Henry Bogdan: From Warsaw To Sofia

team led by Gierek proved to be just as incompetent as its predecessor in solving Poland's problems.

Politically, the critical situation which had existed since 1970 worsened. The foreign trade deficit from trade with COMECON countries as well as capitalist countries grew. Trade imbalances were aggravated by increases in the prices of energy and raw materials, by low industrial and agricultural productivity, and by the artificial and unrealistic pricing of goods within the country. The government tried to address these difficulties, but the June 1976 attempt to raise prices without corresponding increases in workers, salaries provoked new demonstrations and strikes, forcing the government to back down.

The discontent of a growing number of Poles was accentuated by the obvious scarcity most people in the country were experiencing, contrasted with the abundance and waste of government dignitaries and profiteers. The gap between the real country, represented by the immense majority of the population, and the governing class, made up a few thousand privileged individuals and their clientele, grew wider and wider. This widening gap between classes, compounded by an increasingly ubiquitous black market, created the explosive situation of the summer of 1980.

Two unequal forces confronted Gierek's government: first, as a result of the movements of 1956 and 1970, a clandestine unionism made sporadic appearances, scattered but active. Lech Walesa had been dismissed from his job by the insidious repression that followed the worker agitation of June, 1976, and led the difficult life of an unemployed worker; nevertheless, he maintained contact with his former worker friends who held him in high esteem. In April, 1978, he helped found a clandestine newspaper, The Cosstal Worker, which became the voice for underground unions. Similar groups sprang up around the country, in particular the Workers' Defense Committee, or KOR, led by a Warsaw academic named Jacek Kuron. For the first time, the worker movement had the support of the intelligentsia.

Next to these constantly harassed clandestine groups, another even greater force began to arise, openly counteracting government abuses of power. This force was the Catholic church, which had long played a moderate and conciliatory role in Polish politics. The church supported Gierek's reforms in 1970 much as it had done for Gomulka in 1956, but quickly realized that the new leadership intended to restrict the religious freedoms the church had struggled to acquire in 1956. It also realized that the people's disappointment in the government was leading to more uprisings. From 1974 to 1980, the Polish episcopate under Cardinal Wyszynski led the fight in defense of the rights of the people and of religious freedom, while at the same time trying to contain the growing popular discontent. In June, 1974, Cardinal Wojtyla did not hesitate to publicly

denounce attempts to undermine religious freedom: "Catholics do not want to be treated like second-class citizens," he declared to over 100,000 followers assembled in Cracow.

While it is true that the Polish church held a privileged position in the state in comparison with other Eastern European countries, the government nonetheless used every opportunity to attack it. From 1974 to 1980, the church-state relationship alternated between periods of tension and calm. In 1976, for example, the state minister in charge of religious affairs, Kazimierz Kakol, said "Just as I am obliged to smile in my duties as state minister in order to inspire confidence in the people, so will I as a Communist ceaselessly fight religion and the church. We must never allow the religious education of children. I am ashamed when Communists from other countries ask me why so many Poles still attend church. If we cannot annihilate the church, we should at least prevent it from doing damage." Several months later, in seeming contradiction, Cardinal Wyszynski received bouquets of flowers from the Polish government for his 75^th birthday.

The Catholic Church in Poland (1981)

Population -- 95 percent Roman Catholic 18,000 priests and 30,000 monks and nuns 500 to 600 priests ordained every year 2 cardinals: Cardinal Macharski and Cardinal Glemp A Catholic University in Lublin A Faculty of Theology in Warsaw 27 Dioceses 27 Seminaries

The church did not hesitate to defend the moral and material interests of the Polish people whenever it judged it necessary to do so. Confronted with economic difficulties, the primate spelled out the church's position. In a pastoral letter in 1977, Cardinal Wyszynski felt duty-bound to remind the authorities of the simple fact that "men must eat every day, and for that to be possible, there must be convenient places to buy bread, meat and milk without wasting so much time and energy. " The cardinal was clearly alluding to the difficulties in obtaining supplies and to the long waiting lines in stores.

The election of Cardinal Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II on October 16, 1978, heightened the church's considerable prestige. The government was forced to alter its position to adjust to the church's increased strength. This change was obvious in November, 1978, when Cardinal Wyszynski, in the presence of the same minister, Kakol, jokingly demanded freedom of expression: "It would be enough if you would give the censors good pensions and thank them for their work." The Pope's triumphant visit to his native

country in June, 1979, as well as his open stance in favor of human rights and religious freedom before members of the government and Communist party officials, furthered the influence of the Church, even among atheists. With the strong support of the Pope, the church took a public position in support of jailed dissidents. On May 7, 1980, the episcopate requested that the authorities cease the prosecution of "those citizens holding nonconformist views...in the interests of internal peace." The message went on to declare, "we are filled with anxiety by the recently intensified reprisals because they are aggravating existing tensions." These warnings were issued in May of 1980. The events of that summer confirmed the accuracy of the Polish bishops' predictions.

A sudden announcement of a price increase for the end of July, 1980, set off the powderkeg. On July 1, the first strike broke out in a tractor factory at Ursus, a suburb of Warsaw, and another at Gdansk, again in the shipyards. Everywhere, workers demanded wage increases and the cancellation of the announced price hikes. Gierek refused to back down, claiming his decision was necessary to fight inflation, and so provoked further strikes. By the end of July, a hundred businesses were affected; in August, the movement spread to all branches of the economy. The transportation workers in Warsaw and most major cities, textile workers in Lodz, miners in Silesia, all stopped working. But it was in Gdansk, in the Lenin shipyards, that the strike was at its most obstinate. It was led by Lech Walesa and another activist in the independent trade union, Anna Walentynowicz, who had just been laid off for her union activities. The 16,000 shipyard workers began their action on August 14; they organized at the work site, setting up an inter-company strike committee. They rapidly drafted a list of demands, including professional requests, rights to religious freedoms and the radio broadcast of a mass every Sunday. By the end of August, the entire region around Gdansk was paralyzed by strikes: 100,000 strikers occupied their factories and their work sites.

At first the government seemed to adopt a firm policy. The head of the government, Edward Babiuch, and his deputy prime minister, Tadeusz Pyka, did not want to back down. On August 20, a repression began, not against the workers, but against about 15 members of the KOR who were arrested along with a few dissident intellectuals. The workers added the liberation of these detainees to their list of demands. The government was unnerved by the rapproachement between its political opponents and the workers, and softened its stance. The first secretary of the Party in Gdansk, Tadeusz Fiszbach, contacted the strikers. The government dismissed Pyka and replaced him with a liberal, Mieczyslaw Jagielski. Talks between the strikers committee and Jagielski finally led to a formal agreement on August 31. In the meantime, the Party made a gesture of appeasement by replacing

Prime Minister Babiuch with a liberal, Jozef Pinkowski. The church tried to promote calm, to the point that the bishop of Gdansk, Kaczmarek, advocated the workers return to work if their demands were recognized. In a communiqué on August 27, the Polish episcopate stressed the need for the workers' freedom to "organize into associations which they create for themselves and which defend their interests, " thus echoing a right demanded by the Gdansk workers.

In the other Eastern bloc countries, there was a general outcry after the governments recovered from their initial surprise. The hard-liners in the socialist camp -- the East Germans, the Czechoslovaks, the Bulgarians and the Rumanians -- denounced the anti-socialist activities taking place in Poland and called for vigilance. Only the Hungarian and Yugoslav moderates displayed any sympathy for the Polish strikers. The USSR first limited its action to scrambling Western radio signals, then the Soviet press denounced Western agents' activity in the outbreak of strikes in Poland. In September, Soviet critics grew more aggressive, and Pravda recalled that "the true sovereignty and independence of popular Poland are only guaranteed by its fraternal union with the other socialist countries. " In early October, Soviet troops were first noticed massing along the eastern Polish borders.

The evolution of the Polish crisis must be examined on three levels, beginning with the unions. The independent unions had been organized openly and outside of the Party and official organizations in a matter of weeks, and numerous Communist party members joined them. During the strikes in Gdansk, Lech Walesa and the members of the strikers, committee laid the foundations for the Solidarity union, and in the August 3 1 agreement with the government, the principle of independent unionism was officially recognized. After drawing up the statutes, Solidarity leaders presented them to the government tribunal in Warsaw to be legalized. The first shock for the new union came on October 24; the tribunal had taken it upon themselves to alter certain points in the statutes, profoundly changing their original intent. Lech Walesa, while trying to calm the militants, appealed to have the offending changes omitted, and this time won. On November l0, the Supreme Court restored Solidarnos statutes to their original form.

For the first time in an Eastern European country, an apolitical union, with no ties to the Party or the state, was formed and officially recognized by the Communist government. Its millions of members had all joined of their own free will, not because the government had coerced them to join as had been the case with the official unions. Immediately after the official recognition, Solidarity guaranteed the accords made at Gdansk to the workers. Its first actions, on January 10 and 24, 1981, were to obtain the promised Saturdays off.

Lech Walesa had the solid support of the Polish church, which was able to channel the energy of certain active members. In an audience granted on January 15, the Pope congratulated Walesa for forming an independent union in Poland, declaring that "men who are active in the same type of work have the right to join together freely...for the purpose of determining the benefits that this work is entitled to. This is a fundamental personal right. " He then recalled that the matter was "strictly internal to Poland" and that Solidarity should be "guided by justice and love" in its actions. The Pope concluded his declaration with the words, "May the same courage that you demonstrated at the beginnings of your initiative, and also the same prudence and moderation, accompany you always."

The example set by the workers in Polish cities was followed by the peasants in the country. The creation of a rural Solidarity movement caused concern among the authorities, who initially refused to register it. But finally on May 12, the statutes of Rural Solidarity were officially recognized. The landed peasants also formed an independent union, just as apolitical as the worker's union. From then on in socialist Poland, the government and the Party had to deal with a serious, responsible and greatly representative organization. Despite government provocation and with the exception of a few thoughtless local acts, the leadership of Solidarity proved both effective and prudent in avoiding any major conflict with the government. They accomplished this without relinquishing any essential points.

The Polish crisis must also be examined on the level of internal politics. The events in July-August, 1980, caused a profound shake-up in the government and Party agencies. The Sixth plenum of the central committee meeting on October 4 and 5, proceeded to evict Gierek's associates, and the former first secretary -- suffering from heart trouble, according to official reports -- was himself ousted. A new Party leadership was established with Stanislaw Kania as first secretary, surrounded by moderates like Stefan Oiszowski and Kazimierz Barcikowski, the avowed liberal Mieczyslaw Rakowski, and by General Moczar. The new leaders drew up their program during the plenum of December 1; the slogan "yes to renewal, no to anarchy," was indicative of the new Party line. When, on December 16, the highest state authorities attended the dedication of a monument to the victims of the repression during the 1970 strikes at Gdansk, it was obvious that something had changed in Poland. But the limits of this change were also clear when the liberal Pinkowski was replaced as head of the government by General Wojciech Jaruzelski. With Kania leading the Party, and Jaruzelski at the head of government, the centrists were victorious. In a statement to the Diet on February 12, 1981, General Jaruzelski announced: "the government will labor honestly and reasonably for socialist renewal, for socialist democracy." Those who "committed errors in the past will be

prosecuted," and "the hand of the government will remain continually outstretched, in all sincerity and goodwill, to all patriots of good faith." Recalling the serious economic difficulties of the moment, he appealed to the unions for a truce of 90 days while pledging that commitments made would be kept. Jaruzelski concluded his speech by reassuring the other Eastern European countries that, "the place of popular Poland is and will remain in the midst of the socialist forces. . .Poland will remain a member worthy of the confidence of the politico-defensive alliance which is the Warsaw Pact."

The attitude of the other Eastern bloc countries caused serious anxieties within Poland as well as in Western Europe. On at least two occasions, at the end of 1980 and in March-April, 1981, it was feared that the Warsaw Pact forces would intervene as they had in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring. The first warning was issued on December 5 during a surprise meeting of the Warsaw Pact leaders in Moscow. In fact, the meeting, which took place according to the official communiqué "in an atmosphere of comraderie, mutual understanding and agreement," ended more positively than had been predicted. The participants declared themselves convinced "that the Communists, the working class and the Polish workers would be able to surmount the difficulties that had arisen and would guarantee the country's future development in the socialist path;" they reiterated that the Polish Communists "could rely on the fraternal solidarity and support of countries who had signed the Warsaw Pact."

Despite continual attacks in the Soviet, East German and Czechoslovak press, the situation seemed to ease a little in early 1981. Tension rose again suddenly when on March 19, police forces beat rural union activists at Bydogoszcz; then in late March, Warsaw Pact maneuvers known as Soyuz '81 began on Polish territory, coinciding with a hardening on the part of the Polish government towards dissidents. The abnormal prolongation of the maneuvers and the resurgence of social tension after the Bydogoszcz incident seemed to foreshadow a tightening of governmental power in conjunction with Soviet military intervention.

Verbal attacks on Polish leaders became more virulent. This was most obvious at the opening of the Czechoslovak Communist party congress on April 6, 1981. In the presence of Brezhnev, in Prague for the occasion, the first secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist party, Husak, castigated "the anti-socialist and counter-revolutionary forces threatening socialism in Poland. " He warned that "the socialist community will not watch passively as the Polish Communist system is threatened." In mid-April, the situation eased again with the completion of the Soyuz '81 maneuvers. The impromptu visit of the Soviet party theoretician, Mikhail Suslov on April 23 and 24, just before the opening of the 10^th plenum of the Polish Communist party, prompted new concern. The visit, however, did not deter the Polish Party

leadership from announcing democratization of Party operations in preparation for the 9^th extraordinary congress set for July 14. Kania continued to steer a course somewhere between Moscow and Solidarity.

The assassination attempt on the Pope on May 13 , followed 15 days later by the death of Cardinal Wyszynski, brought about a kind of truce in relations between the government and Solidarity. Tension rose again on June 5, when the Soviet Communist party issued a solemn warning to the leaders of the Polish Worker's party. The letter laid the blame for Poland's problems on "the counter-revolution hiding in the midst of Solidarity" and sternly criticized the government's successive concessions. " It is now a matter of mobilizing all the healthy forces of society in order to block this class enemy and to fight the counter-revolution. The Party can and must find within itself the energy to reverse the course of events and to set them right before the Congress." This call to order ended with the reminder that, "We will not allow socialist Poland to be attacked and will not abandon a brother country in its misfortune." The letter was reminiscent of the letter Dubcek received in 1968 from the five Warsaw Pact first secretaries.

The reprimand from the Soviet Communist party influenced the meeting of the central committee held on June 10, 1981. Kania essentially recognized that "conscious counter-revolutionary actions threaten socialism and national life." For him, "Poland is and will remain a socialist country and a link in the defensive coalition of the treaty of Warsaw and of COMECON." Nevertheless, he felt that Solidarity and the church also had their place in the evolutionary process.

Just before the opening of the 9^th Congress, a visit by Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet minister of foreign affairs, slightly eased tension caused by the June 5 letter. The joint communiqué issued on July 5 stressed, once again and in the familiar manner, that "Poland has been and always will be a lasting link in the chain of socialist communities."

On a social level, the situation remained critical after 40,000 dockyard workers on the Baltic held a warning strike on July 8, when salary negotiations between Solidarity and the government failed. The next day, employees of the airline, LOT, observed a non-working day because the government refused to confirm the employee's election of a new director. New strikes set for July 23 were canceled when a last-minute agreement was reached.

The extraordinary Congress took place as planned from July 14 to 20, attended by over 2,000 delegates elected in free elections by members of the 105,000 Communist party cells. The attentive delegates from the other Eastern bloc countries were led, interestingly enough, by second-ranking officials. The Soviet delegation was led by the first secretary of the Party from the Moscow region, Grichine. As an opening declaration, Grichine stated,

"It is up to the Poles alone to settle their problems. The Polish Communists are capable of recovering the confidence of their own nation. We are confident that the Polish Workers' party will know how to surmount this awkward crisis and repel the counter-revolution." In the wake of Gromyko's conciliatory visit to Poland just before the Congress, Grichine's statement made sense and also seemed to indicate that for the time being, the USSR was willing to let the Poles settle their own differences.

The Congress decided by a large majority in the first session that the higher offices of the Party would be elected by secret ballot at the end of the Congress. After procedural matters were settled, Secretary Kania read his report. Kania felt that the Polish situation combined the "struggle for socialist renewal" with the "struggle against the enemies of socialism," thus justifying his faction's centrist position. He denounced the "reactionary and extremist groups trying to turn Solidarity into a political party in opposition to the socialist government." He also condemned all dissident movements including the KOR and the KPN (Confederation of Independent Poland), which he contended were supported by "Western centers that specialize in the subversion of the socialist community." Kania asked for a reinforcement of the "alliance of reasonable people," of which the church was party, to counter the serious problems facing the country.

In the days that followed, various speakers took part in the debates; after each commentary by one of the liberals, such as Fiszbach, first secretary from Gdansk, or Rakowski, deputy prime minister in charge of relations with Solidarity, the participants applauded enthusiastically. Rakowski, whose apparent popularity threatened Kania's power, proposed a wide alliance between the Party, the Solidarity movement and the church, in order to regain public confidence and to act effectively. In the evening of July 16, the Congress initiated the election of the 200 members of the central committee. With Jaruzelski, Kania, Barcikowski, Oiszowski and Rakowski elected by nearly three-quarters of the vote, the centrists gained the most ground in the central committee. Meanwhile, the ultra-liberals such as Fiszbach and most of the ultra-conservatives were eliminated.

At the end of the Congress on July 19, Stanislaw Kania retained his position as the first secretary with 1,311 votes, or over two-thirds of the vote. The centrist tendency was also reflected by the majority of the 15 members elected to the politburo, although a few conservatives were also voted in. These included Albin Siwak, the notorious adversary of Solidarity. Inversely, the liberal Rakowski did not receive enough votes to be elected. The Congress also announced the expulsion of Gierek and his associates, and asked the party leadership to begin proceedings against them.

There was something strange about this Congress, where the delegates openly applauded the liberals, but in the secret voting, excluded them from

office. This secret vote, which was considered by many as an obvious sign of democracy, worked against the liberals by the pressures exerted on the delegates at the time of the vote. In his closing speech, Kania once again emphasized his zeal for the policy of socialist renewal, but also underscored the importance of the struggle against the adversaries of socialism. He advocated a "wide alliance of responsible citizens" to fight the dramatic problems facing the country. To reassure the "brother countries," Kania concluded by re-emphasizing Poland's loyalty to the socialist bloc and to the Soviet Union.

Despite all the commotion made over the Congress, none of the problems at the root of the Polish crisis had been solved; the economic crisis, the uneasy relationship between Solidarity and the state, and the food shortages all remained as before. This failing did not go unnoticed. The Congress had hardly closed before a new wave of strikes and demonstrations swept the country. Despite the moderating stance of Solidarity leaders and the church, people staged hunger walks throughout the country to protest the new price hikes and further rationing. Thousands of women marched to cries of "We are hungry!" in the streets of Lodz, Szczeczin, Kutno, Wroclaw and Warsaw. In the capital, mass transit workers and taxi drivers paralyzed the city August 3 to 5 by parking their vehicles in the city center. Two weeks later, the printers refused to print the Communist newspapers in order to push their demands. Only an intercession by Lech Walesa and Cardinal Glemp prevented a confrontation with the government.

The Solidarity congress opened in Gdansk in the first days of September, 1981 . Solidarity activists did not mince words in their criticism of union leaders they judged to be too conciliatory towards the Communist government. They voted for a motion to support all movements in Eastern Europe and the USSR attempting to form independent trade-unions. Lech Walesa's re-election on October 2, by only 55 percent of the vote, clearly indicated that although the average worker still had confidence in the man who had spearheaded the workers, revolt of the previous summer, they wanted more assertive action. The final motion of the Congress demonstrated that the members wished to "create living conditions with dignity in an economically and politically sovereign Poland, and to create a life free of poverty, fear, exploitation and lies, in a lawful and democratically organized society." They also demanded decentralization of the economy, including the right of workers to control companies as well as union access to the media. With ten million members, the support of the immense majority of the population and the approval of the church, Solidarity was aware of its representation relative to the state and the Workers, party, which had lost one-third of its numerous members.

A serious crisis within the Worker party erupted in the meeting of the

plenum of the central committee from October 16 to 18. Stanislaw Kania was replaced as first secretary by General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who was already head of the government. A few days prior to the plenum, rumors spread that the Polish army was preparing to seize power, but the authorities had simply decided to extend military duty by two months for all soldiers whose tours of duty were ending. One of the first measures Jaruzelski took was to assign these soldiers to alleviating the problems of the economy and of waste, and to improve transportation. The new first secretary, whose nomination was well-received in Moscow, clearly demonstrated his intent to widen the base of power to include everyone willing to help, as long as they had some respect for basic socialist principles.

On October 21, Cardinal Glemp returned from Rome where he had met with Pope John Paul II, with Jaruzelski and then with Lech Walesa. The idea of a national entente, supported from the beginning by the church, began to take shape. A few days later, on October 29, the Solidarity leadership, despite criticism from militant members, appealed to all of its members to cease any strikes in progress. This gesture of goodwill after the discord caused by the worrisome decisions of the October plenum brought about a certain détente. On November 11, for the first time since the war, Warsaw freely and officially celebrated the independence of 1918, and linked it by name to Marshal Pilsudski, who had been deleted from Polish history since 1945. Even more heartening in the days that followed, representatives of the government and of Solidarity began negotiations to work out the details of a national entente. After long discussions held "in an atmosphere of sincerity and understanding," an agreement was finally reached on November 18, between Solidarity Vice President Wadolowski and Ciosek, the minister in charge of union relations. A national entente finally appeared feasible.

The End of Illusions

Any hopes raised by the November 18 agreement were quickly dispelled. While negotiating with Solidarity, the government and the Worker party were secretly planning a takeover. The Poles had become accustomed to tumultuous ups and downs since the summer of 1980, and so did not seem overly concerned by the disquieting signs on the horizon. They had had several brushes with disaster since the mad Gdansk summer of 1970, but things had always fallen back into place. Now, at the end of November, 1981, the situation was rapidly deteriorating. First, on November 22, the internal security forces (ZOMO) roughly searched the home of Jacek Kuron, head of the KOR, accusing him along with other Solidarity members of trying to create "a political organization hostile to the socialist state. " The media then launched a major smear campaign against certain Solidarity leaders,

accusing them of "counter-revolutionary and anti-socialist scheming," which was aggravating the country's economic plight.

Poland's perilous position was pushed to new heights during the meeting of the Polish Worker party on November 27 and 28. General Jaruzelski announced that the politburo, of which he was the first secretary, had commanded the government, of which he was the leader, to present to the Diet a project proposal for a "law on extraordinary means of action in the interest of protecting citizens and the state." The emergency legislation was to "put at the disposal of the government of Poland the full powers indispensable in effectively opposing the acts of destruction ruining the country and its economy, threatening the socialist state, order and public safety. " This was a far cry from the words of the national entente, effectualy eliminating the gains the workers' had struggled for in the summer of 1980, beginning by revoking their right to strike.

Jaruzelski had completed an about-face; he announced in no uncertain terms that the time for discipline had arrived. Solidarity quickly felt the effects of this new government position. On December 2, police brutally evacuated striking students from the military firefighters' academy in Warsaw. Confronted with such government provocation, Solidarity leaders called together a presidium in the little town of Radom. Stating that "the government has nullified the possibilities for a national entente by choosing a path of force, and has thus rejected the chance of a dialogue with society," the Solidarity leadership decided by a wide majority that if the Diet granted the full emergency powers requested by Jaruzelski, Solidarity would initiate a general, nationwide strike. Lech Walesa, always careful to avoid confrontation, voted against the general strike proposal.

Two days later, on December 7, three events further charged the already explosive atmosphere. The church, for the first time, very clearly took Solidarity's side against the Party; Cardinal Glemp unhesitatingly asked the deputies in the Diet to reject Jaruzelski's request for a law granting emergency powers. On the same day, Polish government leaders received a message from their Soviet counterparts notifying them that the time had come to put an end to Solidarity's activities. Finally, still on December 7, Polish radio began broadcasting speeches by Lech Walesa and other Solidarity leaders secretly taped during the meeting at Radom. An extract was broadcast in which Walesa said, "I don't believe in anyone who has collaborated with this system since 1970. They want to swindle us. They realize that if we put our program into action, if we distribute farmland to the deprived peasants and create committees for self-administration, we will topple their system." This was too much for the Party leaders, especially because certain Solidarity leaders, convinced that they and their ten million followers represented the true country, had suggested holding a referendum

on the methods and means of the present government.

A confrontation was inevitable. Solidarity could neither back down nor make new concessions without looking like a substitute for the old official unions. The church issued continual appeals for peace, but was also unable to back down because the soothing words it had issued since the beginning of the crisis might be interpreted as a sign of collusion with the government. Iaruzelski and the Workers, party leaders, on the other hand, could not allow such a referendum to take place, since from all appearances, the results would be a public affront to the Party and an undeniable demonstration of its unpopularity. Action had to be taken, and quickly. Once more, the Kremlin was growing impatient. On December 11, the Tass news agency accused Solidarity of wanting to "upset both the executive and the legislative branches in popular Poland" and gave assurances that the measures announced by Jaruzelski would have full Soviet support.

In the night of December 12, while the national commission of Solidarity at Gdansk recommended that the referendum mentioned above be held before February 15, 1982, General Jaruzelski decided to crush the gathering using the armed forces. Within a few hours, the army and the militia were in control of the country, and in Warsaw, tanks patrolled the streets in the early hours of the morning. In a radio message, Jaruzelski announced that the country was in a state of war and under martial law, that a Military Council of National Salvation (WRON) had been created to direct the government, and that Solidarity leaders had been arrested along with Gierek and several other Communist party leaders.

On December 13, the country had been cut off from the rest of the world: telephone service was suspended, Telex lines cut, and the borders sealed. The meager news being broadcast over Polish radio and television confirmed that Solidarity leaders had been arrested, mentioning as many as 1 ,000 arrests. A curfew from 10 P.M. to 6 A.M. was announced, the right to strike was suspended, the work week was restored to its six-day length, and annual vacation time was cut in half. Most importantly, key industries were taken over by the military; employees of public transportation, mines, electrical power stations and steel plants, were essentially drafted. Any strike or act of disobedience was subject to prosecution under the military code. Undaunted Solidarity members threatened strikes anyway, but were discouraged by the primate of Poland who advocated patience and calm, even though he condemned the arms seizure of power. He was echoed by the Pope, who urged his compatriots "not to shed any more Polish blood."

After the initial shock that followed the army's takeover, the workers began to react. In major industrial centers, Gdansk, Szczeczin, Katowice, and Silesia, striking workers locked themselves in their factories. Attempts by the army and the militia to dislodge them led to numerous and often

violent clashes. On December 16, ten miners were killed in the Wujek mine in Silesia when the armed forces intervened. Workers and students organized passive resistance throughout the country, despite the harsh repression. There was talk of several thousand arrests and at least 200 dead. Most of the Solidarity leaders, including Walesa, were held in a villa near Warsaw. On Christmas Eve, 1981, ten days after the proclamation of a state of emergency in Poland and the institution of martial law, the future of the country looked very bleak. The majority of the Polish people remained passive during this time, not because of the harsh behavior of the military and the militia, but because they knew that resisting Jaruzelski's forces would give the Soviet army and the Warsaw Pact forces the right to intervene in Poland as they had in Czechoslovakia in 1968. They also knew that without help from the West, any confrontation would be senseless. The example of Hungary in October 1956, when the Western nations forgot their promises to aid the revolutionaries, was still in the memory of the Polish people. Thus, General Jaruzelski was able, with relatively little risk, to end Polish hopes for a better society.

Henry Bogdan: From Warsaw To Sofia