First Published: Frontline, Vol. 5, No. 23, May 23, 1988.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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According to the U.S. media, the recent outbreak of wildcat strikes in Poland signals the viability of the Solidarity movement and the failure of the government’s policy of national reconciliation and economic reform. This is a replay, they say, of the 1980-81 strikes that gave birth to the Solidarity trade union.
On closer look, the small local strikes over recent weeks have little in common with the massive national actions of seven years ago. And the difference is not only in size. The earlier strikes came at a time of economic stagnation, and workers called for fundamental reforms in a highly centralized and bureaucratic system. The recent protests, however, are a spontaneous reaction to the economic reforms instituted to overcome the crisis. They reflect an unwillingness by some workers to pay the price of economic austerity needed to get the economy back on its feet.
Unlike the protests of 1980-81, the recent strikes were against local management and workers’ collectives, which have been given increased authority and responsibility under the new decentralized system.
Contrary to U.S. media disinformation, the strikes are not the work of the coterie of Western-backed dissidents that operate under the rubric of Solidarity. Ever since a socialist-oriented trade union movement replaced Solidarity as the largest grouping of Polish workers, Solidarity has become largely irrelevant. For example, Lech Walesa’s dramatic plea for Poles to join the Gdansk strikers went unheeded. He and the other Western media figures in Poland have made it clear they intend to maintain a permanent opposition, even when the government enacts the very same reforms Solidarity has been calling for.
Still, given the persistence of the economic crisis that has gripped Poland since the 1970s, including a $34 billion foreign debt, and the depth of the reforms needed to pull the country out of the crisis, the spontaneous reactions are bound to be a constant feature of Polish life for some time to come, at least until the reforms have been fully implemented.
The recent wildcat strikes demanded higher wages to match recent price hikes. They were for the most part limited to small groups of workers in two main industrial plants – the Nova Huta steel works in Cracow and the Gdansk shipyard, where Solidarity’s Lech Walesa is based. They were not backed by the seven million member Poland Trade Union Alliance, which represents over half of Polish workers. But union leaders criticized the use of force by the police to break the strike at Nova Huta.
The dissidents associated with Solidarity were not at first involved in the protests but moved swiftly, and opportunistically, to inject the political demand for recognition of Solidarity. Lech Walesa maneuvered the few hundred striking shipyard workers into making recognition of Solidarity the key demand. But this ultimately failed and the strikers eventually gave up their occupation of the shipyards without winning either wage or political demands.
The roots of the Polish crisis go back to the 1970s, when the government built up a huge debt to Western banks and spent money recklessly. Wages and consumption went up, but productivity went down. Many prices were kept down by strict central controls, but soon supplies ran out. Poland was stuck with a huge foreign debt it could not pay back. The inefficient private agricultural sector was a drain on national resources. A highly centralized government, communist party and trade union bureaucracy lost touch with the day-to-day needs of working people, and large sectors of the working class were depoliticized. The Catholic Church became the leading institution in society and the church hierarchy openly prodded Solidarity.
When workers began to feel the economic crisis, the spontaneous protests of 1980-81 broke out. During the period of protests production continued to slip, although large wage increases were granted and official prices did not change. The Soviet Union and other socialist countries offered assistance, but the Polish government sought a solution that put the economy on a more solid independent footing. They saw that ending trade with the West would have negative economic and political consequences, but also moved to establish stronger ties with the socialist community, which offered assistance without a debt trap.
The government’s reform program is similar in many ways to perestroika in the Soviet Union. It actually started before the Soviet reforms and now covers large production units, like the ones recently struck.
The government’s reforms entail decentralizing economic management, expanding democratic participation and increasing the level of responsibility of workers and managers. At the beginning of this year, legislation paring down central ministries and mandating decentralization took effect.
In the past local enterprises were so strapped with bureaucratic restrictions from central authorities they had no incentive to increase production or improve the quality of output Management was accountable only to ministry officials in Warsaw. This led to corruption, waste and abuses, many of which were targeted by the workers’ protests seven years ago.
Workers as well as managers were not accountable under the old system. Their wages increased even when they worked less, and they were guaranteed a vast array of free social services and basic necessities at fixed low prices. Consequently, productivity slumped while many either benefited from or cynically learned to live with corruption and waste.
Under the new system, wages and the use of enterprise profit are locally controlled. This is intended to make production units more responsible and accountable. Under a 1984 bankruptcy law, unprofitable enterprises may be shut down or receive subsidies to shift production into new areas.
Enterprises still operate within the context of the central plan, but can no longer coast along on lax standards and churn out useless goods. The basic guarantees of the socialist system remain in place –guaranteed employment, housing, free education and health care. The main means of industrial production are still socialized. But increasingly, even in the social services, the socialist principle of “to each according to their work” is being applied so that individuals and production units that contribute more to development are rewarded.
The political counterpart to the economic reforms is the policy of national reconciliation, which began several years ago. This has meant bringing together all political forces, including Catholics and other non-communists, to solve the economic crisis. The National Consultative Council is the main national forum for this process.
One fact the U.S. media and Solidarity have managed to bury is that in the past five years, wages and pensions have grown much faster than prices. More to the point, many workers have gotten higher wages without producing more. Therefore, the government has tried to bring wages in line with productivity gains and price increases. In the spirit of decentralization, this is to be done not by edict but by placing the responsibility for wage increases on the, enterprises themselves.
Therefore, when striking workers today demand wage hikes, it is no longer a matter of dipping into the central treasury. Now, management, through consultation with workers, has to be able to find a solution that matches increased wages with increased productivity. Otherwise; enterprises can face serious problems. For one, a factory could go bankrupt if it can’t earn enough to pay wages. It would not be able to obtain credit from the central bank, which would question the factory’s ability to meet loan payments. The array of social services, including health care and housing, which the enterprise provides for its workers, may have to be cut back. Or the enterprise might have to raise prices, thus lowering the demand for its products.
Thus, prices as well as wages are now controlled by enterprises. The central government controls prices of only some basic goods – affecting about one-third of the economy. Other prices are set by the free market.
Solidarity opposes price increases by the central government, and favors every demand for wage increases. But it does not have any alternative to the inevitable wave of inflation these actions are bound to spur. Since the national treasury must print more money to pay for price subsidies, this can stimulate inflation, Low prices can also force the rationing of goods, which is not always the most effective means of distribution. But above all price subsidies go against the logic of accountability by enterprises. If the treasury automatically subsidizes prices, enterprises have no incentive to keep them down.
One of the economic measures introduced this year was a cap on price increases at 47%. Yet government figures for the first quarter of 1988 indicate that wage increases are still outpacing prices by at least 10%, contrary to the impression that Solidarity wishes to give.
The government’s price policy, and in fact the entire reform package, has been widely discussed throughout Poland. Last year a referendum was held in which voters were asked to endorse the price increases. The result was inconclusive, with about half of the population opposed to the austerity program. This was a signal that a significant part of the working class was not prepared to pay the price in the short-run to get the economy out of its long run-crisis. Still, the government moved ahead with a more moderate series of price increases.
Though there is no evidence of a “split” in the Polish United Workers, Party, as heralded by the U.S. press, it is clear that the struggle for reform is still going on in the party and the government. The tension between the defense of individual sectors of the working class and the promotion of society-wide economic and political renewal exists throughout Polish society, and within the party’s leading bodies as well. The resistance to restructuring and democratic participation is still a powerful force, But as the Polish working class forgets who Lech Walesa is, more Poles are accepting the difficult path to socialist renewal.