Solidarnosc: 31 Aug '80 – 31 Aug '82
Socialist Challenge1980sPaul LawsonTranscribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.
NEXT MONDAY, 31 August, the underground leaders of Solidarnosc are calling for a massive display of defiance against the Polish regime. Already there have been riots in the major Polish towns, but especially in the port of Gdansk, the birthplace of Solidarnosc. Last week ten thousand workers demonstrated in Gdansk against martial law and for the release of Lech Walesa, only to be met with the water cannon and truncheons of the police.
On 31 August the workers of Poland will be commemorating the Gdansk agreement signed on that day two years ago — the agreement which recognised Solidarnosc and the right of the Polish workers to their own independent trade union. On this anniversary PAUL LAWSON describes the events which led to the agreement.
Food price rises have a way of sparking off rebellions in Poland. In December 1970 the giant price rises decreed by the party leadership led to riots in which dozens of Polish workers were killed. Again in June 1976 a 69 per cent increase in the price of meat led to nation-wide rioting.
On 1 July 1980 the Polish government introduced a new price system for meat, which effectively transferred some of the better, cheaper meat, to the so-called 'commercial' shops — which are reserved for the bureaucracy. This time there were no immediate riots, no spontaneous explosion. But, as the workers began to see and feel the effects of the move, work began to stop in some of the major factories, including the Ursus tractor factory, the Mielec aircraft factory and a vehicle parts factory near Gdansk.
The workers were demanding wage rises to compensate for the government's measures pushing up meat prices. This was just the start of a vast wave of strikes. Under orders not to put up too much resistance, and to get the matter over with as soon as possible, the factory managers began to concede to the workers demands. But, as the managers conceded, the scale of the workers' demands increased, so much so that some of the workers who had already settled for five per cent went on strike again demanding more. In some places the wage increase demands were as much as 20 per cent.
There was no national strike because there was no workers' leadership to co-ordinate such a strike. However a series of 'rolling' strikes took place which shook the regime. Party leader Gierek went on television on 10 July to say that there would be no nation-wide wage increase — claiming the country couldn't afford it.
At this stage a new force came onto the scene. The KOR, the Workers' Self-Defence Committee, began to co-ordinate information about the strikes and eventually became an active force linking up the factories in struggle. During July some 150 plants took strike action. After years of bureaucratic mismanagement, the Communist Party leadership was seeing the emergence of a generalised challenge to its rule.
As the whole world now knows, the major challenge to the bureaucray started to emerge at the shipyards in Gdansk, specifically the huge Lenin shipyard. At 4.30 am on 14 August, members of the semi-clandestine 'Free Trade Union of the Coast' gathered outside the gates of the shipyard to meet the 17,000 workers going in. They were demanding the reinstatement of one of their activists, Anna Walentynowicz, a long-time supporter of free trade unions. All the guiding nucleus of the Free Trade Union, and its newpaper Robotnik Wybrzeza, were subject to constant police and management harassment. The group saw the new attempt by the management to sack Anna as the opportunity to bring the Lenin shipyard behind the nation-wide strike movement.
From 4.30 am onwards the workers started to give out their leaflets. Eventually their demands were taken up inside the yard. The scene that followed has been recounted many times. Workers addressed the shipyard employees from the top of a crane. They were successively addressed by the unfortunate shipyard manager Gniech, and by ex-employee Lech Walesa who had been helped over the wall earlier in the morning.
The meeting went indoors to negotiate. Walesa and others from the Free Trade Union were at the forefront of the negotiations on the first day. The workers demanded a one-third increase in pay, re-instatement of sacked workers, earlier retirement and the abolition of the special 'commercial' shops. They demanded a monument to the workers who had been killed by the police in 1970 — a demand eventually conceded by the shipyard management.
The strike spread. The Paris Commune shipyard in Gdynia came out. Workers throughout Gdansk began to go on strike. The demands of the workers had gone far beyond the narrow concerns of the shipyard. By Saturday 16 August the negotiating committee at the Gdansk shipyard was on the verge of reaching agreement — on a 1,500 zloty a month wage increase reinstatement of sacked workers and no victimisations. This agreement represented a major concession by the shipyard management.
But the negotiating committee of the workers at the shipyard was getting out of contact with what was happening in the rest of the area, where large numbers of workers were striking. The ending of the strike by the Gdansk shipyard would have led to the government picking off the other strikers. The strike committee split but a majority voted to settle. A delegation from the Gdansk public transport garage arrived to demand that the strike be continued.
Lech Walesa's announcement over the public address system that the strike was over was greeted with heckling. Then Walesa changed his mind and went round the shipyard demanding the strike continue. Delegations from other plants swarmed to the Lenin shipyard. That evening the Inter-Factory Strike Committee, the initial nucleus of Solidarnosc, was formed. The radical minority of the strike committee at the Lenin shipyard had effectively outflanked the majority by broadening their base. They drew up their list of 16 demands, later increased to 21 which became the negotiating
basis leading to the Gdansk agreement. These demands included the right to strike, independent trade unions, freedom of expression, pay increases, more rest days, freeing of political prisoners and a series of demands for better conditions and services.
The formation of the Inter-Factory Strike Committee entirely transformed the situation. What had started as a series of independently organised strikes, had been transformed, thanks to the role of the Workers' Self-Defence Committee and the Free Trade Union of the Coast, into a general confrontation with the government over basic workers' rights. From now on the negotiations at Gdansk became a focal point for the whole movement.
The strike spread even further. 25,000 workers went on strike in Szczecin, including in the Adolf Warski shipyard. Tadeusz Pyka, one of the government's deputy prime ministers, went to Gdansk to negotiate for the government. As the tension rose, party leader Gierek went on television and promised better pay and food allowances, better welfare provisions, an investigation into workers' conditions and a reform of the official trade unions, the CRZZ. These proposals were unacceptable — the right to an independent trade union had become a crucial stumbling block.
Deputy prime minister Pyka attempted to split the workers by insisting on separate agreements with the different enterprises, but the Inter-Factory Strike Committee held solid. Pyka was recalled to Warsaw and replaced with senior deputy premier Jagielski. Day after day of intense negotiation followed. The whole of Poland was watching the negotiations. The government went into crisis, and a re-shuffle among the bureaucrats took place. But for the time being Gierek kept his post. The intellectuals and the Church rushed to support the movement.
The government put forward a demand which was to shape the whole outcome of the agreement — that the Inter-Factory Strike Committee accept the leading role of the party. Massive tensions built up among the negotiators on this point. Many workers were unhappy about the acceptance of such a clause in the agreement. 'The leading role of the party' in Eastern Europe is a synonym for the continuing domination of the bureaucratised Stalinist parties, completely tied to the state apparatus.
Eventually the formula was hammered out. Point one of the agreement began: 'The unions endorse the principle of social ownership of the means of production, constituting the foundation of Poland's socialist system. Recognising the leading role of the Polish United Workers' Party in the state…'. Eventually Walesa forced acceptance of this point through. The main points of the agreement became: 1) Recognition of the leading role of the party, 2) Recognition of the right of free trade unions, 3) Recognition of freedom of the press and 4) Recognition of the right to strike.
The accords were signed among scenes of jubilation. But many of the workers outside and inside the shipyard gates seemed disappointed that the strike was over. Had the negotiators made too many concessions to the state? Did they have to capitulate on the leading role of the party?
Time has shown the Gdansk agreement was, in fact, notwithstanding the acceptance of the opening paragraph, a massive victory for the Polish workers. In recognising free trade unions, the authorities had opened the floodgate to the development of Solidarnosc. Their insistence on the 'leading role of the party' was tantamount to giving notice that they intended to take all their concessions back. But the Polish workers were not betrayed by the Gdansk agreement and the similar one agreed at Szczecin. It constituted a crucial turning point in legitimising the struggle to organise the Polish workers in the fight against the bureaucracy — a fight which is far from ended.