Solidarity is still alive!

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The following are major excerpts of a talk given by Ralph Schoenman to the Pittsburgh Socialist Action Educational Conference on April 28, 1984. Schoenman is the former director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. Immediately after the declaration of martial law in Poland, he was one of the coordinators of Workers and Artists for Solidarity, an organization that sponsored national meetings of trade unionists, socialists, and intellectuals in support of Solidarity.

I want to begin by discussing the attitude of the bourgeois world toward Solidarity because one of the problems that we all face is the fact that the established order in the capitalist world presumes to speak for the Polish workers' movement. They do this for the purpose of shoring up capitalism and of associating socialism in peoples' minds with the miserable regime of Marshal Jaruzelski.

In that respect the U.S. ruling class and the Stalinists share a basic premise. Both equate socialism with a police state. Both equate socialism with a privileged and ruling bureaucracy. Both equate socialism with a tremendous disparity between the earnings of workers and the privileges of the state functionaries and party bureaucrats who dominate them and, indeed, usurp the social product. But there is nothing quite so hypocritical as a defender and spokesperson of the ruling class who cries crocodile tears over suppression of working people. The reality is quite a bit different.

When a state of war was declared by Marshal Jaruzelski, despite all the fanfare among Western governments condemning martial law, their behavior told another story. Business Week reported, "Western banks privately applaud martial law because they believe the army's action will end the political impasse that has paralyzed the economy.' Thomas Theobald, chairman of the board of Citibank, said the following: "The only thing we care about is can they pay their bills?"

Irving Gazelle of the international brokerage firm of Bayer, Stearns, and Co., which represents prominent banks and holding companies from Japan and Korea to South Africa and Brazil, went so far as to support a possible invasion by the Soviet Union. He said, "If the Polish government is successful in gaining control, or if the Russians take over, it will be unfortunate for the people, but the loans will be repaid.""

A New York Times article on the very morning following martial law made clear that the banks had pressed for this solution, citing numerous "off-therecord interviews with financial leaders" who expressed the hope that the military takeover would improve Poland's financial situation. The article concluded that, verbiage aside, this was the official view in Washington. And, certainly, actions bore it out.

On the same day that Ronald Reagan joined Prime Minister Bulent Ulusu of martial-law Turkey in the television spectacular, "Let Poland Be Poland"' he quietly signed an order to bail out the Polish junta and the banks by having the U.S. government pay the banks $71.3 million of current interest owed by the Polish regime. This put the United States on record as standing behind the entire debt. And this was apart from the $1.6 billion which the United States underwrote and guaranteed.

This support by what can accurately be called the captains of capital, I think, affords clear insight into the nature of the Polish oligarchy and the real relationship of Western capital to the Polish workers' movement.

In early January 1982, the Polish junta imposed price increases for essential goods and services of 400 percent, causing a drop in real wages-despite nominal concessions—to levels as low as $112 a month. This is a lesser wage than that received by non-industrial workers, and less than the average $180 a month paid Black miners in South Africa.

Poland is the 10th largest industrial producer in the world, yet its level of production has plummeted in the three Striking Polish workers years following martial law, declining 17 percent in 1981 alone. Poland's indebtedness to the banks reveals the real consequences of the International Monetary Fund plan for the Polish economy and for the well-being of Polish workers.

It was precisely this disaster and its causes-the relationship between the privileged, autocratic rulers and their dependence on Western banks-which Solidarity had sought to expose to the nation in its free press. It was this very betrayal of the workers' interests that fueled workers' demands for free trade unions, workers' control of economic decisions, and the democratization of the state.

For two years Solidarity brought this message to the Polish nation: The vast mismanagement was inextricably bound up with corruption and great privilege. Solidarity revealed that the top functionaries in Poland were paid eight times as much as millions of lesser-paid workers. The special stores; the black market goods; subsidized cars and medicine; and foreign travel, villas, and servants created an actual income differential of 24-to-1 between leading administrators and the workers. Thus, economic planning in Poland was based upon the material interests of a ruling group which found itself under increasing challenge from workers who could no longer tolerate privation in the presence of such advantage.

When the strike wave of the early 1970s began, the regime sought to provide consumer goods, but not by intruding on privilege. The government borrowed heavily from Western banks, expecting to invest in exportable goods and thus increase consumer imports. In short, the regime counted upon the expanding capitalist economy in the West and found itself with huge debts when the recession hit. Imports became too costly, and Western purchases of Polish exports simply never took place.

Who shall rule?

The strike wave frightened the junta into granting concessions which threatened inexorably to pose the question of who was to rule in Poland: the workers or the bureaucracy, Solidarity or the oligarchy. On August 26, 1981, Lech Walesa, during the legendary strike in Gdansk which gave birth to Solidarity, made the following statement:

«We want free and truly independent trade unions. We are not fighting against the socialist system. We do not want to disturb the principle of social ownership of production. We consider our factories to be the property of the Polish nation. But we demand that we will be the real masters in the factory and in the country?' The Polish workers are not fighting to restore capitalism. In a country like Poland, words like "socialism" and "Marxism" are monopolized by a state apparatus that is privileged in the most obscene way and is brutal in every respect. It is obvious that when people challenge that type of order they don't want to use words that have been reduced to empty slogans to express their own demands.

But when you look at what the Polish workers were doing, what they were seeking, you can see very clearly what their objectives were. When they set up self-management committees in factories, when they put forth demands for workers' control of factories, when they called for elections of managers in every plant and when they devised the tactic of the active strike in which millions of Polish workers not merely struck plants but operated the plants during the strikanncino hur that varu means tha dune-pusig vy lal very mcals lIc question of power-you are not looking at a pro-capitalist movement.

I would be surprised if one could find in all the congresses, all the publications, and all the debates within Solidarity, any articulated point of view defending the principle of private property or discussing in any serious or sustained way the idea of a capitalist restoration in Poland. Not even the enemies of Solidarity, namely the Polish and Russian bureaucracies, could lay their hands on such documents, such debates, or such programmatic demands. It's not, I think, an accident. The Polish workers-Lech Walesa by no means the most radical of them-were very clearly able to distinguish between the benefits of social ownership and the ruthless privilege of the bureaucrats who oppressed them and expropriated their product.

socialist Ac Nor are the Polish workers either conservative or backward on account of their identification with the Catholic Church. There are several peculiar features about the role of the church in Poland. Poland has historically been a nation subjugated, a nation under siege, a nation being carved up, a nation being colonized. The church has a real national meaning to the Polish people. The church is a symbol of national identity and national resistance that transcends the specific religious ideology, if you like, of the church as such.

The church is an instrument and a vehicle for national expression and resistance to oppression which people are drawn to out of their cultural and historical experience. This does not necessarily imply either the conservatism or religious orthodoxy of the church itself.

At the same time it is important to say that the heirarchy of the church has a very ambivalent relationship to the regime itself and is constantly playing the role of a brake upon the workers' movement and upon Solidarity. Even as it gives lip service-and a modicum of support-to the workers' movement, it has sought to put the church in a better position to exact concessions from the regime and to arrive at some sort of modus vivendi with the ruling bureaucracy itself.

Not so long ago, in fact, when some of the younger and more militant priests, including Lech Walesa's own priest, were being transferred and harassed both by the church heirarchy and by the regime, there was a very militant and strong workers' reaction to that phenomenon, and many of the attempts at accomodation which the church has made with the Jaruzelski regime were met with great bitterness by the Polish workers.

Indisputably the most advanced, the most extraordinary, and the most promising of all workers' revolutionary struggles in the modern period, in my judgment, is that which unfolded and remains unfolding in Poland. Despite the serious setbacks and the loss of political initiative by Solidarity, I do not feel pessimistic about the prospects of Solidarity.

I cannot believe that the 10 million workers, the mass of the Polish people, after what they achieved and what they experienced, are any more reconciled to that miserable regime than they were two and three years ago. On the contrary.

Indeed what Solidarity has done for us is to leave us a legacy which we can take to workers to whom the word "socialism" stinks in their nostrils because they identify it with police states, with the absence of the right to have a public meeting or a newspaper. And now we have the Polish workers' movement to show workers in the United States and Western Europe what we mean by socialism, and that is perhaps the most precious legacy of all. I June 1984 13

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peace proposal A region of El Salvador liberated by the guerrillas of the FPL U.S. has no right to negotiate anything in Central America. Today's movement must call for "U.S. Hands off Central America." 14 Socialist Action June 1984 El Salvador:

The following is a statement by the Political Committee of Socialist Action on the recent peace proposal submitted by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front/Democratic Revolutionary Front (FMLN/FDR) of El Salvador. Given the importance of this plan, and the repercussions it is beginning to have in the antiwar movement in this country, we have chosen to publish the PC statement along with a statement on this plan by PC member Larry Cooperman (pp. 16,17), who presented a minority view to this leadership body. The discussion on this plan is taking place within our organization and within the solidarity movement at large. We hope this presentation of different positions will be of interest and value to our readers.

On Feb. 9, 1984, the Salvadoran FMLN/FDR (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front/Revolutionary Democratic Front) announced their call for a "Provisional Government of Broad Participation.""

This is a call for a "broadly representative government" which would aim at a "cleaning up of the army, [the] dissolution of the criminal police bodies, the formation of a single national army integrating our fighters, the necessary socio-economic transformation, and upon this base, the holding of truly democratic and honest general elections" (FMLN "Open Letter to the People of the United States" dated Jan. 18, 1984.)

This proposal for a provisional government hopes in the short run to stave off a U.S. invasion of El Salvador on the scale of Vietnam by paralleling the diplomatic efforts of the Contadora Group (the governments of Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama) to initiate negotiations. The Contadora Group seeks to avoid both U.S. intervention and the extension of the revolution to their own backyards through a negotiated settlement of the Central American class struggle.

Timed for the March 25 general elections, the FMLN/FDR proposal is also aimed at those layers of El Salvador's population who as yet support neither the junta nor the liberation forces. On this plane, the FMLN/FDR is attempting to broaden its popular appeal while narrowing the social base of the dictatorship.

Although four years of prolonged warfare have weakened the military junta ruling El Salvador and forced it to rely increasingly on U. S. military and economic aid for its survival, the liberation forces have been unable to dislodge the enemy.

At each critical stage, the United States has deepened its intervention in Central America as a whole in an attempt to contain and roll back the Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan revolutions. Under these conditions, Salvadoran revolutionaries have the right to gauge the situation as they see it, and make whatever proposals they deem necessary to preserve and further their struggle.

In the United States, however, some sectors of the non-intervention movement have sought to make support for the most recent FMLN/FDR proposals-that is, support for a compromise which the revolutionaries have felt forced to offer—a criteria for judging the level of one's solidarity with El Salvador. This approach is misguided.

Despite the intention of its advocates to identify with the Salvadoran revolution, this approach implicitly concedes the "right" of the U.S. government to force national liberation struggles to settle for something less than the full aspirations of workers and peasants fighting a U. S.-backed capitalist government. Such a concession infringes on the right of an oppressed people to determine their own destiny—a concession even more unpardonable if made by the anti-intervention movement in the oppressor country.

The antiwar movement should remember that the initation of negotiations will not ensure the end of the fighting. The Vietnam War continued on for three years after the beginning of peace talks.

The axis of genuine solidarity with EI Salvador must be the building of a mass, non-exclusive movement around the principle that the United States has no right to negotiate anything in Central America. Today's movement must unequivocally call for "United States Hands Off Central America!"

The utmost clarity on this principle is necessary in order to keep the full onus of the ongoing civil wars in Central America where it belongs-on the United States.

The FMLN/FDR proposal would at best strike an uneasy and shortlived truce between the two sides. This would be crystallized by the following:

(1) the formation of a "broad-based provisional government" which "will not be dominated by any one force but rather be the expression of broad participation by the political and social forces ready to scrap the oligarchy;"

(2) a cease fire in place leadingupon accomplishment of the objectives of the government—to "the organization of a single national army incorporating the FMLN forces and the purged governmental armed forces;"

(3) "agreements to guarantee the national security of both El Salvador and the United States"' ("Proposal for a Provisional Government, reprinted in International Viewpoint, April 9, 1984.)

While these terms may be the most that the FMLN/FDR can extract from the United States at this time, the anti-intervention movement here is not bound by the same constraints. It must base its clear stance on the principle of self-determination and on an understanding of the roots of the Salvadoran revolution.

The Salvadoran civil war The ferment which is wracking El Salvador exists throughout Central America. In El Salvador today it is undergoing its sharpest expression-an armed struggle between the workers and peasants against social and economic injustice, on the one hand, and the U.S.-backed capitalists and landlords defending their privileges and profits, on the other.

Nicaragua saw the first victory for the workers and peasants over a similarly repressive regime-a victory which has provoked the savage resistance of a United States anxious to avoid its repetition anywhere else in the Americas.

The socio-economic roots of the Salvadoran revolution are two-fold. First, the disposession of the peasantry from the land over the past several decades led to the concentration of land ownership in the hands of the coffee, cotton, and sugar barons. This resulted in the transformation of large numbers of small farmers and sharecroppers into rural wage workers, if they were lucky, FP4 or more probably into urban unemployed.

Secondly, the inability of the industrial sector financed by the Alliance for Progress to find an adequate outlet for its products (particularly after the Central American Common Market faltered), led to widespread unemployment and suffering among the workers.

The resulting discontent gave rise in the mid-70s to the mass organizations and fronts of these exploited classes; formations which emerged initially from a break from the Salvadoran Communist Party (PCS) in 1970, led by Cayetano Carpio of the Fuerzas Populares de Liberacion (FPL), and later by other political-military fronts which in 1980 came together to form the FMLN.

The 1979 officers' coup which overthrew General Carlos Humberto Romero aimed at reforming the system through a limited land reform and other measures while striving to repress and contain the growing mass opposition. But the limitations of a capitalist economy subordinated to the Western powers-particularly the United States-exacerbated by the intransigence of the great capitalists, doomed the project from the start.

This new government, despite the participation of then-Christian Democratic ministers like Guillermo Ungo and Ruben Zamora, as well as the PCS, continued the repression and murder of Salvadoran workers and peasants. Within months these forces felt compelled to leave this government and, although a minor numerical component, join with the already existing political-military organizations that had up to this point carried on the fight against the dictatorship.

The Salvadoran revolution, then, is at heart a struggle of the workers and peasants against their U.S.-backed exploiters. The army of the exploited confronts the army of the dictatorship. The fundamental aspirations of the toiling classes will be finally attained only through the establishment of a workers' government in alliance with the peasLUCAL antry-a government which, in order to meet and defend the immediate social and economic demands of the majority, must challenge the property rights of the ruling class.

The lesson of the Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, and now of the Nicaraguan revolutions points to the indispensible necessity of destroying capitalist power before the revolution can be consolidated.

The intensification of the war and its shift to the countryside, however, has led to the repression and partial demobilization of the urban mass movement. Some of the recent strikes in the cities were even led by forces outside of the FMLN/FDR.

There thus exist layers of the population who oppose the current government but yet do not support the liberation forces. Many of them, including many workers, voted for the Christian Democrats of Jose Napoleon Duarte in the recent election as a "lesser evil" to Roberto d'Aubuisson's ARENA party.

This is the background to the new peace proposal which expresses major changes from the FDR program of 1981. The FMLN/FDR calculates that these changes are necessary to forestall further losses and avoid direct U.S. military intervention.

The Platform of a Government of Broad Participation The platform of the "Provisional Government of Broad Participation" contains many planks which are seen as beginning to meet the needs of the workers and peasants. These include economic demands such as laying the basis for agrarian reform, for the nationalization of the banking and financial system to provide credit for the masses, and for reforming the system of foreign trade and investment in order to limit the ability of foreign capital to undermine the economy.

On an immediate basis, the government would end the war and lift the state of siege, restore civil liberties and prosecute the torturers and killers of the

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The aspirations of the Salvadoran masses would be best defended by the extension of the revolution throughout Central America...

Dean Hinton, former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, with regime, and dismantle the repressive apparatus and death squads. It would take measures to rebuild the economy, create jobs and housing, control prices and renegotiate the foreign debt, and launch a literacy campaign. It would conduct general elections and "restore independence and national sovereignty."

These planks are more than the junta and the United States are prepared to accept, and have so far been unilaterally rejected. But should the government's military posture deteriorate further and the United States be unable to intervene en masse, they may be forced to reconsider their stance toward negotiations with the FMLN. (Duarte has now taken a stance in favor of "negotiations" in the course of his run-off election contest with D'Aubuisson.)

Under such circumstances, it should be recognized that the structure of the proposed provisional government would give the Salvadoran ruling class and the United States room to maneuver, and possibly to derail the revolution. To the United States, this potential would be more significant than the written objectives of the government. How is this so?

The Elimination of the oligarchy Part I of the FMLN/FDR proposal points out that the death and devastation suffered by El Salvador has been foisted on the country "by the oligarchical society.' It notes that "the state serving its interests has created a bloodbath in its death agony?' Hence, any solution to the crisis in El Salvador must begin by "eliminating the previously cited factors, which are the causes of the conflict?

By using the term "oligarchic society"' the FMLN/FDR proposal recognizes that the "oligarchy" consists of much more than the death squads and the extreme right. Rather, these repressive forces are the tools used by the big capitalists to maintain their rule in society.

In part Il of the proposal, the FMLN/FDR proposes that the rule of the oligarchy be replaced by a provisional coalition government "not dominated by any one force" and under which "private property and foreign investment will not be counterposed to the interests of society?' Included within it would be "representatives of the workers' movement, the peasants' movement, teachers' organizations, public employees' organizations, professional associations, universities, political parties, employers organizations, representatives of the FMLN/FDR, and of a purged national army??

These passages suggest, on the one hand, that the proposal is aimed at the undecided layers rather than at the present regime as such. The liberation forces do not expect the oligarchy to give up power without a fight. As in Nicaragua and Cuba, the overthrow of the government of the oligarchy will require a military victory.

But more significantly, on the other hand, these paragraphs show that to end the bloodshed, the FMLN/FDR are willing to share power with all opposition sectors, including those "political parties, employers' organizations, and elements within the army who, while opposing the oligarchy, favor the continued capitalist exploitation of the workers and peasants.

If faced at some point with the decision to directly intervene to avoid defeat, the United States might see in such a government the chance to maintain a capitalist foothold in El Salvador and the possibility of turning the tables in the future. This foothold is the coalition with the "anti-oligarchical" capitalist class.

The oligarchy does not include all capitalist sectors in El Salvador, but only the dominant agricultural sector closely tied to the United States. Alongside it are the urban industrial capitalists who, like Alfonso Robelo in Nicaragua, have been hemmed in by oligarchic rule. (Robelo, a millionaire, was formerly a member of the Nicaraguan Junta of National Reconstruction.)

So far, no section of the capitalist class has come out in favor of the FMLN/FDR proposal. Nevertheless, should a "provisional government of broad participation" be established, the inclusion and maintenance within it of this group would have the potential for blunting the revolution and restructuring capitalism in El Salvador.

Given the dependence of the Salvadoran economy on a world market dominated by the Western powers, no section of the capitalist class, including the Robelos, will be able to survive economically unless it makes the appropriate concessions to world imperialism.

And no government that wishes to maintain a coalition with this sector can avoid bending to its economic needs. But such concessions would undercut the efforts of the provisional government to "restore independence and national sovereignty" from U.S. domination. Such concessions, however, provoke workers and peasants to resist, leading to the outbreak of renewed fighting.

The Danger of Maintaining the Old Army This potential inherent in a coalition government of opposing classes would be heightened by the continued existence of a restructured section of the present Salvadoran army. In Nicaragua, the effects of the counterrevolutionary actions of the "opposition bourgeoisie" since July 19, 1979, have been blunted by the fact that the National Guard had been destroyed and replaced by the Sandinista People's Army; its remnants chased into Honduras.

Part III of the FMLN/FDR proposal calls for the "dissolution of the special security forces, the Death Squadrons, and their political arm, the ARENA party" This, of course, is essential. Unlike the 1980 "Platform of the Democratic Revolutionary Government" however, the current proposal does not propose the creation of a new army from the liberation forces. Rather, part IV of the proposal states that the ultimate aim of the negotiations is the "organization of a single national army incorporating the FMLN forces and the purged governmental armed forces?"

In El Salvador, as in many countries, the army sees itself as the ultimate defender of the status quo. As the history of Latin America in recent years proves, the army is not a neutral force standing above society and above politics. The government of Salvador Allende in Chile was overthrown by an army with nearly a century-old tradition of non-interference in civilian affairs. Even "progressive" generals like Velasco and his successors in Peru were forced to turn to repression when they were unable to reform their capitalist economy and meet the needs of the masses.

In El Salvador, the "progressives" of this type were purged from the army in late 1980 with the exile of junta member Col. Adolfo Majano and his faction. After four years of repression and genocide, no section of the Salvadoran officer corps is free from some share of guilt. Hence the continued maintenance of even a purged section of this army will preserve a capitalist weapon of last resort, and will continue to pose a deadly threat to the revolution.

Can a coalition government survive?

Because of the structure of the government and the army, the provisional government of broad participationeven if it can be established—will be inherently unstable because of its attempt to reconcile opposing class forces only recently removed from the battlefield.

The links of one section of the coalition to foreign capital will undermine any attempt to fundamentally meet the needs of the worker and peasant majority and secure national independence. For this reason, the government will be paralyzed and unable to erect a society in which "private property and foreign investment will not be counterposed to the interests of society?

In the end, this stalemate will have to be decided in favor of either the capitalists or the workers and peasants. In recognition of this, the FMLN/FDR proposal states firmly that pending the success of the provisional government in meeting its objectives, "both armies will retain their weapons"' The structure of the provisional government, then, would at best postpone final resolution of the civil war in El Salvador. At worst, it could lead to the defeat of the revolution. Moreover, the consequences of this dilemma, forced on the Salvadoran liberation forces by the United States, is not restricted within the boundaries of El Salvador. As reflected in the sections on foreign policy, the FMLN/FDR proposal can have a profound effect throughout the region.

The Security Interests of the United States and El Salvador A further concession which the revolutionaries have felt forced to make to the United States is a pledge to "propose agreements to guarantee the El Salvador's Gen. Guillermo Garcia national security interests of both countries"' In exchange for U.S. promises against "aggression or destabilization" against El Salvador, the provisional government would "pledge not to permit the installation of foreign military bases or missiles on its territory,' or "allow the transit of foreign arms and troops across its territory.' This proposal would put the revolutionary forces in El Salvador in a bad position. It serves to legitimize the demand of imperialism that all friends of the Salvadoran workers and peasants, including Nicaragua and Cuba, cease any aid in any form to the fighters in El Salvador.

Having financed the Salvadoran civil war, and with its military bases in Honduras, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Guantanamo, the United States is the last country with any right to determine what a sovereign Central American nation can or cannot do. Its "national security interests" have been exposed as simply the "right" to continue to intervene everywhere in defense of its "right" to exploit the working people of Central America and of the world.

As for the workers and peasants of El Salvador — and Nicaragua — the "national security" of their aspirations would be best defended by the extension of the revolution throughout Central America and beyond. A Salvadoran pledge to deny bases and assistance to the liberation fighters of Honduras and Guatemala would be a high price indeed to pay for a U.S. "assurance" against intervention.

Such assurances would be limited, if not illusory. In Nicaragua, the United States mines the harbors of a country with which it exchanges ambassadors!

Only the mobilization of the entire population has kept the United States and the counterrevolution at bay. In Cuba, only the mass mobilization of an armed people and the threat of worldwide protests possibly destabilizing capitalism in the imperialist centers, as well as the danger of nuclear war with the USSR, has prevented another Bay of Pigs.

The security of the Salvadoran and Central American revolutions cannot be maintained solely by military means. Grenada showed that on a purely military scale, the U.S. colossus is overpowering. Rather, the defense of the revolution must be political -in the mobilization of the Central American masses, the extension of the revolution throughout the region, and the building of a movement in the United States itself. This movement must understand that El Salvador's right to self-determination rises above-and demands more than-support to the episodic negotiation proposals of the liberation forces.

Such a movement, independent of the two capitalist parties, would be capable of stopping U.S. intervention anywhere in the world. Over a decade ago, such a movement forced the retirement of two presidents and the withdrawal from Vietnam of an expeditionary force of half a million troops.

It is the responsibility of the antiwar forces in this country to lay the basis for such a movement-a movement which will allow the people of Central America to determine their own destiny, truly free from outside intervention, and free from the need to negotiate with and make concessions to the United States. • Socialist Action June 1984

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Peace plan: