1. Since summer 1981 the rise of the political revolution in Poland has entered a new stage with the emergence of workers councils and their local and regional coordination. As a result, the self-management movement has taken on an explosive antibureaucratic dynamic. This step forward of the political revolution corresponds to a deepening polarization of the dual power situation which has characterized political and social developments in Poland since the powerful rise of the working masses self-organization in Solidarity and various "social movements."
The need to take effective emergency measures, initiated by and under the direct control of the workers, is increasingly seen as necessary among broad layers of the working class, given the seriousness of the economic crisis. There is a fall in industrial production, shortage of consumer goods, an erosion of economic links between the towns and the countryside, sky-rocketing prices on the black market, failure of the rationing system, catastrophic decline in housebuilding levels, the cancellation of numerous productive investment projects, etc.
Protest movements and strikes continually break out against the shortages or against various measures of intimidation by the authorities. The masses' sense of their own strength, their general attitude, as well as their rebellious initiatives against the bureaucratic regime, force the regime to retreat and increase its paralysis.
In this context the masses themselves seek to fill the vacuum left by the regime through attempts at self-organization going from the stage of protest, of control, to making decisions and even management. This was expressed at the Solidarity congress, not only by the adoption of the theme of the "Self-governed Polish Republic," but also by the explicit questioning of the government's and party's right to decide the major social and economic options on behalf of the workers (the demand for the referendum on self-management, then the decision to organize a referendum on key questions of the law adopted by the Sejm [parliament]).
2. Given the impossibility for the bureaucracy of confronting the powerful mass movement head-on, the orientation of the leaders of the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP, the Communist Party) has been to play for time, to make agreements and then go back on them. They seek to divide Solidarity, even to integrate a part of its leadership. They limit themselves to selective repression — today there are more than 200 cases pending against Solidarity militants — in order to accentuate divisions among the cadres of the independent trade union.
With the "help" of fatigue and the negative effects of the crisis in basic supplies, the bureaucracy hopes to bring about a first downturn in popular mobilizations. It blows hot and cold. It appeals for "national harmony" and at the same time tries to throw the responsibility for the effects of the economic crisis on the shoulders of Solidarity. In fact, all this must create the conditions for harsher repression, for a counterattack to defend its power and caste privileges.
For the bureaucracy, the "ideal solution" would be a counterrevolutionary blow in which the Kremlin's armed forces would only play a backup role. In this way they would avoid a confrontation in which the national question would play a central and catastrophic role for the Polish and Soviet bureaucracies. It is with this perspective in mind that sectors of the PUWP are endeavoring to establish special intervention forces inside the army and police.
The continuous rise of the self-organization, politicization, and radicalization of the working masses had repercussions inside the PUWP, which has in turn increased the crisis of bureaucratic domination. A million party members are also members of Solidarity. The fact that it is the party of a governing bureaucracy does not mean that it will not be affected by the shock waves of movements that arise in the Polish working class. The process of dislocation of the PUWP preceded and then accompanied the very deep crisis of the state apparatus. It was therefore necessary for the party to get its own house in order before being able to "restore order" in the country. This could not be done on a "status quo" line, given the depth of the crisis and breadth of the mass movement. The PUWP had to have a "renewal" congress. The aim of the congress was to reestablish the bureaucracy's control in the party under the least damaging conditions, with a view to achieving its fundamental objective; to reestablish its control over the country, to channel, hold back, and then break the mass movement.
This PUWP congress was unable to resolve the crisis of the bureaucratic regime, nor modify the relationship of forces between the bureaucracy and the masses — which has become more and more unfavorable to the bureaucrats.
The defeat of the democratic opposition inside the PUWP (the horizontal structures) further strengthened the impression of the masses that "renewal" Kania-style was not a true reform of the bureaucratic regime but a simple tactic to sidetrack the workers. The workers are not fools. There was, nevertheless, a certain restoration of control in the party apparatus. But even the apparatus remains vulnerable and new divisions will appear under the bodyblows of the rising political revolution.
Just after the PUWP congress the sense of a power vacuum was confirmed. The economic crisis and its consequences were becoming increasingly insupportable for the masses. Conditions were very open for new, audacious, mass-based initiatives such as the "hunger marches" and the challenge to the government's right to nominate managers (at Lot, Huta Katowice) as well as struggles against censorship.
3. Once the economic crisis, combined with the massive independent organization of the workers, had placed the need for a thoroughgoing economic reform before the whole country, self-management became the question of the hour in Poland.
It was posed within the bureaucracy and government, with a preventive aim, at practically the same time that it was being raised inside Solidarity and in the workplaces. But during the first period, which lasted nearly a year, the struggle for self-management suffered from three handicaps:
A. It became lost in a largely ideological and legalistic debate, reflecting the weight of experts cut off from the main concerns of the working class and sometimes influenced by petty-bourgeois and bourgeois ideologies.
B. It came up against many working-class cadres' memories of the lamentable failure of the 1956-57 self-management experience, which was completely reabsorbed and reintegrated by the bureaucracy. It also conflicted with the desire to maintain the Solidarity trade union above all as an instrument to defend the workers immediate interests, in particular with the power of control (and veto) over the bureaucracy's decisions.
C. It was also held back initially by a widely held illusion among the masses that Solidarity could impose on the government an economic policy which took into account the workers interests.
The attitude of the working-class vanguard began to change in June-July 1981. Given the delay, inconsistency, and antiworker character of the "economic reform" prepared by the bureaucracy and the growing disorganization of production, many workers in the big factories started to take control measures, establish inventories, and discuss production plans. Real living experience and practice resolved the question of whether the Solidarity structures should be used for economic management. Instead the workers themselves created workers councils, closely linked to Solidarity. Councils or committees taking the initiatives to set up such councils exist today in a thousand workplaces. In various regions — Lodz, Lublin, Warsaw, Silesia, etc. — "founding committees for the coordination of workers councils" have been set up.
Several national meetings of council delegates were organized at the initiative of the Network of Solidarity Organizations in Leading Factories and the Working Group for Interregional Self-management Coordination Initiatives. The latter wants to stimulate national coordination of the councils.
The workers self-organization movement is therefore clearly orienting towards the creation of new ad hoc bodies tending to take in hand the management of the economy. More and more the debate has shifted from the ideological level to a confrontation between several proposals for the practical functioning of self-management.
4. In a schematic way one can distinguish three variants of self-management proposals, reflecting different social-political choices and corresponding to different class interests and different social layers.
A. The government proposal, expressing the interests of the leading layer of the bureaucracy (the bureaucracy of the party and state), which aims above all to empty the masses' desire for self-management of any substance. The essential decisions would remain in the hands of the bureaucracy, who furthermore would use market mechanisms more widely. At the workplace level, elected worker representatives would be associated with administering and taking responsibility for fundamental choices over which they had had no decision-making power. The clear aim of this project is to get the workers to take responsibility for an austerity policy, to divide and demoralize them one step at a time. In the best of cases this proposal would make self-management a minor reform of bureaucratic management (such as the Hungarian model).
B. The proposal from the moderate experts from Solidarity and the "independent" economists, which expresses the interests of a layer of managers inside the bureaucracy. This so-called self-management is based above all on the financial and decision-making autonomy of the enterprises. It involves giving broader power to the directors as well as extensive recourse to the marketing mechanism, in opposition to the needs of a really planned economy and to the interests of the workers, both in social terms and as concerns management itself.
C. A proposal which responds to working-class interests, several elements of which have already been defined by a working-class left wing inside Solidarity. In order to be put forward as a practical alternative, it must become more precise by defending a form of workers self-management that extends to all levels and therefore is democratically planned. Bureaucratically centralized planning would be replaced by democratic planning, where the central objectives and priorities of the plan would be determined by the workers as a whole, by democratic votes after public discussions and debates involving the whole nation. Within this framework that would express the choices of the workers as a whole, self-management would operate by sector of production, region, locality, and in each workplace for all decisions that could be validly made at each of these levels. Direct consultations of the whole population, worker-peasant conferences, and producer-consumer conferences would complete the institutions of workers self-management.
These three proposals are not technical variants, but rather express different social interests. It is therefore necessary to resolutely fight for the third proposal, the only one that conforms to the immediate and historical interests of the working class. The other two proposals do not permit the workers to have real decision-making power over their lives, whether as producers, consumers, or citizens. In the two other cases the real economic decisions will be imposed on the workers by the bureaucracy or by the "laws of the market" or by a combination of the two. These two other proposals tend to considerably increase social inequality and to split the unity of the workers into sectoral, regional, corporate, or local interests that become increasingly contradictory. They also imply an inevitable attack on full employment and the massive reappearance of unemployment. In this sense only the third proposal is an authentically socialist perspective expressing workers self-management.
5. The movement towards economic self-management also poses the necessity for political power to be directly exercised by the working class. Even in restricting themselves to actions of controlling and challenging government decisions, the Solidarity trade unions are fulfilling the de facto function of a counter-power.
The struggle for the abolition of censorship, for free access to the mass media is in fact a struggle to break the monopoly on political power exercised by the PUWP, the party of the bureaucracy. This thrust has led to the demand for the legalization of tendencies and political parties. The Solidarity congress included the idea of "political pluralism" in the program it adopted. If one adds the beginnings of a massive trade unionization of the police and the appeals made by Solidarity sections to the soldiers, one can understand the extent of the challenge of the bureaucracy's power.
In the working masses, a powerful sense of confidence in their own strength has taken hold, nourished by the many successes won over the last year. From this point of view the Solidarity congress represents a turning point on the political level. The bureaucracy's attempt at intimidation, in hopes that the second part of the congress would take a step backward in relation to the first session or would at least not deepen the radicalization has, moreover, fallen flat. The compromise on self-management between the government and the Solidarity Presidium has been overturned.
The confidence of the Polish workers in themselves was above all expressed in a formidable explosion of workers democracy during this Solidarity congress, not only at the level of the congress itself, but also at the workplace level, where workers assemblies met almost daily to discuss what was happening at their congress. Thousands of messages and telegrams from Solidarity branches exerted a constant pressure on the delegates at the congress. This confidence was expressed at the second congress session by the protest against the decision to raise prices and by the way in which the minister, constrained to explain himself and the government measures before the congress, was sent packing. This congress session was in fact the meeting of a sovereign assembly, the assembly of the embryonic workers power that is rising up in Poland today.
6. The deepening of the dual power situation poses, on the level of political institutions, questions analogous to those raised by the discussion on self-management. Behind the different proposals presented inside Solidarity regarding the new political institutions that need to be created, there are different political-ideological currents expressing the interests of different classes and social layers.
The proposal that most conforms to the interests of the working class and to the achievement of the aims of the political revolution, at the present stage, is that of the free election of a second chamber of the Sejm by all the self-management bodies, with multiple slates of candidates. This second chamber would be a chamber of workers councils and other self-management bodies (territorial, etc.).
This proposal would permit not only the creation of dual-power bodies and the centralization of those that already exist, but also would take the working masses through the initial experiences of true workers power. In these conditions, the first chamber of the Sejm would very rapidly see its area of responsibility correspondingly reduced. In Poland today the social weight of the working class would ensure it a large majority in the second chamber.
The idea of free elections to the Sejm obviously cannot be rejected. But today to focus the masses' activity on this demand could lead to a confrontation with the bureaucracy on a terrain that is less favorable to the masses than that of self-management. Furthermore, this approach does not make it possible to resolve the fundamental problem that confronts the Polish workers: bureaucratic power or workers power.
Finally, the centralization of self-management in a second chamber of the Sejm — which is not counterposed to the demand for free elections on the municipal and regional level — is certainly more effective in standing up to a final attempt by the bureaucracy to save its power through a big maneuver of "national reconciliation," bringing together the PUWP, the moderate, conciliationist wing of the Solidarity leadership, and the Church hierarchy. Similar proposals along these lines have been made — on the pretext of the extremely sharp economic crisis — by forces like Stefan Olszowski, a leader of the PUWP, Catholic intellectuals, very representative experts, and certain leaders of Solidarity. Such a "national unity" government would have the aim of committing Solidarity to comanagement of the crisis and consequently would rapidly break down its unity and that of the working class. The election of a self-management chamber would, on the other hand, maintain the unity of the workers and express in the clearest way their thrust toward power.
Any plan for workers self-management and its centralization must provide a satisfactory response to the needs of the workers and the independent peasant smallholders. In fact the bureautically-imposed restrictions and financial conditions for the allocation of intermediary and productive goods (fertilizer, agricultural machinery, etc.) to the independent peasants exacerbates the agricultural crisis. This crisis introduces tensions that could increase between the working class and a sector of the peasants. To respond to this and cement the worker-peasant alliance, close cooperation between the workers councils and the peasant smallholders organized in Rural Solidarity needs to be developed in order to control distribution and give priority to plans to produce manufactured goods for agriculture.
7. Up to now the radicalization and the politicization of the working class and Solidarity cadres has taken place on the basis of increasingly sharp hostility against the bureaucracy, its government, and party. This radicalization indiscriminately favors all those tendencies appearing to be the most hostile to the ruling regime. This was inevitable given the conditions of ideological confusion born of thirty years of Stalinist dictatorship and the bureaucracy's discrediting of Marxism and communism. It was also due to the weight acquired by the church as a function of its role — requested and tolerated by the bureaucracy — as the only semilegal opposition force in the country during the last twenty-five years. Nationalist and right-wing tendencies such as the KPN (Confederation for an Independent Poland) have thus been able to acquire a certain base in the working class, partly because of those tendencies that vacillated when faced with the bureaucratic regime.
Around the question of economic self-management and the institutionalization of the masses' political power, political differentiation and a sifting out process are developing that lead to a "reshuffling" of the political forces in play. Already for the election of the chairmanship and national leadership of Solidarity, different tendencies began to be organized — running the gamut from the KPN to a revolutionary socialist left, which was especially representative of the thrust toward workers self-management.
While the masses' desire for national sovereignty has been an important element in the upsurge of the movement, today the national question is becoming a significant factor in political differentiation. Despite its nationalist demagogy, the bureaucracy is still seen as owing its power to the support given it by the Kremlin. The right-wing political tendencies present themselves not only as the sharpest opponents of the power of the Polish bureaucracy, but also as the incarnation of the ideal of national sovereignty against the Soviet bureaucracy. Those are the two principal sources of their popularity.
However each further step in the workers' radicalization and politicization will increasingly draw out the contradictions and ambiguities of the KPN and all the other right-wing political tendencies that are seen in Poland. Workers increasingly demand a combination national sovereignty and economic-political workers power; The KPN and right-wing tendencies are opposed to workers power. National sovereignty implies that the Polish working masses should be masters of their own fate. But an increased opening to the Western economy, recommended by the right, would place decision-making power over the Polish economy in the hands of the "world market," the Western bankers, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The cases of Peru, Turkey, and Zaire demonstrate what happens to "national sovereignty" in these conditions.
Therefore the revolutionary socialists will increasingly appear as the authentic and uncompromising representatives of national sovereignty and workers power, of true workers self-management, which must base itself on the extraordinary strength of the mass movement and which cannot "limit" itself without the risk of becoming eroded.
8. Both the Soviet bureaucracy and its allies, and imperialism and its allies, continue to exert constant pressure against the rising political revolution in Poland. Whatever may be the tactical variants through which this pressure is exercised, it has a single and unique objective: to prevent the Polish working class from winning and directly exercising political power, to break its combative spirit. The attempt to "moderate" and then integrate Solidarity into the bureaucratic system and to prepare for repression are two sides of the same policy.
While the attack from the Soviet bureaucracy is more open and without pretense (threats, blackmail of an economic boycott before the winter), it has been combined now for several months with attempts to divide the leadership of Solidarity and to link up with at least a wing of it, which conforms to the plans of the Polish bureaucracy. The most striking move in this direction was the letter from the chief of the Hungarian trade unions, Sander Gaspar, to the second session of the Solidarity congress. These maneuvers also reflect a more differentiated reaction from the Soviet bureaucracy, faced with the risks that the Polish example could spread to countries of its zone of influence and inside the USSR. The appeal to the workers of the Eastern European countries, made by the Solidarity congress and massively printed in all their languages, constitutes a new, worrying alarm signal for the bureaucracy. In the same way, it also must find highly disturbing the various appeals made to Polish troops such as the one made by the regional leadership of Solidarity in Piotrkow Trybunalski, which called on the soldiers to remain "in solidarity with the nation" and "not to let themselves be used for the defense of the interests of a small group of men who hold power thanks to the nomenklatura system."
Imperialism has camouflaged its constant economic pressure on the Polish revolution behind public declarations of its sympathy. But things are much clearer in reality. Financial pressure remains strong. The extension of the period for the repayment of debts is combined with the imposition of usurious interest rates. The West German capitalists have raised the demand that Poland affiliate to the IMF. Food aid remains far below Polish needs, and far below the real possibilities of imperialist countries, which are staggering under the weight of unsold food surpluses, with food ending up being destroyed.
Up to now the solidarity effort of the Western workers movement with the Polish workers has been by and large deficient. Sometimes the existence of a dominant Catholic influence within Solidarity is used as a pretext for this inactivity. But this passivity is, in fact, primarily due to a fear by the trade union bureaucrats, both from the Communist and Socialist parties, that the example of a trade union really run by its members, of an exemplary trade-union democracy with a recognized right of tendencies, of a dynamic toward authentic workers self-management could become contagious inside the working class of capitalist Europe. Given the plans to manage the capitalist austerity, in which all these bureaucrats are implicated to varying degrees, the Polish "disease" is as dangerous for them as it is for the Soviet bureaucracy.
In the face of all these threats and attacks, and this insufficient solidarity, the Fourth International must continue to put all its weight behind the mobilization, on the largest possible basis of unity, of a vast movement of effective solidarity with the rising political revolution in Poland. The main axes of this solidarity campaign are the following:
• Hands off the struggle of the Polish workers to become masters of their own destiny!
• An immediate moratorium on the debt service and the annulment of all Poland's foreign debts!
• All the mass organizations of the international workers movement, as well as all the governments who claim to represent the workers, should make contact with Solidarity in order to insure massive food and medical aid to the Polish working masses under Solidarity's control!
Establishing and building this solidarity campaign will facilitate the struggle against probourgeois and reactionary ideological tendencies in Poland itself, and will make it possible in Poland to extend the solidarity movement with the revolutionary and anti-imperialist movements underway throughout the world.
Translating this into action, as with all the tasks posed by the political revolution in Poland, calls for the close unity of all revolutionary socialists, who are simultaneously implacable foes of capitalist exploitation, the imperialist governments, and the Polish and Soviet bureaucracy.