, but
a point of departure, for the undertaking to insti~tute freedom, an incomparably
more difficult undertaking, and one that must be accomplished under conditions
that are totally different from those that existed in the America of the 18th
century. This point of departure nevertheless offers a unique opportunity, an
extremely rare one in all history: that of undertaking an authentic, democratic
and constructive action. For, the affirmation of freedom in an existential act
has nothing in common with the destructive negativity that character izes most
social revolts and constitutes their original sin. It is devoid of hatred, of
envy, of terror--those eternal companions of revolutionary ecstasy. Are we
capable of seizing this opportunity? It seems almost impossible the more so
since, now, the future no longer depends solely upon Qolish soriety as a whole or
= on the workers but, above all, on the intellectuals and on thei r ability to
become--very belatedly, it is true--the fathers cr our revolution and of our
democracy. Almost impossible... Almost.
- ~End of article; editorial quotation from Karl Marx follows~:
'�Russia must avoid having a common interest with any other nation; bu t every other
nation, considered separately, must be persuaded to have common interests with
Russia, and with no other pawer whatever." Karl Marx: "Russia and Europe"
(~French~ translation by B. Hepner, Gallimard, Paris, 1954, p 122).
5. Alexis de Tocqueville: "L'Ancien regime et la revolution" ~The Former Regime and
the Revolution1, Gallimard, 1952, p 277.
COPHRIGHT: 1981 S.A. Commentaire
9399
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POLAND `
'L'EXPRESS' REPORT ON SOLIDARTTY LEGALIZATION NOTED
Paris L'EXPRESS in French 15 Nov 80 pp 127-129
- [Article by L'EXPRESS special correspondent in Warsaw Emile Guikovaty: "Poland: A
Special Day"]
[Text] Monday 10 November 1980. Lech Walesa hae won one round:
the Supreme Court gives "solidarnosc" (Solidarity) the stamp of -
legality. Cardinal Wyszynski distributes copies of his book
and 35 Western journalists are expelled. Emile Guikovaty
experienced that Monday first-hand, a day which only the
future will be able to judge.
Monday 10 November was not an ordinarq da~y. It was a day of victory, but nobody
was crowing over it. It was a day of tears of joy, of sad and happy smiles, a day -
of azxious faces. "Solidarnosc" (Solidarity), the name of the new Polish trade
unions, had won and won big, but at 6 in the evening, before a packed roamful of
j ournalists and under the television spotlights, Lech Walesa, the hero of Gdansk,
his moustache all awry and c3ressed in his Sunday suit, let his weariness show
through for a moment: "This evening," he said "I would like to forget about the
whole world."
_ Everything had begun very early in the morning at the offices of the Club of
Cath�~~ic Intellectuals (KIK) on Kopernik Street. The place must have seen its hey-
day SO years ago--the walls were covered in exotic-type wood--but more diff icult
times had made i.t run down. All the members of the National Committee of "Solidarnosc"
were present. The ones who have achieved national fame were familiar: Waless; who
led Gdansk to the resounding victory of the 31 August agreements; Kazimiers Switon,
founder of tl~e Committee of the first free trade union in the powerful industrial
center of Katowice; Jaroslaw Sienkiewicz, the representative of the Silesia miners;
Karol Modzelewski, the historian who beca~;.e the leader of the workers of Wroclaw;
- Zbigniew Bu~ak, a leader fram the Mazowsze region of Warsaw; and Stanislaw Zawada,
the "5olidarnosc" chairman at the giant Nowa Huta ~teel works (Krakow).
i
- At 0845 a militant handed ;~is ~:.+mrades the tickets to gain them entry to the room
- set aside for the Supreme Court at the Warsaw Palace of Justice. As a court of
f inal appeal, three magistrates were to decide on the legal action instituted by
~ "Solidarnosc." Walesa and his friends maintain that they were cheated in the court
of original ~urisdictian. The judges. of the Warsak~ court would only register the
statutes proposed by "Solidarnosc" on one condition, an excessively harsh one: they
had to refer to the governing role of the party, the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR).
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"That is out of the question," the work.ers had replied. "Our trade union must be
~ free and independent." In order to bring it befor.e the Supreme Court, "Solidarn~osc's"
lawyers, Wieslaw Chrzanowski, a well known Catholic jurist, and Jan Olszewski, who
1~.s specialized in defending dissidents, laid the ba~is for a compromise. Rumor had
it that personal contacts with party leaders had been made behind the scenes atld
that some form of agreement would be reached. However, witnesses had been able to
catch sight of the members of the Political Bureau of the PZPR leaving the party
headquarters in downtown Warsaw the day before. Measures had evidently been taken
in case the general strike announcement sent out by "Solidarnosc" for the 12th were
to take effect.
It was getting on towards 0900. The "Solidarnosc" leaders, numbering around 100,
disappea.r.ed into two dusty and wobbly buses rented for the occasion. "Is morale
high?" I asked Stanislaw Zawada whom I had met in Rrakow. Zawada, who is 40 years
old with reddish blond hair and a large drooping moustache, answered with an uneasy
smile ~r~d the hand gesture which means "so-so."
The two buses went through a major portion of Warsaw before they arrived at the
- Supreme Court in Ogrodowa Street. It was exactly 0900. In front of the entrance
to the court about a hundred people were already waiting. The small crowd was
growing constantly in spite of intense cold. The room chosen for the hearing was
too small to accommodate the public. So we would not know anytiiing before the trade
unionists came out. A vague feeling of dread gripped the onlookers. It was no time
for illusions. If the Supreme Court were to rule against "Solidarnosc" and if the
strike wer_e triggered, the country's fate would hang in the balance. -
T~aenty policemen and policewc~en in gang-style black jackets were keeping order with
the help of "Solidarnosc" militants who were w~aring an armband of white and red,
the Polish colors. A worker had come with h{.a daughter who had blond braids.
Perched on his shoulders, she was waving a little Polish flag. A very elegant
gentleman was also there, dressed in a white sheepskin overcoat fur-side out. He
held a pretty little black poodle at the end of a leash. Nobody dared ask him why
- he was attending this event.
At 1030 several journalists gave up their guard duty. They had been summoned to the
police station on Krucza Street, the visa and passport office. They expected to be
expelled. On the previous day the attitude of the Polish authorities had shown a
izardening. Several special correspondents had been intercepted at the airport even
before they entered the country and in spite of their visas be~ng in order. Others
had been picked up in Gdansk and Krakow and "as'~ed" to return to Warsaw. Among those
- summoned to Krucza Street were 2 Frenchmen, 6 Britishers, Germans, Americans,
Italians, and Danes, 30 or 35 in all. The first one to go into the fateful off ice
was Eric Bourne, the correspondent for the Boston CHRISTIAN SCIENCE I~iONITOR who had
been responsible for covering East Eur~pe for 35 years, a rosy-cheeked ~an in his
sixties. When he came out he provided confirmation: it was expulsion. The funniest
part of it was that Bourne's visa was expiring anyway that same day. And it is true
about Dessa Trevisan, the London TIMES special correspondent, that she too was
expelled, although she had returned to Belgrade two days earlier. A triumph for
- socialist bureaucracy.
This special correspondent for L'EXPRESS found himself in the office with the one
f rom the London OBSERVER. This was how the dialogue with the official went:
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"How is it you are picking us ~ut from among 300 foreign press correspondents?"
"It is a lottery," the policeman joked.
''But why expu3.sion?"
"You are not being expelled. We are simply asking you to leave Poland as quickly as
possible."
"Do you have specific ~rounds?"
- "We don`t have enough meat to feed all of yr.: "
In short, it was clearly a big joke and a stamp in the passport. The journalists
had ta leave Poland within 24 hours. The fact that 11 November marked the exact
beginning of the Madrid conf erence on the Helsinki accords, which promise the free
movement of people and ideas, did not seem to bother the Polish auth~rities unduly.
Wizen their forma.lities were done, the journalists went back to tneir post in front
of the Supreme Court. Tha waiting went on and more and more people ca.me. Finally
at 130Q the door opene~i. The crowd rushed forward. I was surrounded by Poles all
of whom were taller tha.n I by a head or two. I caught a glimpse of a bunch of
flowers stirring in the cold grey air. A voice made itself hear4 but the megaphone
was def ective. People more or less gathered that it was victory, that the Supreme
Court had overturned the decision of the Warsaw court. People cried: "Bravo!
Bravo!" Then came their departure amid cheers: the two buses slowly moved forward,
and standing up against one of the doors was a woman with her face covered in tears. .
- Then underway for the bishop's palace. The victors were to be received by Cardinal
Stefan Wyszynski, the primate of Poland, who had cut his stay in Rome a week short.
Again we waited in front of a metal gate, this time on Miodowa Street in the area
around the old city. It was learned that the three Supreme Court judges were
divided at first but finally brought Chairman Witold Formanski around to the 3udge-
- ment that the Warsaw court had gone heyond what is specified in the constitution in
its desire to modify the "Solidarnosc" statutes in the way the govemment wanCed.
The court had accepted the compromise proposed by the new unions. They were to be
registered along with their statutes. An ~nnex was to r.ef er to the Gdansk agreements
which committed the workers' committees of t~e shipyards "to recognize that the PZPR
plays a governing role in the State" and "not to oppose the existing system of inter-
national alliances" which Poland has.
In spite of the lega~. victory carried off by "Solidarnosc," this point created a '
certain ambiguity which television was to make the most of that same night.
For the moment there was a euphoria of success. It was 1430 when Walesa and his
campanions went into the receiv:Lng rooms of the bisnop's palace. Walesa spoke first.
He thanked the cardinal for the efforts he made as an unoffici~:l mediator between
the government and the "insurgents." Th~e old primate answered him, recalling that
as a chaplain before the war he had participated in the struggles of the Christian
trade unions. And it is true that before his imprisonment from 1953 to 1956 made
him the symbol of a persecuted Church Wyszynski had the reputation of being a priest
with views close to the working class. He stated his support for "Solidarnosc's"
activity but he emphasized that Poland's economy was entering a period of very grave
crisis. The winter raas threatening to be harsh. The situation needed to be set right
and the country needed to be saved. Order and discipline were more necessary than
ever.
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~
The Pictures of the Lady of Czestochowa
The Cardinal offered Walesa a new edition of the Gospel. He told him, "~his ~.E ~he
beet book on cammunism I know of." He handed every member of the National Co~l.rtee
a copy of his latest work which is devoted to the cult of Our Lady. During thia
time a priest went up to the metal gate. He entrusted the militants in charge with
packets of pictures of the Lady of Czebtochowa, the patron saint of Poland, which
bore the prim.ate's insignia. The militants distributed them to passersby. They
stopped buses and gave the pictures to passengers and drivers who made the sign of
a"V" with their hand. It was an atmosphere of exhilaration.
At 1630 the government spokesman received the press at ttie prime minister's palace.
- He confirmed the terms of the Supreme Court's decision. In conversations civil
servants assert that the step taken to expel journalists is on record. Then came
the return to the bishop's palace and patriotic and religious singing. It was
close to 1700 when Walesa and his little band left the Primate's residence. The
two buses went towards the suburbs. "Solidarnosc" was to hold a press conference in
a room put at its disposal by the Nowotko factory, a factory making engines and
motors. After another hour's wait the trade union leaders finally faced the jour-
naYists. Walesa was weary but relaxed. There were jokes and puns. One Polish
journalist asked the leader of Gdansk if he really thought, as he had said, that
Poland could "catch up with and overtake Japan." Unruffled, he made the assertion
again. "Poland," he explained, "has sizable reserves of raw materials and good
productive land. So why not?" The Polish journalist did not seem convinced and no
more did those around him. But Walesa turned then to more immediate considerations:
"We are now entering into the second phase which is to organize and consolidate our
- movement. The most difficult part is still to be done. We are 10 million strong,
and everyone has to be put in groups in enterprises, and regions have to be set up."
Then came a new departure. The free trade union of tl:e Mazowsze region was spon- -
soring a gala affair at the Grand Theater. People holding tickets had to fight to
get in because less fortunate ones were congregating in front of the doors. At the
top of the stage was a big "Solidarnosc" sign under a Polish flag. The young actor
Andrzej Seweryn read Adam Mickiewicz's famous poem "To the Brothers of Muscovy"
which celebrates the activity of Russian and Polish revolutionaries in the 19th
century. Verses by Czeslaw Milosz, the recent Nobel laureate for literature and a
Polish emigre in the United States, were cheered. The actress Krystyna Janda, the
heroine of the "Man of Marble" and of "Without Anesthesia," two of Andrzej Wa~da's
latest films, sang a song dedicated to her country. After the actor Jan Pietrzak
gave a comic monologue about the government's shortcomings which delighted the
audience, he planted himself in front of the microphone and came out with a song
he had composed: "In order for Poland to become truly Polish." The audience took
up the refrain all together. -
But what about tomorrow? At NOWE DROGI magazinethe theorist Ludwik Krasucki
explained to me that the Party does not fear "Solidarnosc," that we are talking
about a movement of common people which the Party can very easily work with. He
said, "'Solidarnosc' brings us the inspiration we have been in need of to get back
in contact with the masses and revive our recruitment and to struggle against
corruption and domination by bureaucratic officialdom." In short, the Party is
ready to play it that way. A large number of "Solidarnosc's" militants are Party
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members. At Nowa Huta, Zawada and his assistant Mieczyslaw Gil stated that they
;aere quite aware of that fact. "Relations with the Party will be compl:tcated," they ~
said. "We are not kidding ourselves. We wil 1 be forcing the Party to change." Is
this a sign: As of Monday evening the Gdansk Party Committee, whose meeting was
chaired by its first secretary, Tadeusz Fiszbach, is calling for a purge of th~ PZPR -
Central Committee which, in the view of grass roots militanrs, is incapable of
successfully leading Poland's resurgence.
Time will tell. But this 10 November was certainly a memorable day.
Photo Captions:
1. Lech Walesa announcing the victory of ~he Solidarity trade union, at the Grand
Theater of Warsaw on 10 November.
2. Warsaw, 10 November: Cardinal Wyszynski passes on to Walesa the Pope's blessing.
COPYRIGHT: 1980 S.A. Groupe Express
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� POLAND
'L'EXPRESS~ VIEWS ELIMINATION nF '~IpREK CLIQUE' AS ITYPOCRITIC.AI~
Paris L'EXPIKESS in French 11 Oct 80 p 155
[Article by E.G.: "Poland: Hypocrite Time--The Party is Not Going to Win Over the
Poles by Eliminating the Gierek Clique"]
- [Text] At the moment the Polish press is full of surprisin~ pieces of news. One of
the most recent ones is that Macie~ Szczepanski, former head of the radio-television
network, was accused of having acquired two airplanes, a helicopter, a yacht, and
two sumptuous villas, one in Athens and one in Nairobi, a11 thanks to his ~ob. This
is enough to make the average Western president-director general green with envy.
Szczepanski was working under cover with the committee for the administration of
state enterprise. He was not the only one to come under suspicion in the Warsaw up-
- roar which is going all out to justify the title of the Chinese revolutionary song:
"Socialism Is Good." In fact his case is a good illustration of the score-settling
- atmosphere which seemingly will prevail from now on within the Polish United Workers
Party (PZPR, the name of the communist party in Poland.) ,
In the middle of the Great Terror of the 1930's Stalin had ordered the dissolution -
of the Polish Communist Party and had wiped out most of its leaders. Nowadays the
men in the Kremlin must be wondering what is to become of this same communist
party--a party which is clearly cut off from any contact with the population and
which is unable to channel or control the activity of the independent tra~.e unions;
a party which is tearing itself to pieces and denouncing itself before the mischievous
eyes of every Pole.
Last week`s plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the PZPR certainly did not
tell the Poles anything new. For 20 years they have been hearing the same old
refrain: the economy is in terrible shape, and the party has made mistakes but it
is going to rectify them. It is ages since anyone, from Warsaw to Krakow and from
?tatowice to Gdansk, paid any attention to these great surges of self-criticism.
Many think like Tadeuaz Grabski, a member of the party secretariat, who is indignant
about the "hypocrisy" of some of his comrades who are "offering now to make reforms
when they have had the chance to carry them out for a long time."
"Hypocrites" will pay dearly for being expoaed: six of them have been dismissed -
from their duties on the Central Committee and two others sent up for trial for
"Misuse of public property." Edward Gierek, who was replaced in his job as first
secretary by Stanislaw Kania, is already completely isolated within the group of higher
authorities, and undoubtedly he too is all set to experience the effects of the purge.
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- YUK U~rl(:lAL US~; UNLY
The el.imination of the Gierek clique goea hand in hand with Gen Mieczyslaw Moczar's
return to center stage, the pdrty organ of the PZPR having showered him with praise
~ this week. The personality of this fellow Moczar is quite difficult to define: he
opposed both Gomulka during the 1960's and Gierek 10 years later. Some see in him
a�iPrce anti-Semite, and others a"nationalist," but a nationalist who has neve~
= o~ffended the Soviets. Gierek got him out of the way in 1971 and this former minieter
of internal affairs was named head of the Supreme Chamber of Control, not a verq
glamorous job, but it allowed him to put together files on his comrades which he
seems to be making good use of now. Szcepanski is the first one to be finding out.
Urgent Matter
In actual fact the PZYR still seems to be fairly divided and Gen Moczar's f iles
might be used to serve the purposes of oniy certain people. Apart from that, and
what is more serious for the government, there is the activity of the new inde- _
pendent trade unions in the Solidarity group. This group is still attempting to
acquire legal status which the Warsaw courts stubbornly persist in refusing to give,
their objections highlighting what an obstacle the ossified system presents. How
can unions be authorized which make no reference to the governing party? How can
they be allowed to joi~n forces all over the country when the Gdansk agreements did
not envisage anything of the kind? In short, how can something be legalized which
communist law declares to be illegal?
13ut the matter is an urgent one and calls for decisions. The Solidarity group and
its leader, Lech Walesa, not content to ha.ve organized an impressive 1-hour strike
the other week in spite of the authorities, are talking now about creating a free
press. They are even getting ready to receive printing equipment which would be
sent from Brussels by the World Federation of Free Trade Unions. An observer says,
"Walesa and his friends are not challe~~ing the regime. They are putting its back
up against the wall."
COPYRIGHT: 1980 S.A. Groupe Express
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CSO: 3100 END
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