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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
What happened in Poland in the early 1980s is fascinating in many respects. The possibility of changing the Communist system in a peaceful manner was once again tried without much success, this time by the mass movement of industrial workers, with some additional help offered by intellectuals. The importance of these events should be fully recognized. As Persky states, “For the first time, a workers' state had been forced to concede to its workers, among other things, the ironic right to form their own working class organization to defend themselves from the workers' state.” According to Ascherson, the success of Polish workers in setting up permanent representation beyond the control of the Party was a major achievement. In this respect the events of 1980/81 differed substantially from all previous workers' uprisings in eastern Europe.
1. Persky, Stan, At the Lenin Shipyard: Poland and the Rise of the Solidarity Trade Union (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1981), p. X.Google Scholar
2. Ascherson, Neal, The Polish August: What Has Happened in Poland (Harmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1981).Google Scholar
3. Singer, Daniel, The Road to Gdansk (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1982), p. 17.Google Scholar
4. Ibid., p. 17.Google Scholar
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9. From the perspective taken by Singer, the real danger for the Soviet establishment comes from “behind a motley gorup of victimized workers, the shadow of a genuine labor movement” (1982:63). The USSR is no more the land of peasants. “The working class is fundamentally interested not in the mythical “state of the whole people” or the fictional merging of “friendly classes” but in a genuine classless society, which alone can eliminate its persisting handicaps and alienation. This is why in the Soviet Union, too, the working class remains potentially a revolutionary class — in the sense the term is used in The Communist Manifesto” (1982:102). The educational channels of social upgrading are effectively blocked by the privileged groups. In the long run the ranks of “intelligentsia” will break up, Singer claims, and people belonging to this loose amalgamation will choose sides in the battle between elitists and egalitarianists.Google Scholar
10. Singer is against the “purists” among the Western left who are hesitant to join forces with those eastern European dissidents who differ with them ideologically. “What the dissidents need, beyond the natural solidarity, is sympathetic criticism rather than blind adoration” (1982:201). It is necessary to understand that in eastern Europe the identification of socialism with the regimes ruling there naturally creates an evident resistance against the traditional socialist language. Singer wants the Western leftists to provide inspiration capable of resurrecting the ideals for which the October Revolution was originally fought (1982:204).Google Scholar
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14. Ibid., p. 237.Google Scholar
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17. Singer in his analysis pays much attention to the privileged class in the USSR constituting around 5 percent of the working population. These people are still at the stage of the “accumulation of joys”, not at the stage of the “joy of accumulation” (1982:116). The cleavage of interests between various parts of the establishment is unavoidable. Among privileged there is a general fear of any reforms but they have to come sooner or later under the pressure of economic failures, international competition and the growing group ambitions. Lower strata so far do not count but in the long run some attention has to be paid to them. The prediction of Singer is that the Soviet Union soon will enter into the stage of internal struggles within the establishment. The confusion related to them will open the opportunity for “the young dynamic section of the working class join hands with the revolutionary intelligentsia forging a joint project and a common strategy” (1982:129).Google Scholar
18. Data from Polityka, No. 5 (1982), p. 5.Google Scholar
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21. Malanowski in his book on workers (1981) develops a polemic with those party intellectuals who are eager to found socialism on strengthening the hierarchisation of society. These intellectuals appeal for better privileges given to the few for their ‘valuable’ contributions. However they disregard the fact that the allocation of rewards so far has benefited mainly those who already have much not because of their genuine contributions but due of them being for many years in the position of power.Google Scholar
22. Macshane, Denis, Solidarity: Poland's Independent Trade Union (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1981), p. 79.Google Scholar
23. Ibid., p. 101.Google Scholar
24. Weschler, Lawrence, Solidarity: Poland in the Season of its Passion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), pp. 93–94.Google Scholar
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26. Ibid., p. 137.Google Scholar
27. , Persky, p. 228.Google Scholar
28. , Ascherson, p. 273.Google Scholar
29. Ibid., p. 274.Google Scholar
30. , Singer, p. 271.Google Scholar
31. Ibid., p. 271.Google Scholar