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From Survey, International Socialism (1st series), No.40,October/November 1969, pp.7-9.
Translated by Anna Paczuska.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
On the whole, the present situation in Poland bears out the analysis made by Kuron and Modzelewski, although since the publication of their document it has undergone certain changes. The signs of domestic crisis are constantly apparent – even increasing prices are rising significantly, disproportionately to the small increase in wages. The apparent rise in the standard of living is due only to the rise in employment. For practical purposes, virtually all adults are employed, the majority have more than one job (working on average about 10 hours daily six days a week). This must inevitably lead to the continued relative decrease in the rate of production. Thus the necessary concessions made by the bureaucracy to the better living standard of the people have caused a decrease in investment and a fall in exports. [1]
The crisis in the housing situation is growing. In large towns it is necessary to wait five to 10 years for your own small flat. People are living in overcrowded conditions. Young married couples often have to live apart. This situation prevails despite the shifting of the cost of construction from the state to the future tenants. The long-term crisis explains the stand taken by the Polish bureaucracy on many questions, international and internal. For example, Poland is the chief advocate of economic and political integration with the rest of the KOMEKON – chiefly as a result of the desperate situation with Polish exports to the West, which is markedly worse than that of other East European countries.
On the political scene, the internal crisis, more so than personal ambitions, has sparked off factional fighting within the bureaucracy. The governing group is attacked both by the right wing nationalist group and by the technocrats. The left wing, which revived its activity during the events in Czechoslovakia, has been smashed and deprived of all influence within the party.
It has to be stated clearly, however, that these fights within the bureaucracy arouse no emotions in the public. They are regarded in much the same way as horse races, with the knowledge that no individual victory can in any way change the way of life.
The universal and undisguised disgust with the bureaucracy sometimes takes on the dimensions of observable political actions. The official sources of propaganda do not give out news on the Sporadic strikes, but news of them is widely circulated among the people. As a result of the situation in Poland the strikes are mainly economically motivated, less frequently they touch the question of the organisation of production.
In a few factories solidarity strikes have blown up. One of the newspapers in Krakow (Cracow) included a note about dozens of people reporting to first aid centres as a result of being mauled by dogs at their place of work. This was the only official report of the brutal breaking-up of a strike in one of the largest steel combines in Nowa Huta. [2]
Official propaganda blames the cause of the confusion on the enemies of the State and class enemies (Zionists, imperialists, the ‘golden youth’, the native and foreign bourgeoisie, revisionist elements in the party and the intelligentsia, Czech agents and West German trouble-makers). Initially this deceived the people in the provinces who had no direct contact with students. Only prolonged propaganda in addition to various administrative manoeuvers such as the class criteria pertaining to university entry, succeeded in dividing public opinion. The bureaucracy managed to arouse the anti-intellectual and nationalistic (anti-Semitic and anti-Czech) instincts of a significant portion of the population. The base for these sentiments is provided by the traditionally reactionary and Catholic sector of the older generation. On the other hand, there is hardly any support for these views among the younger generation, with the exception perhaps of careerists in the youth organisations.
Actions brought against activists in strikes and the expulsion of many from universities has considerably weakened the student movement. Propaganda ‘exposed’ all those with Jewish names and those connected (often only by family ties), with ‘doubtful’ personalities in high places. At the same time it was announced that parents would be responsible for the activities of their children, which greatly increased the pressure of public opinion opposing student agitators. In the same way intellectual groupings and Liberal Catholic opposition were silenced.
Leafletting activities led to the formation of a left student movement. Politically connected [3] with the programme of Kuron and Modzelewski, this group is the remnant of that network existing in 1968 which co-ordinated the activities of students in various centres. It has activists in nearly every academic institution, so leafletting activities (e.g., on May 1, 1968 and 1969, and on the occasion of the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the first anniversary of the strikes of students in their places of learning) were carried out simultaneously in many colleges. Otherwise, despite political repression, fragmentation by means of artificial social divisions, indoctrination and spying as a result of the activities of official youth organisations, the student environment is constantly stimulated politically. This is demonstrated by talks and discussions, by demonstrations in the lecture halls during the trials of fellow students, the spontaneous expressions of solidarity with workers who have been sacked from their jobs, and with those who have been sent down from their studies, and total ‘isolation’ of members of the official youth organisations. Thus the left revolutionary movement potentially has a large support among students, but, at the present moment there are few opportunities for organisation.
The rest of the population, absorbed with the difficulties of everyday existence, and stupefied by propaganda both from the party and bourgeois environments (foreign radio stations), appears to be awaiting any change. The experiences of Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia during the years 1958-68 have led to the predominance of a pessimistic certainty that the essential changes needed in Poland, are not possible without preceding changes in the USSR. It seems that this pessimism is, in part at least, justified.
1. This paragraph is somewhat disjointed in the original. – AP
2. A large industrial area just outside Krakou (Cracow).
3. Literally it says ‘tied up with’.
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