[page 23]
POLAND'S WINTER OF DISCONTENT attempt to rid themselves of the rate of 7% in the years 1951-1972 entire population over 7 years old in 24 By Kevin Ramage Polish Jaroszewicz, the Minister at the recent 8th Congress of the United Workers Party' chairman), a recent visitor, reports (Communist Party) reflects the enormous hidden tensions in Polish economic problems-especially a fall of 2% in National product in 1979—have led to calls by the leadership for 'austerity'. In the next period, as in 1956 and 1970, Polish workers will once again begin new struggles in an of National Income at an average This article was written in June 1980. An appendix has been added dealing with more recent events. The sudden 'resignation' of Piotr burden of rule by a privileged Prime bureaucratic elite. Kevin Ramage (LPYS National on the developing situation in Poland.
The enormous development of overthrow of capitalism in 1945 has been achieved by the efforts of the working class despite the dead weight of the bureaucratic bungling and mis-management. The growth (compared with a world average of 5%) is a clear vindication of the benefits and strengths of a planned economy which is based in Poland on the nationalisation of 80% of the means of production, as against the anarchy of capitalism. The 13 times increase in industrial production since 1937 speaks for itself in the language of steel, concrete, roads and railways. The social advances based on this development have been enormous. Illiteracy, which stood at 20% of the
[page 24]
1945 has now been reduced to 10% (mainly old people) in the rural areas, and only 2.4% in urban areas. The education system, which suffered from the destruction of 60% of buildings during the second world war has beem completely rebuilt. The propontion of gross national product spent on education in Poland (65) is five times that of Britaim (1.3%).
Average class sizes all 62 in 1937/8 have been reduced to 23 im 1979. 63,000 go to university every year. In the field of medicine, Poland now has 18 doctors per 10,000 of the population compared with a figure for Brittalm of 13.1 per 10,000.
These examples, and many more, social and ecomomic, are a devastating amswer to those reactionaries like the Tories and Solzhenitsyn who oppose the concept of a planned ecotony. It is at the same time also a crushing refutation of those sectarian groups the fringe of the Labour on Movement who for years proclaimed Poland to be "state capitalist'. Apart from solitary example of Japam major capitalist country has had such a rate of development in the last 50 years. However, today these gains are being threatemed by the existence of the massive deadweight represented by the Stalinist bureaucracy.
In 1939, Poland, a semi-feudal country with very little industry, was invaded by Hitler's armies, which advanced up to a common border agreed with Stalin in the terms of the Stalin-Hitler "nonaggression pact. The bulk of the capitalist class in Poland quickly found itself comfortably co-operating with the Nazi's government of occupation-preferring collaboration and continued profits to any kind of resistance. The resistance movement, as in other countries such as France, Italy and Yugoslavia was organised by workers and peasants, and in particular by Socialist and Communist Party militants.
During the occupation 6 million, 20% of the entire population, died. Along with the barbaric massacre of millions of Jews, hundreds of thousands of trade unionists, activists and communist workers were also murdered Despite this, in 1944, the workers of Warsaw organised a courageous uprising with the aim of speeding the defeat of the Nazis and aiding the Red Army in liberating Poland. But the Russian Bureaucracy feared nothing more than a situation where armed workers would have controlled Warsaw before the entrance of the Red Army. Under these circumstances, the workers would never accept the imposition of rule by a privileged élite.
advance was halted on Warsaw's outskirts by its chiefs in Moscow until the Nazis had crushed the uprising. When the Nazis retreated in early 1945, in the face of the rapidly advancing Red Army, the Polish Quisling bourgeoisie, the industrialists, police chiefs and others who had collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation fled with them. Workers' State Engels explained long ago that the state, in the final analysis consisted of 'armed bodies of men'. in June 1945, the In Poland capitalist state ceased to exist. The *armed bodies of men'
who controlled the streets, factories etc were the Red Army, controlled by the Russian bureaucracy. The Polish bourgeoisie, never strong in a country that had barely emerged from feudalism, had largely fled the country, fearing punishment for their collaboration with the Nazis. Manoeuvring between the classes of Polish society, and backed up by the might of the Russian Red Army, the Polish Stalinists occupied key positions in the state 25 administration.
A fake 'coalition' in which the 'Communist' Party had the decisive Ministries such as the Interior, Army and Police, was set up. But this new edition of the 'popular front' was fundamentally different to the coalition governments with bourgeois parties in France and Spain in the 1930s. As in these countries, the Stalinists entered a coalition, not with the bourgeoisie (which had all but vanished from the scene, but with the shadow of the bourgeois state. The weakness of capitalism in Poland meant that the task of elbowing aside the pathetic remnants of the bourgeoisie presented the Stalinists with no great problem. As Trotsky once remarked: to kill a tiger you need a shotgun, but to crush a louse, two fingernails will suffice. Having succeeded in eliminating any threat of independent movements of the Polish workers, the Stalinists, once they felt themselves securely in the saddle, moved to snuff out what remained of capitalism, resting on the support of the workers and peasants in doing so.
A plan of production and state apparatus were established in the image of Moscow. Not Lenin's Moscow of 1917, based on workers' democracy, but the Stalinist bureaucratic dictatorship of 1945. The Russian bureaucracy feared like the plague the development of democracy in Poland which would mean the ending of their power and privileges.
example of a healthy workers' state in Poland would have stood out like a beacon to workers throughout Eastern Europe, and in the capitalist countries in many of which revolutionary movements developed in the closing stages of the war. Nevertheless, despite all its monstrous bureaucratic deformations, the new regime marked a decisive break with feudalism and capitalism. On the basis of the nationalised economy and five year plans, Polish society went forward with giant strides.
[page 25]
26
1956
At the 20th Congress of the Soviet 'Communist Party' came the Revelations' of Khrushche's destalinisation' speech. 30 years after the event, one section of the bureaucracy had decided, in order to fend off the risk of a social explosion, to lift part of the veil around some of the worst excesses of Stalinism. There was never any attempt to analyse how the bureaucracy established its position of power and privilege. Neither was i here any rectification of the lies and slanders that had been heaped against Trotsky and many other former Bolshevik leaders. To do that would have meant condemning themselves. Nevertheless, the revelations had a profoundly unsettling effect in Eastern Europe.
Eleven years of domination from Moscow, during which time the bureaucracy squeezed $20,000m in reparations from its East European satellites, had led to growing anti-Russian sentiments. This was especially marked in Poland, a country with a history of hundreds of years of national oppression by Russia. Thus when a general strike began in the Poznan area in the summer of 1956, the nationalist wing of the Polish bureaucracy were able to de-rail the developing movement along anti-Russian lines. Gomulka, who was released from jail to become 'party leader' acted above all to prevent the spread of the workers' councilsembryonic soviets-which were set up spontaneously by the workers in the course of the general strike. The bureaucracy had made many concessions, including accepting the existence of the workers' councils for 18 months, anything to preserve its basic control of society. In order to gain support in the countryside, Gomulka handed back to the peasants 80% of the land, which had been bureaucratically nationalised in 1945. This was done not on the basis of the encouragement of co-operatives, but by the creation of a large number of tiny, inefficient individual farms. Agriculture, and thus
Queuing
im
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2
the whole economy is still paying
the price of this move today. The
Russian bureaucracy was prepared
to put up with these measures and
even Gomulka's nationalistic prop-
aganda as long as the threat of
workers' democracy was headed off.
The movement which developed
in Hungary a few months later took
a fundamentally different course.
The two general strikes, and two
armed insurrections, which took
place either side of the Russian
intervention (the Russian troops
which had beem stationed in
Hungary before 1956 were comp-
letely unreliable and had to be
withdrawn) were on class lines.
This was clearly shown when
Gomulka supported the crushing of
the Hungarian workers" uprising.
After the war, under the impetus
of a planned economy, and
particularly after 1956 the intro-
duction of modern technology
made a very rapid growth in the
economy possible, but as the
economy developed, so too did the
contradiction within it. The increasing participation world trade after 1956 om the part of the bureaucracy showed how utopian the 'theory" of "socialism in one country' is. While the increased participation in world trade undoubtedly brought bemefits in the short term, it was at the expense of importing many of the "products' of the developing crisis within the capitalist system, such as inflation, and foreing a greater proportion of production to be exported to pay foreign exchange debts, with the accumulating : interest charges on these debts.
From a position of being a relative fetter. limiting the potential growth of production, the existance of the bureaucracy became increasingly an absolute fetter. The more an economy develops, the more complex the relationship between different sectors of the economy become, the more and more urgent is the need for every section of the working class to be involved in planning production.
In addition to these problems, the bureaucracy's over-rapid ind-
ustrialisation in the 1960s which
was carried out with no reference to
the strengths and weaknesses of the
economy—as in Russia in the
1930s—led to economic dislo-
cation, and shortages of many basic
and vital products.
Economic Crisis
Today
By 1970, the beginning of
stagnation in the economy, and
food shortages a product of the
reforms of 1956) led to an attempt
by the bureaucracy to 'solve'
shortages by raising prices of food,
fuel and rent by 10-30%. Immedi-
ately the workers gave their answer.
Workers in the Baltic shipyard
towns such as Gdansk and Gdynia
and the coal mining area of
Krakow and Katowice led the
uprising. They occupied factories,
shipyards and mines. In several
areas workers' committees—genuine elected bodies of workers'
representatives from the factories, shipyards, etc, appeared. Very quickly the bureaucracy withdrew the price rises. Instead, fearful of
the situation 'getting out of hand' they introduced massive subsidies on many prices, aided by the Russian bureaucracy which feared the movement might spread over frontiers into the USSR. Again, on June 25th 1976, 'overnight' food price rises of 45% were met by mass strikes, demonstrations, and the ripping up of railway tracks. Within days they were withdrawn as a 'Mistake! Since then the bureaucracy in Poland has been walking a tightrope, with an economy beset by shortages and bottlenecks and a strengthened, confident young working class. Today 55% of the Polish population live in towns compared with 31.8% in 1946 and half of the population is under 28. Today the bureaucracy is terrified of openly increasing prices-nevertheless inflation in 1979 has been unofficially estimated at between 11 and 19%. This despite the massive subsidies which cost an estimated 7.9bn zloties ($250 million at official exchange rates) in 1970 (current prices), now
amount to a massive 170bn zloties
—about $5.5bn. As these subsidies
have become an intolerable burden
on the economy, the bureaucracy
now has to introduce price
increases surreptitiously by prod-
uct changes' and the presence of
the 'commercial' sector (private
rented shops) where the state does
not control prices, and many goods
are now only available in 'commer-
cial' shops. Poland's foreign debt
has more than doubled, from
$7,000m in 1975 to $17,000m in
1979, which means more and more
industry and agricultural product-
ion must be geared to the export
market. This in turn leaves
shortages, and frequently large
queues for the basics of life
(especially meat).
While Poland does not officially
have unemployment (the 'right to
work' is written into the constit-
ution), many officials accept that
youth, and especially young stud-
ents now have to "lower their job
expectation'. At the same time
50,000 youth who have 'fallen foul of the law or the authorities' are involved in the so called 'voluntary' labour corps. Strangely enough 35,000 of these are involved in unskilled construction work, a field where there is a labour shortage, at rates clearly below the normal for the job!
Industrial production only grew 2.8% in 1979 compared with the target of 5.8% (which itself was modest compared with the average since World War Two of 8.9%). Overall national income fell by 2% in 1979. This was largely due to the fall in industrial growth, a bad winter which helped cause agricultural output to fall by 1.4%, and the enormous drain of servicing foreign loans. The target growth for 1980 has been scaled down even lower to between 1.4% and 1.8%, a figure low even by expectations of many capitalist economies. According to the government publication Polish Perspectives: *investment in 1980 is only planned to be 600bn zloties, 53bn less than in 1979—a fall of 8% in absolute terms, or allowing for inflation
[page 27]
28
far nearer to 20%. This will in turn mean a further decline in growth of industry and productivity in the tuture."
It is these kind of economic problems which lead to the bureaucracy increasingly bearing down on the working class. Gierek the party leader, speaking at the recent CP Congress has told workers that they face five years of austerity and that real incomes would grow by only 9-11% in that period.
In a report to the 'Communist Party, a group of 50 Party officials point out that Poland is facing an acute crisis which has embraced basic fields of social, political, and economic life'
Another official report commented: The development of socialist Poland-as is the case with any kind of development-is accompanied unavoidably by complications in production structures related to constant raising of production and service quality* • In other words, the Polish economy is gasping for the fresh air of workers' democracy, of the genuine involvement of workers in the running of society. Today in Poland, examples of bureaucracy,
waste and corruption abound. Tractors, vitally needed to develop agriculture are made in Poland under licence from Massey Ferg-
uson. There is only one small prob-
lem that was overlooked-all the
sizes of parts are inches, not metric
measurements which makes spare
parts an enormous problem—one
which would be clear to any
mechanic!
Officials have openly admitted
that while there are more engineers
than West Germany or France,
their utilisation is inferior to that
within a capitalist economy. Dur-
ing a recent development of a
frozen food factory, all the money
for the project was spent on
construction, so that none was lett
for actually fitting the building out
properly, with the result that it only
operates at 60% of potential
capacity. These individual exam-
ples clearly reflect a far wider
problem.
According to one Party official in Warsaw, 40% of the population is employed in manufacturing industry, 35% in 'commerce' and services and a massive 25% in administration, law and health. Undoubtedly much of the bureauerce" describes itself as 'comm-
while 'state administration is very small, local administration is more 'numerous' . and economic administrators are growing more than we need'!
In 'State and Revolution', written in 1917 in anticipation of the overthrow of capitalism, Lenin wrote: 'We know that the fundamental social cause of excesses which violate the rules of social life is the exploitation of the masses, their want and poverty. With the removal of this chief cause excesses will inevitably begin to "wither away'...with their withering away, the state will also wither away' • In Poland as in the other Stalinist states, the opposite process has taken place. Reports in the official Polish government publication, Polish Perspectives' betore and after the 8th Party Congress give an insight into the real situation.
•Expenditure on administration and official hospitality and travel
are to be cut'. 'At the same time efforts will be made to narrow down inordinate and unwarranted disproportions in incomes... Firm emphasis was laid by the Congress
on the necessity of counteraction of abuses, corruption and unlawful incomes. This 35 years after the
Stalinists proclaimed that 'socialism' had been introduced!
Far from 'withering away,' the
state has become a greater and
greater burden on the backs of the
masses. This is a clear indication of
the deepening contradiction bet-
ween the presence of a bureaucracy
and the workers' interests.
Like several other East European
countries, Poland has what are
impressive sounding schemes of
"workers' self-management" in the
factories. In reality these are an
attempt to draw on the experience
and initiative of the workers-in the
same way as the bosses in Britain use suggestion boxes and 'works councils'-without ever giving the workers any say in the fundamental issues. Marx explained the importance of distinguishing between FORM and CONTENT. The most formally democratic structures can be worthless in the hands of those whose position of the privilege could suffer as a result. Thus it is in Poland. The 'trade unions' and the 'United Workers Party' are in reality part of the state apparatus and, as such, incapable of independently representing workers' interests. At one carpet factory the chairman of the 'trade union concil' admitted that "each proposal by the manager-such as the firing of a worker-must be conveyed to the trade union who must have a 'substantial' basis for disagreement." " ..We don't have many disagreements"! By a strange coincidence, at the same factory 85% of the management were "party members."
The increasing numbers of dissident intellectuals is, as with the 'Crooked Circle' in Poland in 1956, and the Petöfi Circle in Hungary in the same year, an indication of the growing social tensions within Poland.
The apparent growth of support for the Catholic Church is a distorted symptom of the massive tide of opposition which is building up against the hated and corrupt rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy. As in Ireland, for historical reasons, the Church in Poland has always been identified with the struggle for national independence. Under a totalitarian, one-party system, the Church can act as a semi-legal cover for opposition to the regime. This was the case, as Trotsky pointed out, with the Catholic and, to some extent, the Protestant Church in nazi Germany, which served as the vehicle of opposition of a section of especially the middle layers of society to Hitler. This explains the peculiar phenomenon of the strength of the Church in 'socialist'
[page 28]
29
Poland, precisely at a time when it
is dying on its feet in the countries
of Western Europe. The Church
serves as a distorted expression of
the anti-Stalinist moods among wide
layers of society, especially the
students and young intellectuals,
but also the working class. For
their part, the Church authorities
are ready and willing to come to an
understanding with the Stalinist
bureaucracy, as it has come to an
understanding with any regime in
history that is based on power,
wealth and privilege. On the other hand the 'Communist officials (many of whom go to Mass on Sunday as a means of taking out a spiritual insurance policy) are anxious to do a deal with the
Vatican whereby the power and wealth of the Church would be 'respected', in exchange for a mutual 'respect' for the power and privileges of the bureaucracy. The Church builds its support by nominal opposition to oppression, and for the Stalinist leaders the church represents a safety-valve for the masses, as long as its opposition doesn't go too far.
This was spelt out by Cardinal Wyszynski when he defended Prime Minister Gierek, and the "Party" leaders in his Christmas message... "We hope that God will somehow forgive us and reward the nation for its extraordinary patience..." , and he went on to say that food shortages and economic problems were not the fault of bad planning by the leadership. The Church leaders, like the Stalinist leaders, fear a healthy workers democracy more than anything else because it will sweep away the basis of their existence. It is an indication of the bankruptcy of the Stalinist bureaucracy that the ideas of religion can still seem to be an alternative over thirty years since the overthrow of capitalism!
A further indication of the growing disillusionment of the masses is the increase in social problems such as drunkenness. (According to an official newspaper, 'Prawe Izycle': "the number of drunkards is estimated at 4.3 to 5 million." i.e. about 20% of the
adult population!-KR
All these pressures came to the
fore at the 8th Congress of the
'United Workers Party' early in
1980. Given that the UWP is more
a government institution than a
political party, the 'sudden' resig-
nation of Piotr Jaroszewicz, the
Prime Minister, which took place
at the Congress, after a barrage of
attacks on government 'errors'
from the lower party officials, is an
unprecedented indication of the
crisis of the bureaucracy. Splits in
a ruling class or caste in society
are always one of the first
indications of the beginning of a
period of revolutionary upheavals.
The bureaucracy is divided because
of the crisis in the economy that it
presides over, and the knowledge
that workers will not tolerate cuts
in living standards or renewed
repression. They have no clear path
forwards. The movement towards
the Church, the growth in the number of dissidents, and the split in the bureaucracy are in reality the
first tremors of an earthquake.
When the movement erupts the working class will be moved to independent representation.
The apparent 'openness' of the Polish Stalinist leaders, and the lack of overt oppression, at least on the same scale as in the USSR reflects the weakness and unsteadyness rather than strength and confidence on the part of the bureaucracy. They recognise that they are sitting on a powder keg. The slightest spark could cause the frustrations of the workers to boil over, as in 1970 and 1976, but on a higher level. The Stalinist leadership is acting in Poland in a Bonapartist fashion, combining reform and repression, dealing out repression both to the workers, but also to sections of the bureaucracy that flaunt their privileges too openly. Thus since 1970, the apparent differentials in wages seem to have narrowed from 11:1 to nearer 5:1 of highest to lowest. In reality, the bureaucracy finds other ways of maintaining its privileged position by the black market and other means. What a difference compared with that in backward,
decimated Russia of 1917! Lenin
considered even a differential of 4:1
to be a temporary, capitalist
measure and yet in Poland today
the differentials are far wider.
Workers in Poland are undoubt-
edly preparing under the surface
for a new reckoning with the
bureaucracy. Recent reports have
revealed activities of illegal oppo
sition groups. Not reactionaries
such as Solzhenitsyn, but move-
ments struggling in a confused way for workers' democracy (see 'Militant' 484). That there are no legal independent non-government par-
ties (the two other parties apart from the UWP being shell organisations for show and part of the "National Unity Front' government) is an indication of the reality of the 'freedom of expression' in Poland. Such a system is a caricature of socialism. To those in the labour movement who claim Poland (and other East European states) to be "socialist' the question must be asked: why
these regimes frightened of legal opposition? In Russia under Lenin and Trotsky even at the height of the civil war, opposition groups were allowed to function, and were only banned when they took up bomb attacks and assassination attempts and then as a temporary measure in an emergency situation.
Likewise the resignation' of Piotr Jaroszewicz makes a mockery of the notion of the UWP as a genuine communist party. Surely he was carrying out the policy of the central committee and party congress? Fundamental economic problems are not the fault of one man! They are the product of the bureaucratic regime as a whole.
Likewise the fact that the UWP was holding only its eighth congress in 35 years shows how far removed that organisation is from any real political debate.
Karl Marx explained long ago that any ruling class or caste in history which is incapable of developing the means of production is doomed. This is as true in Poland of the bureaucratic caste which is stifling society, as it is of capitalism in the West albeit for different
[page 29]
30
reasons. The strike waves of 1970 and 1976, the movement to form new, independent parties, is a reflection of the profundity of the discontent among the masses. When the workers move again it will not be for the return to capitalism, but to follow the ideas of Leon Trotsky to carry through a Political Revolution-to overthrow the bureaucracy and bring in genuine workers' democracy. One penance the bureaucracy has to pay for living off the workers' backs, is their lip-service allegiance to Marxism. Thus in offices and ministries busts and pictures of Marx and Lenin abound, the collected works of Lenin, Marx and Engels collect dust on the shelves. The Polish workers also are undoubtedly studying the writings of Marx, Lenin, Engels and, in secret study circles, those of Trotsky. They will return to the ideas of Lenin-not as an official state handbook-but as a method and a guide to action. Once again they will discover the programe which Lenin outlined in his 'April Thesis' in 1917: 1. Society should be run through a system of soviets (workers' councils) with free elections and immediate recall of all officials 2. No official to wages than those worker.
3. No standing armed people.
4. No bureaucratic elite. Each post or office should be rotated amongst the workers in turn. "When everyone is a bureaucrat in turn, nobody is a bureaucrat."
Added to these is the demand raised by the Hungarian workers in the uprising of 1956, after the experience of Stalinism: no more one-party state! Lenin and Trotsky stood for the freedom of all political parties that accepted nationalisation of the economy and the plan of production. Today in Poland, with its developed economy, it would be possible to go further: For the freedom of all political parties except fascists and anti-semitic parties. Liberals and others campaigning for a return to capitalism would, in the context of a healthy
receive
of a
higher skilled
workers' democracy, appear cranks demanding a return feudalism!
When they move into action the Polish workers will quickly draw on the experience of 1956, and see that nationalism offers no way forward. Likewise artificial forms of opposition such as religion will be swept aside. The slogans of the Szezecin shipyard workers in 1970, replying to the bureaucratic allegations that they were hooligans, show the way the Polish workers will look in the future, to the struggle for genuine workers' democracy, "We are workers not hooligans, long live the workers state." "Stalin for the bureaucrats, Lenin for the workers," "Russia 1905—Hungary and Poland 1956, Russia 1917—Poland and the world 1971?" "Lenin in Moscow, but not in the Kremlin."
Of crucial importance to the struggle to overthrow the bureaucracy, and replace it with workers' democracy will be the building of an independent workers' party, based on the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. Such a party, armed with an internationalist perspective, would be able to link the struggles of workers in Poland with those in Eastern Europe, and in the Western capitalist countries.
In the new decade of the 1980s, not only does capitalism face crisis, but the Stalinist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe are also becoming increasingly unsteady. Thus, while in 1970 the Russian bureaucracy was able to bale its Polish 'brothers' out with subsidies to offset food price rises, today they have got their own economic problems. Throughout Eastern Europe, even in formerly backward Rumania, the workers are beginning to flex their muscles. A successful political revolution in Poland now would set Eastern Europe ablaze, and in its train, Russia and Western Europe and the USA. For all time the arguments of reaction, that socialism means dictatorship would be destroyed in the eyes of the workers throughout the world. Workers in Eastern Europe would see before their eyes a living example of how the
like
to
bureaucracies could be overthrown. The way would then be paved for a genuine federation of workers' states, as a stepping stone to the establishment of the Socialist United States of Europe and the Socialist Federation of the World.
APPENDIX-August
The July/ August strike wave following more meat price increases on July 1st, has further confirmed that Poland is the most unstable country within Eastern Europe. By mid-August 150 strikes had broken out, and the regime had conceded 10-15% wage increases.
The stoppages assumed nationwide proportions involving railwaymen in Lodz, dustmen and bus drivers im Warsaw and again the shipyard workers on the Baltic. In Gdansk the strikers won permission to build a monument to those killed by the police in the 1970 strikes.
As in every major movement in Eastern Europe, the official state-run unions have been bypassed. The workers have no confidence in these institutions which, like the Communist Party, are part of the state itself.
Direct political demands have inevitably come to the fore. The workers have demanded the right to strike, the right to build genuine, democratic trade unions, an end to press censorship and the closure of the "commercial shops," which are patronised by the privileged.
Such a programme of demands would naturally emerge at the beginning of any direct challenge to the regime. While the bureaucracy is paralysed by indecision and splits in its own ranks.
They have agreed to negotiate with the workers' own unofficial representatives and avoided a crackdown against the working class on the lines of 1970. A section of the bureaucrats favours more repression, but the majority as yet has been afraid of taking on such a widespread movement. They know it would cause a social explosion.
The Polish bureaucracy sits astride a volcano of accumulated discontent, lacing an ever more confident working class. Throughout Eastern Europe the bureaucrats are trembling.
[page 30]
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