"The majority of the society, those who live solely from their own labor, were

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supposed meekly to follow a program of rebuilding capitalism that was in contradiction to their most vital interests. They did not....

they have consistently supported the capitalist restorationist policies of the two successive "non-Communist" governments.

Adam Michnik, one of the principal ideologues in the milieu of the Solidarnosc leadership, pointed to the contradiction of "The national protest led by Solidarnosc represents helplessness, a lack of any notion of an alternative program of reforms, a lack of understanding of its own role in the process of change going on, a retur to the behavior it learned in the period of conflict with the Communist government in 1980-1981, an aggressive tone of demands. All these actions were directed against a government that enjoys the support of the parliament and the president of the Polish republic [Lech Walesa]."

The Entente of the Center (Walesa's party) tried to ride with the wave: "The society is losing patience. Solidarosc conducted itself in accordance with its members' expectations. Otherwise, it would have lost their confidence. The action of Solidarnosc should have shown the government the need for changing the mechanisms of running the post-Communist economy."

But what different mechanisms are there for capitalist restoration? The Western capitalists apparently do not think there are any. The pressure of the IMF and the World Bank kept Leszek Balcerowicz in his post as minister of economics in Walesa's government, despite the voters massive rejection of the first so-called Solidarosc government headed by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, which originally adopted this course.

Aleksandr Gal', chair of the Democratic Union, the party of former premier Mazowiecki, said:

"Support for the reform line is weakening. ... I am more and more afraid of JULY 1991 we lose what has been gained with such difficulty and return to a race between wages and prices, to economic chaos."

Ryszard Bugaj, head of the parliamentary group, Labor Solidarity, a moderate left formation, warned of economic disaster and political explosion if the present policies were continued: "Some 40 percent of state enterprises are facing bankruptcy."

Nonetheless, parliament voted contidence in the government and its policies. Walesa's premier, Jan Krzystof Bielecki, trumpeted that the vote had shown that there was really "no alternative to the government's policies, and it is necessary to give the cabinet the means for carrying them out."

In fact, Balcerowicz has claimed that his policies are "scientific," and therefore above politics.

The fraud of the "Third Republic"

So, why bother to protest, or even vote? Everything will be decided by procapitalist "experts," supported by a built-in majority of Stalinist deputies, under the pressure of the Western capitalist institutions. But this situation could make the working people wonder why they struggled for the right to protest and free elections in order to put in a government that says quite openly that it need not, and cannot pay attention to them, and has nothing to offer them.

In fact, there are signs of an explosive growth of disillusionment and alienation among workers. In the April issue of Dalej, a paper published by Polish members of the Fourth International, the revolutionary organization founded by Leon Trotsky, Zbigniew Kowalewski took up these contradictions in a major article entitled "The Crisis of Polish Democracy."

Kowalewski began by denouncing the fraud of the proclamation when Walesa was inaugurated president of the "Third Polish Republic," which is supposed to represent case, it used its votes to throw out the last government oriented to keeping the Stalinist nomenklatura in power. In the later one, it threw out the first government oriented to restoring capitalism.

"The old political elite abdicated power when after long years it became convinced that it did not have the means for ruling the society. Only a bit more than a year has passed since the new political elite came to power, and it has already become clear that it also cannot rule the society as it would like to.

"The overconfident Mazowiecki camp thought that in order to get a mandate to govern, it needed only to envoke the Solidarnosc ethos (which had been stripped of any real content) and to get the stamp of approval for its program from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, Bush, Thatcher, and Kohl. It thought also that it only needed to get the green light from the primate Glemp and the Pope in return for introducing religion into the schools and accepting a ban on abortion.

"The majority of the society, those who live solely from their own labor, were supposed meekly to follow a program of rebuilding capitalism that was in contradiction to their most vital interests. They did not. ... Over a year of the Mazowiecki cabinets, they gained painful experience of constantly rising unemployment, more and more belt tightening, the enrichment of the few and the impoverishment of the many, the dismantling of social protection, the brutal subjection of the physical, intellectual, and spiritual development of human beings to the free-market law of the jungle and to all-mighty money, the misrule of speculative capital, and the threat of a sell-off of the national wealth to foreign capital."

Such clear facts had generally been deliberately ignored by the Polish press, with some notable exceptions.

One of them is Dawid Warszawski, who wrote in the columns of Po Prostu (Issue No. 43, 1990): "The Mazowiecki camp lost because it lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the society. ... The Mazowiecki team lost its legitimacy when the majority of citizens recognized that the economi program it was applying was contrary to their interests.' Warszawski also stressed that Walesa (continued on next page)

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The fury shown by the Pope in his June 3 They consider it more powerful than the government and "Many date the beginning of a secular backlash to last mass/rally in Kielce, Poland, impressed New York Times more powerful than the Stalinist bureaucracy, which summer, when the church persuaded the government to correspondent Gabrielle Glaser. She wrote: "In a voice ris- while in political disarray remains essentially in place.

This attitude represents a dramatic turnaround. Under tiata wrote. The reaction was probably aggravated by the impassioned sermon against abortion and demanded that Stalinist totalitarian rule, the Church was seen as the fact that this measure was imposed by governmental defender of the helpless, the bulwark of the human values decree, without even a vote in parliament.

"His normally sonorous, pacific voice shaking with trampled on by the pseudoscientific totalitarian bureaucrarage, the Pope departed from his prepared text and assailed cy. The sudden cooling of affections for the Church gives What provoked these high priestly thunderbolts, Glaser limitations of this influence. suggested, was the failure of the Polish parliament to I remember listening to a sermon broadcast outside a more sentimental than institutional. The expropriation of pass a law banning abortion. The bill, which was tabled church in the Carpathian town of Zakopane in the sum- the landowners and capitalists deprived the reactionary two weeks before the Pope's visit, would have been a sort mer of 198l. It was probably a good example of what religious institutions of their social roots. of present for the Polish pontiff on his fourth visit to his made the Catholic religion so strong under the Stalinist The effect of this situation could be seen in the general native country after his elevation to the throne of Saint dictatorship. "We cannot let them destroy our humanity, strike that built Solidarnos in August 1980. The minute Peter. the hierarchy started trying to push for Church's declining influence in Poland the priest said, "we must not let them get us to fight each attractiveness of Catholicism faded. That was notable in The Church, she wrote, is now less popular than the other in the lines in shops, or inform on each other, or 1981. In the years of the military dictatorship, the Church elected goverment and even than the army, which until turn Pole against Pole." It should be remembered also regained its power. Now with the defeat of Stalinism, it only a few years ago ran a hated military dictatorship. She that one of the most popular Polish hymns is "God who is logical that the influence of the Church should once went on to point out: "The church has too much influ- has preserved Poland throughout the ages." ence' on important social issues, said nearly 60 percent of However, once the hierarchy started to try to take per- But the power of the hierarchy will only be broken if sonal decisions out of the hands of the people, it began to the masses see a political alternative that will enable The surveys have also shown that Poles think that the appear in quite a different light-as an obscure and threat- them to gain effective control of their fate, one that can Church is the most powerful institution in the country. ening power. That is what the polls and surveys show.

SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1991 11 ing in anger, Pope John Paul II ... delivered an his fellow Poles make an accounting of their sins.

Poland's moral state as if it were a personal affront."

However, despite the fact that over 90 percent of the population claims to be Catholic, and despite the importance of Catholic symbolism in the mass antibureaucratic movement, the polls show that 59 percent of Poles are opposed to a ban on abortion.

Church influence in decline The spectacle of the Polish Pope raging at his compatriots may have encouraged the Washington Post National Weekly Edition to look at the rapid decline of the Church's influence. Mary Battiata wrote in the June 10 issue that a survey done in March by the government (which is now dominated by Catholic politicians) showed that public supnns fortha Church had dronnad MANdAIN nOIr TAiNTA AmI TAT ITAd from 83 percent a year ago to 58 percent.

those polled last month by a national newspaper."

...Poland (continued from preceding page) was no longer trusted by the workers, after he ended up, after some initial criticisms, supporting the Balcerowicz Plan.

Kowalewski commented: "I would add that the new president [Walesa], consistently yielding to the demands from Washington and other Western capitalist capitals, has supported the Balcerowicz plan to the hilt, and adjusted the composition of the new government in accordance with these demands. Thus, the new government in Poland has exchanged the dictates of the Kremlin for those of the White House."

Kowalewski pointed to evidence that the "non-Communist" governments' policies were totally out of line with the views of the majority of the society.

"The truth is that the majority of workers and workers' leaders in the factories are against turning the plants over to private ownership.

"Clear testimony to this are the results of a sociological study done in March and April 1990 under the auspices of the PAN Economic Institute. These findings were brought to public attention by Professor Maria Jarosz (Polityka, No. 36, 1990).

"Those questioned could choose among three forms of ownership-private, state and collective ownership by the workforce. Unfortunately, they were not given a possibility to opt for 'social enterprises enterprises,' that is, state enterprises run by their workforces and a democratically elected Workers' Council. We should recall that in 1981, Solidamosc backed precisely this sort of 'social enterprise' as the main form of ownership in the national economy.... Despite this, the resuits of the study speak for themselves.

"It turned out that only 13 percent of industrial workers supported privatization, while 72 percent were for maintaining state ownership of the workplaces or turning them over to the workforce (36.3 percent for the former; 35.3 percent for the latter form of ownership). Some 67 or 68 percent of the leaders in Solidarosc and the workers' councils [factory self-management bodies] also were for state or workforce ownership. Among the Solidarnosc leaders, 9.6 percent were for state ownership, and 56.5 for ownership by the workforces."

These results, moreover, were confirmed by a study done in October 1990 under the direction of Professor Leszek Gilejka. Kowalewski writes: "According to this study, 13 percent of industrial workers were for privatization of the enterprises in which they worked, 46 percent for them remaining state owned, and 33 percent for them becoming the property of those who worked in them."

However, there was not a single member of parliament or a delegate to the last Solidarnose congress who represented the views of the majority of the industrial workers. In this situation, Kowalewski stressed, it was not surprising to find disturbing symptoms of political alienation among the working proute results of the study done by Professor Gilejka's team..show that industrial workers have a very strong feeling that there is a crisis as regards representation of their opinions, interests and demands. Some 62 percent thought that no one represented them....

No representation for the workers The study showed: "Only 13 percent— we should note that this study was done just before the 1990 presidential election— thought that the whole nation had any influence on the government. And only 28 percent thought that the National Assembly and the Senate had any influence over the government. Most thought that the Catholic Church had the biggest influence on the Mazowiecki government (61 percent). And the second largest number (43 percent) thought it was the Jews who had the biggest influence on the government"

Most of the workers questioned for this study, although 97 percent of them declared themselves believers, took a negative attitude to the influence of the Church in politics.

The idea that Jews, who have been reduced by persecution to a tiny minority, have a big influence on the government reflects an astonishing disorientation. Kowalewski wrote that it "attests to the fact that the disturbing growth of antiSemitic moods in the working class stems primarily from a dramatic feeling of political alienation."

In this situation, Kowalewski wrote, "I have to agree with the opinion expressed the moderate left political group called Labor Solidarity, that the fear of the future that is growing among the workers, arising from the threat of capitalist restoration, combined with a lack of confidence in the democratic institutions, is creating a recepa good indication of the source of its influence and of the Dos Spiagal again begin to ebb.

tivity to the idea of authoritarian governments."

This was another bitter irony, because it was the workers who won the fight for democratic rights and free elections.

"[The workers] gave impetus to the process of democratic revolution, and the fate of this process depended primarily on them. However, when, thanks to the working class, the rule of the old nomenklatura broke down, and the hour of democracy struck, the workers were robbed of their democratic gains by a new poltical elite.

'The workers

cannot win representation of their own interests vithout a party of theil thout a party of the wn that consistentl:

own that consistently represents those interests.' The course chosen by this elite was to get the democratic institutions to represent the interests and the ideological and political aspirations of the champions of capitalist restoration in order to foster the private appropriation of the means of production in the interests of a minority."

Workers need political democracy In fact, it is the workers who need democracy, and not the new political elite, made up of ambitious intellectuals and politicians fostered by the Church and subsidies from the West, as well as of reconverted Stalinist bureaucrats.

Kowalewski wrote: "Political democracy is not a vital need of the political elite. To the contrary, as already said, even when the democratic institutions are so constructed that they deprive the working class of representation, there is a danger that the masses will use their ballots to bring down a government acting against their interests. Democracy, however, is a vital need-like bread and work-for the working class and for the masses in general. It is in their vital interest above all to restore the independence and credibility of the trade-union movement and hence its capacity to democratically represent their opinions and aspirations, as well as to defend their rights and honor. The same holds for the Workers' Councils."

In the interests of democracy and the workers, it was essential to begin to estabreinstate religious education in the public schools,' " BatLimited social roots The power of the Catholic religion in Poland since the abolition of capitalism in the late 1940s, has been in fact a compromise with the bureaucracy, the Church and the faithful went into crisis. There was a wave of questioning of the ecclesiastical authorities.

By way of comparison, in Ireland, the Catholic church has set its face against the mass movement time and time again and hardly suffered a scratch. That is because there it has social roots. The clergy comes from the strong farmers, and the hierarchy throughout modern times has been entangled in an alliance with the rulers of the state, both before and after the Irish war of independence.

Moreover, in Poland religion was a refuge. It was the one independent institution the regime tolerated precisely because it preached resignation.

Accordingly, when the mass movement has been on the rise, the mant has haon on tha rica tha assure both economic and political democracy.-G.F.

lish the principle of the need for some form of direct representation of the workers at the governmental level. Kowalewski referred to the scheme for a house of parliament representing workers' selfmanagement bodies that was supported by Solidarnosc in 1981.

Kowalewski concluded: "One might agree or disagree with this, but that is not the fundamental thing. At the present time, there are no constitutional possibilities for setting up institutions of workers' democracy. What is possible, on the other hand, both in the context of election campaigns for the National Assembly, as well as in the course of extra-parliamentary actions, is building mass organs of struggle for workers' self-management in the factories and for workers' democracy in the state.

"It is necessary to convince circles of workers who are conscious and ready for action of the need for building such bodies, as well as to convince all currents of the left that have grown up in the struggle with the Stalinist regime, and which...declare their determination to defend the interests of the working people.

"The fate of Polish democracy depends on whether democratic institutions assure representation for the working class in accordance with its position in society and its needs, or whether they make such representation impossible. The fate of the working class depends on whether the democratic gains it made through its struggle benefit it and the majority of the society, or whether they are expropriated by a minority, used for the latter's own ends, and then inevitably destroyed."

The workers cannot win representation of their own interests without a party of their own that consistently represents those interests. The publication of a newspaper such as Dalej is a first step toward that. It has begun to systematically expose the conflict between the policies of the governments of the new elite and the needs of the working people and to offer alternatives.

The explosive contradiction highlighted by Kowalewski, between the democratic aspirations of the workers and the antidemocratic capitalist restorationist policies of the new so-called democratic politicians, exists not only in Poland. It is key to all the processes of change going on in the countries that have had a collectivist economy run by Stalinist bureaucracies. •