Polish underground socialist Opposition movement; Workers adopted a drait platform based on the concept bureaucratic revolution.
Copies of this platform and other documents of the Workers Opposition have been sent to the papers of the revolutionary left in Europe over the signature of Zbigniew Kowalewski. a former regional leader Solidarnose in the Lodz region.
Many readers of Socialist Viewpoint will recognise many of the positions argued by Workers Opposition as broadly similar to the Trotskyist conceptions of political revolution for the overthrow of Stalinist burecrucracies Eastern Europe and the defence of nationalised property relations through management.
Only the explict call for a revolutionary Marxist party to lead the struggle, and demands designed to mobilise organise the mass movement and combat the violent repression of the state machinery are missing from these initial draft texts, which mark a substantial political advance over the am..... GENERAL INFORMATION IN THE spring of 1985, a new socio-political current started to form within the Polish social movement. The editorial boards of four underground journals set up a co-ordinating that took the name the Workers Opposition Press" (PPOR).
They published a draft progamme around which they are seeking to bring together those forces that have declared themselves in favour of an antibureaucratic revolution, waged by the working class and aimed at achieving the full liberation of the working class.
the has of an anti- throughout workers A. Kreute and biguous formulations of the Solidarnose programme. Further Workers Opposition will be published in future issues of | Socialist Viewpoint. .. . .. immediate demands and of organisation themselves. committee *Alliance of the PPOR: Front Robotniczy, Sprawa Robotnicza, Glosno, Robotnick (Workers' Front, Workers working for are revolutionary left. published excerpts trom the Socialist Viewpoint No. 10 February 1985 p.25
new alliance Can aDARS material from tradition • • • The PPOR wants to contribute to the survival building and broadening the mass workers struggles around partial and self- the the workers The following journals have joined factories, and Wolny Silesia since Cause, Out Loud, Free Worker). The first two have been published since the summer of 1984 by groups that self- workers management and identify with the In its first issue, Front Robotniczy state in "Open
| Letter to the PZPR" written in 1964 by Jacek Kuron and Karol Mozelewski. In so doing, it demonstrated its intent to link up with the revolutionary
Cof the Polish antibureaucratic opposition, which, by the way, the authors of that work have today abandoned
For its part, Sprawa Robotnicza announced in its first issue that it considered Itself a link in the international working class community". It wrote, moreover, that it "has enemies with whom no accord or alliance can ever be concluded - they are the bureaucracy (that is, the social layer that exploits the workers); as well as the bourgeoisie, which guarantees bureaucracy. Of the long bankrupt
Wolny Robotnik is the organ of the Union of Workers Councils of the Polish Resistance Movement (ZRP. PRO). This organisation, which is based on clandestine groups in the
Thas operated in Upper 1982. In a draft programme published at the start, the SRP-PRO came out for overthrowing the bureaucratic dictatorship based on a general strike led by workers councils tormed clandestinely, and for establishing workers power in the
Border to guarantee the building of socialism.
Glosno is the organ of the Provi- sional Co-ordinating of the Mines (TKKG) of Solidarnose. operates in Upper Silesia. The TKKG has made itself known in the West by its support for the British miners strike, which attracted important notice in the British left and far left particular in the in press, Statesman and the London Labour Briefing The TKKG is a co-ordinating com- mittee of the undeground trade union commissions in many mines, conflict with the Regional Executive ••. .... • DRAFT PLATFORM 1. The Class Struggle The political struggle that has been going on in Poland since 1980, which has been generally termed a fight between the society and the regime, is primarily a class struggle. It is essentially a struggle between the working class, which is subjected to economic exploitation and deprived of all political or economic power, and the bureaucratic state power, which is based on the PZPR, as well as on the military and police machine and the economic and administrative apparatus. Only the working class has the capacity to overthrow the bureaucracy, and it is only thanks to it that the social groups can liberate themselves from the yoke of the bureaucracy. 2. Self-management The fundamental aim of our struggle is to get the working class to transform itself from an object into a subject. This will only be possible through a system of generalised Such a system would involve self- management councils in the enterprises, linked together by horizontal and vertical structures on the regional and national scale, as well as institutions of self- management organised on a Self-management, a form of direct political and economic democracy, will thus become the principal factor in organising social and poltical life. 3. Political pluralism Self-management can only function in conditions of unrestricted political pluralism. It cannot be foreseen today what will be the exact forms of the social organisations and representative bodies set up.
Commission (RKW) of Solidarnosc, which is It also underground national leadership of the union. Commission that includes a representative of each of its components and functions by consensus in order to New maintain their autonomy. This commission is responsible for the publication of a common monthly bulletin called Prze/om (Breach), issue of which appeared at the end of and is in the autumn of 1985.
• be the role of the free elections to the Diet that we would like to see. But it is clear from the start that the principle of political pluralism has to govern all torms of participation in political life for the society. 4. The revolutionary struggle The transformation of the working only possible through revolutionary changes. The beliet in the that could prove fatal.
In fact, there is no way to reconcile the introduction of a system of sell-management, that is, the bureaucracy.
One course for the antibureaucratic uprising could be a revolutionary general strike turning into an active strike (i.e., a takeover of the factories by the workers), supported by actions outside the factories.
It is only in such revolutionary conditions that we could expect a soldiers, to join in the uprising of the working class, when they see 5. Self-organisation requires a revolutionary strategy, that is, a strategy based on consistently advancing the self-organisation of the working class.
Such self-organisation is the the development of the workers' struggle, from the present fight for partial objectives to the future struggle for a system of selfof self-management will find its fullest expression.
Every battle, even on the most limited question, bears within it an
representing the
The PPOR has formed an Executive
elements: the first • • • •• allied with it.
We cannot say exactly what will class from an object into a subject is possibility of a compromise with the bureaucracy is a dangerous illusion
principal task. the realisation of the interests of the working class, with the domination of
movement part of the army, primarily