The challenge of building a revolutionary alternative in Poland

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'The militants who can be won to the idea of revolutionary socialist politics in Poland today are first and foremost those who have learned about Stalinism and capitalism the 12 SOCIALISTACTION DECEMBER 1992 Following is the second article of a two-part series. Last month, the author described the mounting anger of Polish working people in the face of a deteriorating economy and the government's efforts to restore capitalism. This year has seen the most widespread and militant strikes in Poland in over a decade.

WARSAW-Given the growing dissatisfaction with the effects of capitalist "reform" in Poland, the discrediting of the new entrepreneurs and pro-capitalist politicians responsible for the reform program, and the resurgence in combativity within the working class, exemplified in the strike wave of summer and early autumn, conditions would seem to be ripe for a rapid development of left forces.

The greatest problem facing the left in all of Eastern Europe since the move towards capitalist restoration started, has been the identification of socialist politics with the old Stalinist regimes. Yet it is clear that at some point this must be outweighed by popular resentment regarding the brutal reality concealed behind the politicians' promises of capitalist utopia: The marked victory of the "post-Stalinist" party in the recent Lithuanian elections would appear to bear this out.

Notwithstanding that party's attempts to dress itself in nationalist garb, and the fact that it is firmly committed to continuing the transition to a capitalist market economy, there can be no doubt that the election result reflected the wholesale disillusionment of working people with market reforms. It also demonstrated their readiness to support forces that claim to stand for left politics in the hope that these will halt the slide to social decline and poverty.

Will the "left" in Poland be able to build on the opportunities that are at present opening up? To answer this question, we should examine both the existing state of those forces claiming to represent left and working-class politics, and also the key debates taking place—within the genuine left, at least—on the strategy to be pursued in the coming period.

The Stalinist party The largest political party popularly associated with the left is the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland (SdRP), heir to the previous Stalinist Communist Party. Its current significance rests largely on its representation in the Sejm (the lower house of the Polish parliament), where it has the second largest parliamentary fraction—a fact its leaders are fond of stressing.

However, this appearance of strength is misleading. While the SdRP received the second largest amount of votes in last autumn's elections, its overall score was only just over 10 percent. Bearing in mind that the turnout at the polls was 40 percent, this means that the party whose predecessor had ruled the country for 40 years collected the votes of only one out of every four adult Poles.

Moreover, the party ran on a joint list with other formerly Stalinist organizations, such as the OPZZ trade union and the Women's League. And although the SdRP candidates dominated the tickets, a large amount of their voters were mobilized by the other organizations.

This is hardly surprising, given the party's organizational weakness. The old Polish Communist Party claimed three million members in 1980. Ten years later, this had fallen to two million. These people were in their overwhelming majority members of, or connected to, the privileged ruling bureaucracy.

Thus, when the party decided to dissolve at a special congress in January 1990, only some 40,000 were prepared to stay on and continue political activity in the SdRP, which was founded in its place.

hard The other 1,960,000 members decided discretion was the better part of valor: Their chances of moving from being Stalinist bureaucrats to capitalists or capitalist bureaucrats seemed better if they severed their ties with the past.

Those who joined the SdRP were in the main aging minor officials in the party or trade-union apparatus who believed the new party might protect them more effectively from the wrath of the people or who hoped it might offer them a career doing the only thing they knew how to dobeing a professional apparatchik.

Nevertheless, the party also contains some examples of the classic layer of Stalinists-turned-capitalists. An outstanding , example is SdRP member of parliament I. Sekula, a former Stalinist deputy and prime minister. Today, he is a multimillionaire sitting on the boards of numerous private companies—most of them set up with assets stolen from state enterprises.

The social composition of the SdRP, together with its association with the old Stalinist formation, in themselves rule out this party developing greatly in the near future. It will most probably perform creditably in the upcoming elections, although not as well as its Lithuanian counterpart.

Yet this will primarily reflect a protest vote against the political parties currently in power, rather then a vote for what the SdRP represents.

In political terms, this party presents no hope for the Polish working class. As with all the Stalinists-turned-social democrats, it staunchly supports the restoration of capitalism.

In fact, it has supported virtually all the most important pieces of pro-capitalist legislation adopted by the Sejm, and at the end of October rescinded the current coalition government—an alliance of hard and soft liberals, Christian Democrats, and neofascist Catholic fundamentalists.

Without the votes of SdRP members of parliament-including its leader, A. Kwasniewski-the government would have seen its proposed budget for 1993 defeated and would have been forced to resign.

To cap all this, the "post-Stalinists" have consistently refused to do the only thing which would allow them to genuinely expand their influence-ally themselves unequivocally with those sectors of the working class coming into struggle in defense of their material and social interests.

The SdRP refused to intervene in the strikes of the summer and autumn. In an interview published in early October, Kwasniewski explained that "as Social Democrats ... we wish to maintain excellent relations with both workers and employers," which is why "we have distanced ourselves from the recent strikes."

Old habits die hard. Even when "reformed" Stalinists can stand to gain substantial political profit, they instinctively rebel against the idea of being on the same side as the workers.

The Union of Labor The only other party represented in the Sejm that also considers itself to be on the left is the Union of Labor (UP), a social-democratic formation made up of former Solidarity activists. This party has only a handful of seats. having won barely 2 percent of the vote in the last elections. It has some well-known individual members, however, most particularly Zbigniew Bujak, former chairman of Solidarity in the Warsaw region in 1980-81 and during martial law, and Ryszard Bugaj, previously a leading economic adviser to Solidarity.

Unfortunately, the social democrats of the UP share most of the sins of the Stalinist-social democratic SdRP; they are fully agreed that capitalist restoration is the only possible way forward, although they frequently plead for "capitalism with a human face."

Their members of parliament have consistently supported right-wing, anti-worker legislation. They even voted for the most reactionary of all of Poland's governments since 1989, the goverment of Jan Olszewski, formed in November last year (and dismissed after seven months). During the recent strikes, the UP also failed to support the workers outright, offering instead to "mediate" between the workers and the government.

Supporters of the UP are very thin on the ground: The party has probably several hundred active members at the very most. This prevents it from utilizing the one advantage that could work in its favor-its identification, at least partially, with the mass democratic and pro-worker tradition of Solidarity in 1980-81.

However, in recent weeks, party leader Bujak has taken the initiative in organizing a broad campaign against the draconian anti-abortion bill (see accompanying article). This could allow the UP to begin to play a more significant role.

Clarity needed on Stalinists Aside from the two parties described above, the Polish left constitutes a very broad spectrum of forces, from small groups of unrepentant Stalinists, through pacifists, anarchists, anarcho-Syndicalists, to those claiming continuity with revolutionary Marxist traditions. The latter are still very weak (the largest group, itself extremely modest in size, being the Polish Trotskyists of the Revolutionary Left Current.).

Recent events are opening up a new audience for the views of the revolutionary left. Taking advantage of these new opportunities, however, is predicated on a correct understanding of the principled socialist positions on what is happening today and the strategy needed to construct an authentic socialist force within the working class and among women and youth activists. (In many respects, the questions posed here are also reflected in debates taking place throughout the international workers' movement on the nature of events in Easter Europe.)

The first key question in this regard revolves around the attitude to be taken to the so-called post-Stalinist forces. Unhappily, there are many people-both in Poland and in other countries of Eastern Europe—who themselves are far removed from Stalinist thought but who have developed an orientation towards these forces in an attempt to overcome the isolation, up to now, of genuine socialists.

This is suicide for revolutionary Marxists, and as so often is the case when political strategy is based not on principle but on feelings of frustration or opportunist calculations, the effect can be quite the opposite: Rather than influence the Stalinists, these socialists can end up beginning to accept the distorted Stalinist view of the world.

In terms of theory, this orientation is based on a failure to understand two important points: First, that it has been the Stalinists who have acted as the driving force of capitalist restoration (and as previously mentioned, the Polish "post(continued on next page)

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