7 - Interlude I: Solidarity, 1980–81

Summary

Are there any limits to compromise? No, a hundred times no, neither in the economic sphere nor in the political sphere.

Stanislaw Kania, IX Plenum, March 1981

We must make it very clear that there are limits which, if transgressed, would be fatal for the nation and the state. We cannot permit this to occur.

Wojciech Jaruzelski, IX Congress, July 1981

In the summer of the 1980 Gierek was swept from power under circumstances remarkably similar to those of his assumption of power ten years earlier. The government announced an increase in food prices, industrial workers responded with strikes to protest against the decision, and a party leader suddenly taken ill was unable to attend the Central Committee Plenum which ousted him from power. On the surface, little had changed: unpopular policies were still pursued, the working class remained, collectively, the vanguard of society, and the leadership carousel continued to spin whenever energy was applied to it.

In most other respects, however, the crisis of 1980 differed radically from that of a decade earlier. Most importantly, the protests were more widespread and determined. The reasons for this were numerous. The hot summer was conducive to the spread of ‘work stoppages’, as the authorities initially labelled the strikes. Polish revolutions usually took place during the short murky days of winter, it is true: the uprisings of 1794, 1831, 1863, 1905 and 1970 were cases in point.