POLAND: The fight for workers'

Scan page 14

with an Introduction and article by Carl Finamore Solidarnosc and with an introduction and article by Carl Finamore This 52-page pamphlet contains an abridged translation of three chapters from Kowalewski's 1985 book, "Give us Back Our Factories."

Price: $2.25 (includes tax) Please make checks payable to Walnut Publishing Co.

Send to 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110. on TV for questioning privatizations—branding him "ultraleft!"

Tyminski then capitalized on his initial success. He accused Prime Minister Mazowiecki of "high treason," declaring that the government was about to sell off Polish industry to Western investors at rock-bottom prices. Continuing the theme, he stated that Western capital was conducting an "economic war" against Poland, which was the central issue facing the Polish people today. He warned of the Polish economy being sold off wholesale, of economic dependence on the West, and of mass poverty and unemployment.

At the same time, he repeatedly stressed that Polish workers were being cheated out of their earnings. He said that, if elected, he would enact a law to this effect "within a month." All this struck a responsive chord among working people.

Initially favorable to the fact that Tyminski, running as an "independent," had no record of past manipulation in the jungles of high-level Polish "politics," workers now began to listen with interest to what he had to say. Tyminski became more verbally radical as each week passed.

When the Solidarity trade-union leadership SOCIALIST ACTI Rumors of Tyminski's real background and intentions have been thick in the Polish media. It is claimed he was declared unfit for military service in the 1960s due to mental problems, that he had connections with the Stalinist secret police-and also with Libya and the Medellin drug cartel-and that he, himself, while very wealthy lacks the funds to finance his campaign by himself (i.e., someone else is doing this for him secretly).

The allegations most probably backfired before the first round of voting, increasing public sympathy for someone the new establishment was clearly out to destroy.

The links with the secret police or other sections of the Stalinist apparatus cannot be ruled out-which is not quite the point, since the votes for Tyminski were clearly not votes for the Stalinists. He is certainly a very confused individual, most probably an opportunist chariatan. Many of his public statements are self-contradictory. Many are naïve, puerile, or simply idiotic.

He is often at a loss to answer journalists' questions. He claims no knowledge of the situation in Poland at the start of the 1980s, of Solidarity as it was then, and of martial law, saying he was in "the Peruvian jungle (continued on page 15)

IN DECEMBER 1990 13

Scan page 15

...UN war vote most Arab people will back Saddam, including cannot travel without the permission of a male relative, cannot use contraception, cannot abort, cannot

----- pull-quotes -----

the fight for workers' democracy