Solidarity's Josef Pinior: People are frustrated and angry about their economic situation'

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Former SWP leader joins Socialist Action SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1990 17 The following interview with Jozef Pinior, a leader of the Polish Socialist PartyDemocratic Revolution (PPS-RD), was conducted on Dec. 10, 1989, in Wroclaw, Poland, at the time of the PPS-RD's First National Congress. The PPS-RD is a multitendency socialist party that was formed two years ago.

The interview was conducted by a reporter from International Tribune, a socialist monthly published in Paris, and is being reprinted from that magazine's January 1990 issue in an abridged and edited form.

International Tribune: Could sum up the essential decisions of congress?

Jozef Pinior: This was our first national congress. We adopted a political program and democratic statutes for our party and elected a new national council. Our program calls for the self-government of the workers and for democratic revolution against capitalist restoration and against all forms of Stalinist systems.

We want to be an alternative to the capitalist system and to the Stalinists. We call for mass democracy from below and for workers' self-government as an alternative to a society controlled by the market-which is what is happening now with the JaruzelskiMazowiecki government.

I.T.: Do you believe there is a danger of capitalist restoration, and if so, how is this being done?

Pinior: The head of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus, just visited Poland, where he outlined the economic austerity program the nomenklatura [Stalinist bureaucracy] and the Mazowiecki government are to carry out in Poland.

[The new program, which went into effect Jan. 1, calls for increases in prices of 200% to 500%, wage freezes, and layoffs of up to 3 million workers this year in the steel industry, shipyards, and mines.-ed.] We oppose these measures and seek to organize the workers to defend themselves against all the attacks. At our congress, we declared that we are an opposition party to the Jaruzelski-Mazowiecki government.

Our congress adopted a resolution calling for a policy of full employment and modernization, not liquidation. We stated that the loss of important sectors of the nationalized economy would only lead to a greater economic recession.

I.I.: How are the workers reacting to the new government and to the economic situation?

Pinior: With the deepening austerity program, workers are becoming more and more pauperized. But there are still widespread illusions in the Mazowiecki govemment and in the free market reforms. This is because most of society doesn't really know what the free market is, what capitalism is. • We are printing below a letter to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) by Caroline Lund, a former leader of the SWP who has now joined Socialist Action.

Lund joined the SWP in the early 1960s and served on its National Committee from 1973 to 1985. She wrote for The Militant newspaper and was assigned by the SWP to international work with the Fourth International in Paris and Brussels in the 1960s and 1970s. She worked in the women's rights movement and wrote numerous articles and pamphlets on the topic.

Socialist Action is pleased to welcome Caroline Lund, a dedicated and talented comrade, to our ranks. She joins us in general agreement with our program for world socialist revolution. This is the very same program the SWP had before it began to compromise its revolutionary cause and to turn against its own members, virtually outlaw ing disagreements.—Carole Seligman Jan. 14, 1990 Pittsburgh Branch, Political Committee, Socialist Workers Party Dear Comrades, Since I resigned from ago, I have attempted 1 tive supporter of the you this the pi : years io fun ›n as an acSWP. have mainMost people think that a free market in Poland will produce a situation like you have in West Germany or Sweden. In my opinion, this will be impossible. A free market in Poland will be closer to a free market in Brazil or Argentina.

On the other hand, people are very frustrated and angry about their economic situation. The basic conditions of life are deterios rating with each passing day. They are looking for alternatives.

Take the case of Solidarity: We have a reformist, bureaucratic leadership, on the one hand, but we also have rank-and-file members who represent Solidarity structures in the factories.

They too have illusions in Mazowiecki, but they are looking for alternatives. They are in direct contact with the workers who confront them, asking: "What are we to do? Our material situation is bad and getting tained a $50-a-week pledge and given hundreds of dollars each to the Mark Curtis defense and Pathfinder Mural, and $500 to each of the two Publications Funds.

I have repeatedly volunteered to help the branch in any way I can, such as painting signs, staffing the bookstore, sending out mailings, putting up out-of-town guests, etc. I have defended the party and The Militant at work and am known as a Militant supporter on the job.

I have attended forums and invited coworkers to forums, although none have been able to come. I have tried to feed information to, and work with our fraction at the mill where I work.

With the exception of two comrades (Mike and Louise), the branch has chosen to simply ignore me (while cashing my checks).

My attitude up until now has been: (1) The party is still on basically the correct political line. (2) The party's sectarian attitude toward me and Barry [Sheppard] has got to be put in a secondary position. (3) Time, and hopefully a new radicalization, will shake up the party so that it will again have the confidence to use human material like myself and Barry instead of being so paranoid and rigid.

Now something new has happened which has led me to change my thinking. I have heard that the PC [Political Committee] has in essence expelled National Committee worse.

I.T.: The new Polish minister of industry announced during a recent visit to France that within two years one-third of the Polish workforce might be unemployed. Is this possible?

Pinior: I think the working class will defend itself against unemployment and plant closures. If the government wants to impose this type of program, it will have to impose martial law and destroy the Solidarity movement. You must remember that despite their illusions in the free market, workers in Poland have a natural consciousness that the factories belong to them.

I.T.: Do you believe workers are becoming more receptive to your ideas?

Pinior: The process is just beginning. People no longer have illusions in any of the Stalinists. Now they have illusions in the free market. As these reforms start to hit member Malik M. (subject to approval by the NC and convention). The expulsion was basically for raising a disagreement with a Militant article inside his local IAM [International Association of Machinists] fraction.

Whatever the details about this case, I am convinced from my acquaintance with Malik as a person and from my knowledge of party leadership functioning, that this suspension/expulsion is a travesty of justice and a big blow to the party.

My resignation from the party had to do with how I was treated and how Barry was treated whenever we would raise questions or differences with the "leadership" position. I was too weak then to stay and fight for more democratic modes of functioning.

Now I see that even someone of Malik's stature and contributions to the party is being cut down for simply standing up for a different political position than that of "the leadership."

I now feel that it would be stupid of me to keep trying to relate to a party that apparently sees me only as a problem that it wishes would go away. To do so would only be an excuse for prolonged inactivity.

What happened to Comrade Malik has jolted me out of my relative inactivity to want to do something to try to save the human cadres of the SWP and help actively Moni Nordman/CONTACT home, people will be open to other alternatives and to political discussions with us.

I.T.: What is the PPS-RD's assessment of the overall situation in Eastern Europe?

Pinior: In our opinion, there is a very deep crisis of the Stalinist system. We have a revolutionary situation in the general sense of the word. We have a situation where we can organize and coordinate our struggle throughout Eastern Europe, not just in one country. We don't believe in the possibility of socialism in one country.

I.T.: Specifically, what do Polish socialists think about the question of Germany?

Pinior: Of course, we think that Germany, as every nation, has the right to self-determination. In our opinion, as classical Marxists, the German working class is key to the advance of the revolution, and we want this movement to be socialist in character. The German working class will perhaps change the entire situation in Europe.

build the nucleus of a revolutionary party in this country.

I still feel the SWP, for all its problems, is a revolutionary party. I would apply to rejoin the SWP, and fight for my ideas as a member and builder of the party, except that I think my letter would go unanswered and unacknowledged, as past letters have.

I have decided to apply to join Socialist Action, on the basis of my general agreement with Barry Sheppard's statement "Why I Joined Socialist Action," printed in the January 1990 issue of Socialist Action. I was not convinced to take this step until I heard what had happened to Comrade Malik.

I urge comrades and friends of the SWP to protest the suspension/expulsion of Comrade Malik, and to do what they can to stop the drift of the SWP toward functioning as a rigid sect, by promoting a fusion of revolutionary forces in this country.

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