16 - Independent Society

Summary

Some, like Jacek Kuroń, had predicted that either a huge wave of spontaneous and uncontrolled anger would erupt on a mass scale, or that a general strike would be organized, which would absorb workers’ social energy and provide it with direction. The real course of events proved these predictions wrong. Others, like Eugeniusz Szumiejko, believed that if Solidarity lost its influence in the large enterprises it would live on only as a myth or legend, and thus would not be able to initiate or influence current events. Their predictions also turned out to be off the mark. Reality took another path, one which was closer to the one anticipated by Szumiejko than the one Kuroń wrote about. In 1982, a Solidarity myth was already emerging, based on a very fresh memory of the sixteen months of the “carnival of freedom” that had preceded martial law, the sense of martyrdom immediately after December 13, and the romantic nature of the underground, which in its mythologized version was embodied by loyalty, suffering, and courage. Solidarity became implicitly linked with the series of brutally suppressed workers’ revolts in 1956, 1970, and 1976, and, above all, the tradition of national uprisings dating back to 1830, 1863, and 1944, which had all ended in defeat. All this was the source of great myth-making power. The myth was especially attractive for young people, who were eager to run into the streets and join any incipient demonstration.

Solidarity was not, however, an uprising that could end in defeat. Rather, it was a social movement that could be subdued, but would be difficult to annihilate. This was because the real Solidarity also existed alongside the emerging myth, and was associated with Wałęsa, underground heroes, the TKK, the news sheets that were proliferating, and with the Masses for the Fatherland. Although the underground activists’ appeals did not fill the streets with millions of vehement demonstrators who were ready for anything, they served as a positive example, even for most of those who preferred to stay at home. The difficulties of daily life, and particularly the fear of force and brutality, required that they remain passive. When people were sure that there would be no repercussions, that ZOMO would not charge the demonstrators, and that no tear gas or water cannons would be used, then people were suddenly revitalized.