Free the Polish political prisoners!

Scan page 12

The following article appeared in the April 9, 1984, issue of International Viewpoint, a biweekly magazine published under the auspices of the Fourth International.

There were 244 political prisoners in Poland at the beginning of February 1984. Ninety-three of them had already been sentenced to prison, in general for periods of between three-and-a-half and seven years. The latest reports we have indicate a considerable increase in arrests of people suspected of clandestine union activity in several towns.

One of the towns towns particularly affected by the latest wave of repression is Wroclaw, the capital of Lower Silesia, a region where the union Solidarnosc, and the political group called "Fighting Solidarnosc, are particularly active.

In the last week of January there were mass strikes and protest actions against the new price rises in many Wroclaw factories. Since then there has been DLA if..

WIĘZNIƠW POLITYCZNYCH "Free the political prisoners," taken from Poznan's Solidarity bulletin a wave of arrests and people "taken in for questioning" in factories, offices, and universities.

Just before Jan. 10, the secret police questioned around 100 scientific and cultural figures in Wroclaw who had signed an appeal to international and Polish public opinion in solidarity with the seven national leaders of Solidarnosc and the four KOR activists imprisoned for 10 years without trial. Seventeen Solidarnosc activists were recently arrested in the small town of Gorzow. In Torun, four Solidarnosc Mix: could have won (continued from page 11: “We must remember how to fight”)

to win the strike. Our International is 30 years behind the times. They think you just put up a picket sign and that's it. That doesn't work anymore. And it's a good question -how do you keep people off the buses? Nobody really sat down and talked about it, besides carrying picket signs and passing out flyers. That was successful up to a point, but we should have done more.

S.A.: An argument often heard is that workers have to make concessions in order to save jobs—to keep the company profitable and in business is in the interests of the workers. In other words, "What is good for the company is good for the workers.' What is your answer to this argument?

Mix: Well, it depends first of all on whether it is true or not. In our case it wasn't true. The record showed that it wasn't true. Even if it were true, if Greyhound were at the poverty level and actually needed concessions to survive, I'm not sure I would buy the package then. Management will typically get themselves in trouble and only come to the people for concessions when they are in trouble. When things are good, profits are high, they never allow the people to take part in the operation. They keep the people totally out of their, what they term, management preogatives. They tell you they are losing money and then they want to take it out of your pocket. Even if it were true and 12 Socialist Action members were taken, beaten, and threatened with death before finally being released.

Warsaw, Lublin, Szczecin, and Cracow have not escaped this repression. The Polish media announces new arrests of Solidarnosc members every week. The bureaucracy also harasses lawyers. There are more and more suspensions, attacks by "unidentified wrongdoers,, burglaries, and arrests of those who undertake the defense of Solidarnosc members.

The repression also hits at activists from the independent peasant movement. On Dec. 11, 1983, the president of the National Resistance Committee of Peasants, 71-year-old Jozef Teliga, was arrested. Teliga was a leader of the anti-Nazi resistance and a political prisoner during the 1950s.

The body of Piotr Bartoszcze, a peasant unionist of the Bydgoszcz region, was found in a mine on Feb. 9. No one disagrees with the assumption that he was murdered by the secret police. He was not the first victim of the wave of terror.

After the murder of the Warsaw highschool student Gregorz Przemyk last spring, another student, Andrzej Debski, fatally beaten by a militia patrol, died in a Warsaw hospital at the beginning of January.

In many prisons-Barczewo, Braniewo, Strzelin-there have been hunger strikes by the imprisoned unionists. Well-known leaders of SolidarnoscWladyslaw Frasyniuk and Piotr Bednarz of Wroclaw, Andrzej Slowik and Jerzy Kropiwnicki of Lodz, Patrycjusz Kosmowski of Bielsko Biala, as well as the socialist militant Edmund Baluka-won important concessions in Barczewo prison after a hunger strike in autumn 1983.

Since then they have been continuing the struggle for the rights of political prisoners along with Leszek Moczulski and two other leaders of the Confederation for an Independent Poland (KPN). On Dec. 7, they were attacked by the prison guards. Shortly afterwards, Frasyniuk was found guilty of having the company was losing money and it was felt that we should give a little bit to keep the company stable-to save our jobs-which we would consider, except we need something in return. We need some type of control in management— control of the company. And that could be a fair arrangement.

S.A.: What do you think of the AFLCIO's endorsement of Walter Mondale?

Mix: Who else are they going to endorse? Who else is out there? That's the problem.

S.A.: What do you think of the idea of the labor movement beginning to put forward its own candidates, develop a program, and run for office on the basis of a campaign that speaks to the interests of working people? Do you think that is possible or practical?

Mix: That is difficult to say. There is a danger in becoming too pro-labor, too pro-working class. There has got to be a fine balance between both sides. I might be playing the devils advocate here but you cannot give labor everything and expect the economy to survive. On the other hand, you cannot give it all to the corporations and expect to survive.

The problem we have with Reagan is that he is so damned pro-business the rest of us don't have a chance. But if you go to the other side with a strictly pro-labor candidate, that will backfire on us. It is fine to have the working class here but you have to have the corporations there. If there are no corporations to work for, you have no working class. There has to be big-business. But at the same time business has to treat us fairly and equitably.

June 1984 "insulted" the assistant governor, which he allegedly did while he was being beaten.

Seven union activists in Strzelin prison stopped their húnger strike on Jan. 27, having held out for 55 days. Five of their comrades-including Janusz Palubicki who was a member of the national underground leadership of Solidarnosc and president of the Poznan region-had shortly before been transferred to the hospital in serious condition. They wrote in a statement, "As we consider that risking our lives or long-lasting mental or physical deterioration is not desirable from a humanitarian point of view, and taking account of the voices from outside, we have decided to stop our hunger strike?"

From Barczewo prison, Frasyniuk wrote, "We have decided to hold on. However, I call for wide and active support for political prisoners, particularly those who could be easily forgotten?

The regional strike committee in Lower Silesia wrote, "The political prisoners' hunger strikes demand admiration and respect. They bear witness to the unshakeable spirit of those who have been condemned for fulfilling their duty to Solidarnosc and to society. Prisoners' hunger strikes are often the only means of struggle they can use to defend themselves against the bad treatment meted out by the regime, and to preserve their dignity.

"This form struggle severely harms the health of the prisoners. SociACTION Name Address City Telephone Socialist Action, one of her previous trials in March 1983 ety will need the health and strength of our comrades again. The fate of the prisoners rests in large measure on those of us who remain outside the prison walls, and our activity. It is up to us to create a situation in which they will no longer have to have recourse to hunger strikes.

«The RKS asks all the union organizations, all members of Solidarnosc to demand freedom for the political prisoners and to testify to their conditions. This can be done in any way they choose, by individual or collective appeals to the Diet or the Council of State, protest letters to prison governors, letters to the prisoners, material help to them and their families."

It is the duty of the international workers' movement to respond to this appeal, by protesting vigorously against the increase of repression in Poland through which the military-bureaucratic dictatorship hopes to crush Solidarnoso's will to resist.

Send letters, telegrams, and resolutions demanding the status of political prisoners and an unconditional and general amnesty for the imprisoned Solidarnose militants to the president of the Diet (Marszalek Sejmu PRL, Warszawa, Poland) and to the Council of State (Przewodniczacy Rady Panstwa PRL, Warszawa, Poland).

Support for the prisoners, in the form of letters, telegrams or resolutions, should be sent to Wladyslaw Frasyniuk or Andrzej Slowik, Zaklad Karny, Barczewo, Poland.

Enclosed is $1 for 3 months Enclosed is S6 for 12 months Enclosed is S _contrib tion State Zip St., Rm. 308, San Francisco,

Scan page 13

Poland: