socialists should support Solidarnöse which he expressed severe reservations about the mass Polish trade right wing ideas which some of its leaders have developed since the ZBIGNIEW M KOWALESKI, formerly a leader of Solidarnösc workers self-management, Rendez-vous nos usines! (Give us back our
IN TALKING ABOUT the historical context of the struggle in Poland, Tony Benn states: 'I think that the way the Polish Workers Party (the Polish CP - ed) went about taking power and reconstructing Polish society was the only course they could pursue under the circumstances.' The circumstances which Tony Benn recalls about the background to the seizure of power by the CP at the end of the second world war — 'a very right wing regime before the war, the loss of six million people during the war, the change Poland's frontiers after the war' — justify in his eyes the CP's road to power.
But this road involved the execution without trial by the Stalinist political police of ten thousand people between 1944 and 1948. It involved the deportation to Soviet concentration camps of several tens of thousands of fighers of the Home Army, the principal force of the Polish anti-Nazi resistance; the imprisonment for "political crimes' of more than 100,000 people; the deportation and dispersal by military force, of the Ukrainian national minority and so forth.
Furthermore, this path involved the suppression of the works committees and workers councils, established spontaneously at the end of the war; de facto state control of the unions, the suppression of political pluralism, the eradication of all forms of democracy and the monopolisation of state power by the Stalinist bureaucracy of the CP. To sum up: the abolition of capitalism in Poland was accomplished by the installation of a system of totalitarian power imposed by the Kremlin — a system wich has survived to this day.
Was any other road possible? Obviously there was the road of socialist democracy, established by means of the self-activity, self-organisation and self-government of the working class, the peasantry and the whole of civil society. This road is not reserved for this or that privileged people, but is the sole one which all the peoples of the world deserve — from Britain, to Poland and Central America.
Tony Benn states: 'In none of the periods of conflict since the war has anyone in Poland been killed'. We have already explained what happened in the first years after the second world war. And after that? In whose memory did Solidarnösc erect its monuments, for example the monument outside the Gdansk shipyard, if not the memory of those workers murdered by the 'communist' authorities in Poznan in 1956, on the Baltic coast in 1970 and so on? In whose memory was another monument erected outside the Wujek mine, if not the memory of the miners who fell defending that mine against the army in December 1981? In stating that 'no one has been killed', Tony Benn is repeating a myth of the bureaucracy.
'Some of the support for Solidarnöse came from some of the most reactionary people in the world' says Tony Benn. He asks why Thatcher supported Solidarnösc so strongly. The answer to that question is: solely because the British workers' movement supported Solidarnösc so weakly and because it meekly 10 handed over the cause of the Polish workers'
POLA N A Solidarnösc, a genuine workers' movement In reply to Tony Benn... In our last issue we published an interview with Tony Benn, in union and social resistance movement, Solidarnösc. He noted the December 1981 Jaruzelski coup. Here we publish a response by in Lodz, but since December 1981 a political refugee living in Paris. He is the author of a book on Solidarnösc's struggle for factories!) published in 1985. struggle to reactionary forces like Thatcher. Those responsible are all those socialists and trade unionists who turned their back on Solidarnösc, utilising utterly false arguments like those presented by Tony Benn. When you renounce international solidar- ity with the just cause of the workers or oppressed people, don't be surprised if it has lamentable effects. When people like Tony Benn turn their backs on Solidarnösc and people like Thatcher say that they support Solidarnösc, it is inevitable that this gene- rates great political confusion among many militants of the Solidarnösc movement itself, and constitutes one of the greatest obstacles to clarifying their political positions. This clarification is made all the more difficult because the Polish workers who fight against the bureaucratic dictatorship, have not en- countered in their world any socialism diffe- rent from that of the bureaucracy's 'really
existing socialism' that they know and recognise.
This is not a problem which confronts them alone - the discrediting of socialism which has been produced by the experience of 'actually existing socialism' in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe confronts the workers of the whole world. The consequences of this are also evident in the British workers movement, which experiences anti-communism and not just 'the popularity o: the USSR' as Tony Benn says.
'In Solidarnösc', says Tony Benn, 'ther: are elements which have nothing to do witi. either socialism or democracy' But in the Labour Party there are many more suc:. elements, which not only express an::socialist ideas, but practice bourgeois ar.: pro-imperialist politics. That doesn't sti Tony Benn being a member, even a leade:
International No 9 March/Apri. :-
of this party. Like the Labour Party, Solidarnöse is a large workers' movement. But given their different situations, in order to judge them you have to utilise very different
Solidarnöse emerged from the struggle of the working class, from a powerful strike movement. It organised in such a way as to organise the working class to defend its rights, its dignity and its interests - like a trade union. It fought for trade union freedom — an elementary right for workers in the whole world, which in Poland, like the whole of the Soviet bloc, is denied.
It fought for other elementary rights — freedom of expression, ideological pluralism, political democracy rights since the French revolution. rights it not only demanded, but practiced in its own sphere in a way which serves as a model for all trade unions and mass movements in the world. No less than in the great historical experiences of the workers movement - the Paris Commune, the 1917 Russian revolution, the 1936 revolution in Spain
workers democracy lived
Solidarnöse was constructed by a working class which, for long decades, was forcibly atomised by the bureaucratic was not able to organise independently or elaborate a collective consciousness and accumulate experiences. Its experiences were partly destroyed and partly appropriated by that dictatorship. But behind the banner of Solidarnöse was a class totally conscious of itself and transformed into an auronomous social subject.
In these conditions, ideological and political confusion - which is characteristic of every great movement of the masses — was inevitably considerable. It included, among other things, expressions of nationalism and clericalism. For a British socialist it should not be difficult to understand the origins of such phenomena - it is enough to remind oneself of those which occur in Ireland.
'Tony Benn is repeating a
myth of the bureaucracy'
Nonetheless, these ideological expressions were not the essence of Solidarnösc - any more than they are the essence of the national liberation of the Irish people. Its essence resides in its class instinct and a class practice which gives Solidarnösc the unmistakable stamp of a workers movement. In the course of setting up their organisations, through their collective struggle, the workers organised in Solidarnöse more and more consciously discovered the neccesity to totally reorganise society, the economy and the
Their aspirations at that time concentrated on a plan for workers self-management, for full power to the workers in the running of the enterprises and the whole economy, towards which end Solidarnösc commenced the building of workers councils. With Solidarnösc, Poland experienced one of the most International No 9 March: April 1987
POLAND advanced and audacious attempts to establish generalised workers' and social control, on the basis of a power as much economic as political.
Launching the slogan 'Give us back our factories the national congress of Solidarnöse adopted a programme which proclaimed the aspiration to construct a self-managed republic, on the basis of affirming the socialised character of the means of production, workers control and democratic planning, and greatly increased political democracy in the state.
This experience of self-management by the Polish working class deserves study and assimilation in the workers movement in other countries - In the countries of 'actually existing socialism' as much as in capitalist countries — even if they are almost completely ignored by socialists and trade unionists in Britain. Many of the latter prefer to denounce expressions of nationalism or clericalism in Solidarnösc rather than to help the British workers' movement to know the plans
experiences of Solidarnösc In the struggle for workers self-management.
Many people prefer to quote this or that document (such as the document put out by
clandestine leadership of Solidarnösc ' ideological pluralism, political democracy —
regarded as natural rights
since the French Revolution' quoted by Tony Benn) which difffer from the united programme collectively and democra-
adopted, which is the programme launched by the national congress of Solidarnösc in September 1981.
Contrary to what Tony Benn says, Solidarnösc did not want 'to overthrow the state' — although I am personally convinced it was a fundamental error of Solidarnöse not to have decided to suppress the militarybureaucratic apparatus of the state. Neither did it want to 'dismantle socialist planning' - in fact 'socialist planning' has never existed in Poland, and the bureaucratic 'planning' has been partially dismantled by the bureaucracy itself since that time. Neither did it want to 'reprivatise industry' as Tony
It is necessary to recall that democracy, workers self-management and trade union freedom are absolutely incompatible with the totalitarian nature of the regime which exists in Poland. Faced with this fact, which ought to be obvious to every socialist, Tony Benn sings the same song on the Polish drama which the Stalinist choir has been singing the length and breadth of the world.
Despite the bureaucratic-military dictatorship exercised over the Polish working class
civil society, which apparently merits this or that criticism, what is fundamentally important is what Jaruzelski prevented — 'to overthrow the regime, which would have meant a Soviet invasion, at great cost to the popularity of the Soviet Union'. Queer logic and a revolting view!
Obliged to go into clandestinity, in which it has remained for five years, despite ceaseless police persecution, the Polish workers movement Solidarnösc does not deserve in the eyes of Tony Benn, the defense, the solidarity and the support of socialists in the West.
On the contrary, socialists, according to Tony Benn, should be content that 'they (the
•... workers self management
and trade union freedom are
absolutely incompatible with
the totalitarian regime...' bureaucrats in power - ed) are trying to make the trade unions and parliament more independent'. What an amazing application of the principles of democratic socialism which attributes any independence to the official unions and parliament, when there is no trade union freedom nor free elections!
Positions on Poland and the Soviet bloc in general, such as those expressed by Tony Benn, divide movement and constitute a renunciation of the most,elementary requirements of workers international solidarity. These views serve perfectly the needs of all the governments of the countries of 'really existing socialism', as well as those of the governments of the capitalist countries (from Gorbachov to Reagan, from Thatcher to Jaruzelski).
All these forces have done everything in their power to isolate Solidarnösc and the workers of the Soviet bloc, from their natural allies — the workers, trade unionists and socialists of the capitalist countries. Is it an accident that the balance sheet of these positions is that they have a debilitating effect on the struggle? Have socialists in Britain not learned the lessons of the British miners' strike, in which Jaruzelski was an ally of Thatcher, sabotaging that strike with consignments of Polish coal?
The Alliance of the Workers OppositionSolidarnösc (POR-S), a left wing political organisation which has been formed in the heart of the Polish social movement in recent years, states in its manifesto: "The Polish working class is not isolated in the struggie. It has friends and allies abroad. They are the workers of the entire world. The Polish workers movement can and must draw on the strength of international workers solidarity. The differences between East and West cannot hide the fact that the workers of both camps are linked by common interests, by a common struggle for a common end - the transformation of the working class from object into subject — against common enemies. The question of international solidarity is one of close cooperation of the various national contingents of the revolutionary workers movement; it is one of interaction between the development of the struggle, for example, in Poland, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain.'
We hope we are not mistaken in hoping that British socialists like Tony Benn will adopt a similar position — and raise the banner of support and freedom for Solidarnösc. b 31