Strike wave hits Poland as workers resist ravages of 'market reforms'

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Polish coal miners protesting increases in energy prices during national one-hour "On Jan. 13, a national one-hour strike was organized by Solidarity, which was supported at the factory level by other unions. The strike was a huge success. In many plants, the one-hour stoppage actually SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1992 13 WARSAW—Jan. 1 marked the second anniversary of the introduction of a pro-capitalist reform program in Poland, drawn up by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Known in Poland as the "Balcerowicz Plan," named after the Finance Minister at the time, it has focused on slashing workers' living standards and liquidating public-sector industry in an attempt to pave the way for privatization and the imposition of the rule of private capital.

The results of two years of austerity policies have been disastrous. Average incomes are lower than two years ago. Industrial production has fallen by almost half. Savage cuts have been made in the social services. Around 2000 nursery schools and daycare centers have been closed. School hours have been reduced. Class sizes have risen from 50 percent to 100 percent. Huge price increases have been introduced for medicines and fees imposed for basic healthcare services. Thousands of essential capital construction and modernization projects have been abandoned.

But perhaps the most dramatic effect of the drive towards the restoration of capitalism has been the soaring rate of unemployment. By the end of January, the number of jobless topped 2,300,000—an 11.9 percent unemployment rate. One quarter of that number are not entitled to benefits and factory managers are announcing tens of thousands of layoffs every week.

Moreover, the real state of the problem becomes apparent, if we look at the rate of urban unemployment (excluding agriculture). In several Polish provinces, unemployment is approaching 50 percent. Even official forecasters speak of 3.5 to 4 million unemployed by the end of 1992. This would give Poland the highest rate of unemployment in Europe.

In fact, everything indicates that in 1992 Poland's ruling elite intends to step up its attack on living standards. Faced with a huge fiscal deficit, a deepening recession, and the total fiasco of plans to attract Western capital, the government's economic policy for 1992 boils down to the following-mass factory closures, further cuts in expenditures for social services, and a virtual wage freeze in the public sector, which still employs well over 80 percent of the urban work force.

In attempting to defend this policy, Economics Minister J. Eysmontt claims it should permit an improvement in living standards— "around 1994."(!)

Proclaimed as the most advanced and ambitious project of "market restructuring" in Eastern Europe, the Polish program for capitalist reform has proved to be a complete disaster. It is in this context that the beginning of the new year saw the beginning of a mass fightback by Polish workers, specifically directed against the economic policies being imposed by the IMF.

First signs of fightback The first signs of a new radicalization in the Polish workers' movement were already apparent in mid-December 1991, when a new right-wing government was finally formed after almost two months of infighting among the 26 parties elected to Parliament in the Oct. 27, 1991, elections (characterized by a 60 percent voter abstention rate).

The new govemment of Jan Olszewski, supported by the right and the extreme right, was sworn in at a time when militant struggles were beginning in many parts of Poland. In Lodz, Poland's "second city" and the center of the textile industry, factory occupations were underway in two major plants. The aviation industry was also the scene of protests, with an occupation launched at the huge WSK Mielec helicopter factory. More limited protests were undertaken by shipyard workers, teachers, and autoworkers and coal miners.

The new Olszewski govemment, declaring that it intended to "amend" the economic policies of the last two years, believed it would be granted the same "grace period" as the two post-Solidarity govemments that had preceded it. In particular, it had laid great stress on its policy of "de-communisation," hoping to capitalize on the anti-Stalinist sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the Polish working class. This is the same sentiment that had allowed two previous governments to push through viciously anti-worker policies by masquerading as the conquerors of Stalinism.

Government policy misfires

But the new government made a series of miscalculations. First, it believed it could legitimize itself by reference to the Solidarity mass movement and opposition to "Communism." In fact, Polish workers are increasingly hostile to the elites that have taken power under the banner of Solidarity and to the bureaucratic apparatus of the Solidarity trade union itself, whose official policy over the last two years has been one of "maintaining a protective umbrella" around the Solidarity governments to allow them to implement the market reforms.

With regard to the policy of "de-communisation," it now holds little water. It was the main plank in Lech Walesa's presidential campaign over one year ago, yet nothing has actually been done to break the administrative power of the ex-Stalinist apparatus in the army, police, and civil service.

1. There are currently three main union federations in Poland: Solidarity, which claims a membership of 2,500,000; the OPZZ (the official union movement set up under martial law, still controlled by its original Stalinist leadership), which claims a membership of 4,500,000; and Solidarity-80, a radical splitoff from Solidarity ("80" is a reference to the old Solidarity union established after the strikes of August 1980), which claims a membership of 250,000 (and is the only one of the three that claims to be growing). All of these figures are probably substantially inflated. By comparison, Solidarity itself had a membership of over 10 million in 1980-81. lasted the whole day."

And still less has been done to break the new economic power of the former Stalinist economic apparatus, which today is by far the most influential group of private capital in Poland and a major bulwark for the restoration of capitalism.

Second, the new government's other mistake was to commit itself immediately to continuing the most unpopular economic measures planned by its predecessor, in the name of deepening the market reforms. This represented a gross miscalculation of the popular mood and dispelled illusions that the new government's "amendments" to its economic policy would reverse the trend of plummeting living standards.

Specifically, the goverment declared an enormous rise in prices for electricity, gas, and heat, to take effect on Jan.1, 1992. Over the first few months of the year, the effect of this price rise was to increase the price of most consumer goods and foodstuffs by 25 percent to 40 percent.

Finally, the new Olszewski goverment chose at first to ignore the most important single struggle that erupted at the close of 1991—the hunger strike at Poland's biggest industrial plant, the Nova Huta steelworks, and then-as support for the steelworkers mounted throughout Polandto surrender frantically to their demands in an effort to appease public opinion.

In reality, the government's retreat on the issue of the Nova Huta steelworks was recognized as an indication that mass action could win, that time for determined workers' protests had returned, that the tide of the last two years could, after all, be reversed.

A spontaneòus strike wave The Nowa Huta steelworkers, fighting to prevent planned mass layoffs, achieved their victory on Jan. 6, after a hunger strike of 15 days (supported by classic strikes in strike on Jan. 13 the steelworks itself and solidarity strikes in other plants). In the final days of the hunger strike, it had become the major domestic news item in the Polish media and the effects of the workers' victory were immediate.

Two days later, on Jan. 8, the Solidarity trade union commission for the textile industry met in Lodz and was attended by delegates from 46 textile plants throughout Poland. The situation of the Polish textile industry is catastrophic. In Lodz, over 90 percent of the plants are already technically bankrupt. Unemployment in the city is skyrocketing, and in the first week of January, Lodz saw the first spontaneous protest march of the unemployed The Solidarity textile commission supported the decision of local textile workers to declare a hunger strike, demanding government intervention to guarantee wage payouts in insolvent textile factories and to halt unemployment. In the next few days, the Lodz hunger strikers were joined by textile workers from several other towns.

The example of the Nowa Huta strikers and the public outrage at the energy price rises triggered individual strikes and factory occupations at many plants in the first weeks of January. For the first time, this also included factories owned by domestic or foreign capital. In one privately-owned clothing plant in Lower Silesia, the female workforce not only occupied the factory but also took the owner hostage. He was freed—36 hours later-by local Solidarity bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, the government decision to raise energy prices was also condemned by the leaderships of all the Polish trade-union federations. Aside from the economic hardships caused by the price increases, the new government, in its arrogance, had also broken the law. Polish law still declares that all price rises of this kind must first be subject to a process of consultation with the trade unions, a procedure that the government blithely ignored.

Coordinated protests

Under pressure from the spontaneous strike wave, the leaderships of both Solidarity and the OPZZ called for protest action.

• The first protest took place in Gdansk, where the regional section of Solidarity organized a one-hour work stoppage on Jan • Beginning Jan. 9, teachers held a series of one-day strikes in various regions of Poland.

• On a national one-hour strike 13, (continued on page 14)

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President Lech Walesa: Blaming everyone but the policymakers themselves. 14. SOCIALIȘT ACTION APRIL 1992 ...Restoration 12) crisis of overproduction? In any case it would be far cheaper to build new, modern, and competitive productive facilities anywhere else in the capitalist world, where market relations are already in place.

So far, foreign investment has been practically limited to setting up pizza parlors, extracting raw materials that can be easily changed into hard cash when shipped home, and to a handful of relatively efficient industrial enterprises.

This is not to say that the imperialist world has given up on capitalist restoration in these lands. Although they are reluctant to pour dollars into this extremely risky project, they know they must do so before it's too late.

Neither is Nixon's loud cry for aid to Yeltsin intended to force President Bush to take action.

Nixon is providing cover for Bush from critics on his right. His "criticism" is calculated to make it easier for Bush, or whoever is the next U.S. president, to take the awesome, but necessary, risk of losing billions in the desperate gamble to make ...Polish workers (continued from page 13)

was organized by Solidarity, which was supported at the factory level by other unions. The strike was a huge success. In many plants, the one-hour stoppage actually lasted the whole day. Demonstrations were held, and many local demands were added to the general national demand for the rescinding of the energy price increase.

(Some 90 percent of Polish industrial enterprises are judged to have taken part; for example, of 84 coal mines, only four did not stop work).

•On Jan. 15, an additional one-day strike was held in all Polish aviation factories.

•On Jan. 16, a national day of action was called by both the OPZZ and Solidarity-80 union federation, resulting in strikes, demonstrations (20,000 at a Solidarity-80 demonstration in the port city of Szchecin) and protest marches in most Polish cities. In some cities, this strike was also supported by local organizations of Solidarity.

As this is being written, the result of the protest against the energy price increases is still unknown. The Solidarity trade union first threatened a national general strike if the price increases were not revoked, then began a process of negotiation with the government, declaring that it believed a "compromise solution" could somehow be reached Talks between the union and the government were still dragging on at the end of February, with Solidarity leaders, frustrated at the refusal of the government to make any concessions, once again returning to the theme of a general strike.

While most local union leaderships had called off protest actions in February, waiting for the results of these negotiations, tension again began to mount as it became clear that the government had no real intention of treating the union seriously.

Local strikes are continuing, and a number of regional protest actions began again in the second half of February. Ambulance workers struck for several days. Teachers stepped up their protests and announced plans for an indefinite all-out strike for mid-March. Rail workers held a two-hour "warning strike" on Feb. 19.

A divided labor movement Nevertheless, the Polish trade union movement as a whole remains divided and incapable of coordinating systematic protest action. With very few exceptions (mostly initiated by radical left activists within Solidarity-80), there has been no attempt to generalize the lessons of the past weeks and organize inter-union structures committed to fighting for an overall rejection of the government's capitalist restorationist policies.

This is despite the fact that workers in more and more factories have been raising more general demands that could serve to unify and give direction to the unions. In this respect, a particularly notable feature the "socialist" countries safe for capitalist profiteers.

Why workers are marking time There are objective factors which help explain why the workers in the bureaucratized workers' states have stopped short of finishing off the hated bureaucracies.

The main factor blocking the rise of revolutionary consciousness there—and everywhere, it must be said—is the over 40-year period of relative calm in the class struggle in most of the developed imperialist countries.

(This in turn, as we have explained many times before, is the result of Stalinist and reformist betrayal and the failure to resolve the crisis of revolutionary leadership.)

The workers in the bureaucratized states naturally yearn for the living standards they see on West European television. Many of these workers know that planned economy plus workers' democracy would certainly much improve productivity and thus create the precondition for improved living standards.

But most workers in the former Soviet bloc sense that so long as they are excluded from free access to the world market place, and are denied credit for modernization of obsolete factories, their dreams of qualitaof the new workers' movement has been the frequent emphasis on the need to protect the state sector of industry against attempts to kill it off by discriminatory taxation and pressure to sell off assets at rock-bottom prices to any buyer that can be found.

While the bureaucratic leaderships of the union federations attempt to concentrate attention on the "illegality" of the most recent price rises, a general theme running through workers' demonstrations has become oppositión to the government program of privatization.

This is seen as a policy that serves only to enrich the combined elites of the old Stalinist bosses and their post-Solidarity successors, while leading to the dismantling of large sections of Polish industry and mass unemployment. So far, however, these sentiments have yet to find the political and organizational expression required.

Nonetheless, the organizational weakness of the new workers' movement, reflecting the overall political disorientation that has resulted from the last two years of "Solidarity" governments, is one that may rapidly be overcome as mass struggles develop against the concrete effects of the governtive advances are not realizable.

They certainly are not unaware of the revolutionary socialist option. After all, despite Stalin's falsifications, a significant minority, at least, have read Lenin's views on world socialist revolution. But they also know that taking this course would be certain to provoke merciless opposition from world imperialism. In this case, solidarity from workers in the bastions of imperialism would be crucial in the short run and decisive in the longer run.

Unfortunately, revolutionary aid from this section of the world doesn't appear likely in the present context of social stability in the bastions of world imperialism.

(Pessimism results from not taking into account the positive impact on workers everywhere of a determined struggle for unrestricted workers' democracy and for a socialist world.)

These static impressions have worked to the advantage of the bureaucracy's pro-capitalist "solution" as the only realistic step forward in the present context. And despite all the negative results so far, this hope has not yet flickered out.

It should come as no surprise that the masses will not lightly take the road to revolution. Neither should we be surprised if they are not inclined to do so until there ment's restorationist policies. Moreover, the possibility of victories being won that would aid the rise of a newly conscious workers' movement is strengthened by the growing confusion among Poland's ruling elites.

Procapitalists close ranks

The government, visibly stunned by the scope of workers' protests in January, was only capable of declaring that strikes were "pointless" and warning that, if they continued, it would be forced to resign.

Since then, Prime Minister Jan Olszewski has been playing for time in his negotiations with the unions, while attempting to "enlarge" the present governmental coalition to include virtually all the "postSolidarity" political parties present in Parliament.

Faced with mass resistance to their policies of austerity, unemployment and privatization, most of these procapitalist politicians see the need to close ranks against the threat from working people.

The "social democrats," successors to the Stalinist Polish Communist Party, are equaliy concerned about this threat. On the day of the rail strike, their leader, A. Kwasseems to be no other way out. On the whole, people need very good reasons before they are ready to risk their lives and the lives of those they love in a struggle for something better.

But the objective basis for world capitalist stability is now showing signs of coming to an end. While it's impossible to set a time-table, a world-wide economic, social and political crisis, deeper than the one that broke out in 1929, is inevitable. The world's capitalist rulers have postponed the outbreak of a crisis of overproduction at the price of an enormous accumulation of public and private debt.

The episodes of stagflation-recession combined with inflation-which have erupted here and there since the late 1960s are harbingers of a coming storm. The coming generalized crisis will have elements of the worst of both worlds-economic stagnation and financial and monetary destabilization.

The world's working class will be compelled to fight for its life. This will establish the objective conditions, once again, for the vision of world socialism to capture the minds of workers everywhere— especially those in the lands touched by the great October Revolution.

niewski, declared that he fully supported the government's economic program, and suggested that Leszek Balcerowicz, the person most associated with the policy of capitalist restoration, be appointed head of the National Bank of Poland.

As for President Lech Walesa—who has declared several times over the last months that, if mass workers' protests were to break out he would "take his place" at the head of them—he now seems completely at a loss.

At the end of November, he proposed a series of constitutional amendments that would greatly increase the powers of the Presidential Palace (allowing him, for example, to appoint the prime minister and cabinet) and permit the government to rule by decree. These amendments are still being discussed by a special parliamentary commission.

Capitalist restoration discredited Meanwhile, as he waits for this commission's verdict, Walesa has been uttering increasingly contradictory statements, blaming the tragic effects of procapitalist policies on everything and everyone but the policymakers themselves.

(Thus, Walesa has been blaming the West for failing to invest in Poland, the collapse of Poland's markets in the exUSSR, and the Polish people themselves for failing to "change their attitudes.")

Opinion polls show that, if the 1990 presidential elections were to be rerun today, Walesa could expect a mere 20% of the vote. Similarly, the government of Jan Olszewski, although in power for only two months, has the confidence of only 29 percent of the population.

Yet, probably the most significant opinion poll was one commissioned by the main Solidarity daily paper, Gazeta Wyborcza, at the beginning of February. The survey showed that twice as many Poles were opposed to the market reforms as supported them.

Under the front-page headline, "End of public support for reforms?" the paper's editors noted: "Only one Pole in four wants faster privatization, the opening of our borders to Western goods, the entry of foreign capital onto the Polish market and greater freedom for entrepreneurs. Over half the population would like to protect state industry and its workforce against unemployment and foreign capital. ... The majority of Poles reject the capitalist principles of the economic reforms."

The editors note that this reflects a definite trend. The number of Poles supporting private business and the privatization of state enterprises is constantly getting smaller.

In these circumstances, it seems most improbable that the maneuvers of President Walesa and Prime Minister Olszewski can curb the tendency to heightened social struggles in Poland. The policy of capitalist restoration stands discredited. Mass opposition to this policy will continue to grow.