'In Poland, it's part of life to go to prison
1986 1986-07Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 11 →
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SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1986 11 came only days after Poland was admitted into the International Monetary Fund. The IMF is the international watchdog for U.S. finance capital. It oversees loans to debtor countries and imposes strict austerity measures as the price for restructuring payment on the debt.
The IMF, according to The Herald Tribune (Dec. 20, 1985), agreed to take Poland into membership "after observing with satisfaction that the economic and financial program carried out by the Polish government since martial law had enabled it to surmount its financial difficulties."
The following is an interview with Göran Jacobsson, a Swedish Trotskyist who was detained by Polish authorities at the end of 1983. Jacobsson is a worker at the Saab plant in Linkoping, Sweden, and a member of the Socialist Party, the Swedish section of the Fourth International. Jacobsson was interviewed last month in San Francisco by Joe Ryan at the start of his U.S. speaking tour.
Socialist Action: How and why were you imprisoned in Poland?
Göran Jacobsson: I was bringing printing equipment to Solidarity, the trade union in Poland. There are about 500 underground newspapers in the country. The publishers are denied access to the state-owned presses and have to get presses wherever they can.
I was caught at the border. I came by ferry from Sweden to Swinousie [Poland]. Our car was searched by the customs, the army, and the security police.
S.A.: What were the conditions like in prison? Were you tortured?
Jacobsson: I was put into a cell that measured 12 square meters at the special prison of the security police in Szczecin. There were three guys there who were all accused of having some connection with Solidarity. They got real nervous when I arrived because they felt "another one had been caught."
In that cell I learned that Solidarity really means solidarity. My cell mates gave me food and clothes because it was cold in the cell. All the time, they were giving moral support to a woman prisoner who was in the next cell. She had been beaten Polish Inprekor In this issue you will find articles on:
•ne economic demands or tne underrouna leadersnio or Solidarnosc (TKK).
• "Reformism and social democracy - ha political space in Poland?" Contribution fron of the Polish revolutionary left.
• Debate: Solidarnosc and the Ukrainian issue.
• A balance sheet of the "Yugoslav" road -ment imprisoned by bureaucratic power.
• Special dossier: the Black working class in against apartheid and capitalism in South Africa.
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