A Month Poland May Remember : The Task Ahead Is Difficult, but at Last the Sides Will Talk

In Poland, particular months have distinct historical resonances.

From an early age, Poles learn about the January insurrection against the Czarist authorities in 1863. December is when strikes broke out on the Baltic coast in 1970 and when the declaration of martial law abolished Solidarity in 1981. August is known for both the Warsaw uprising of 1944 and Solidarity’s birth in 1980.

February is one of the least dramatic months on the Polish calendar, though the February patent of 1861 marked a first step toward autonomy for Poles in the Habsburg Empire. Perhaps, this less illustrious legal precedent bodes well for the negotiations between the Polish party-state, the Roman Catholic Church and the outlawed trade union Solidarity, scheduled to begin today.

Potentially at stake in these negotiations is the fundamental relationship between society and its rulers. Beginning in 1976, even before Solidarity, Poles began to create a “parallel” society, composed of independent social movements and an underground press, which fought for greater autonomy from the party-state and a say in the formulation of policy. With the foundation of Solidarity in 1980, Polish society compelled the authorities to legally recognize these prerogatives. This breakthrough was abolished by the declaration of martial law in December, 1981. Since then, Polish political life has been marked by a stalemate between these forces.

While the regime of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski has called since 1981 for greater support and input from society, and has acknowledged the need for far-reaching economic reform, it has been singularly unsuccessful in achieving either. Prospects for economic reform are prejudiced by conservatives in the party and bureaucracy, as well as society’s reticence to make sacrifices for a regime that crushed its aspirations and has done little to improve its diminished standard of living.

Nor have the authorities been able to crush the “parallel” society. The underground press continues to churn out “uncensored” publications, and Solidarity, while illegal, continues to function in many factories. Since autumn of 1987 it has been led by an openly operating national executive committee. Strikes in May and August of last year caused the Jaruzelski regime to reconsider negotiating with Solidarity. The popular performance of Lech Walesa in a televised debate with official trade union leader Alfred Miodowicz convinced the new government of Premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski to negotiate directly with Solidarity in search of the popular support necessary to cajole Polish workers to support economic reform. Clearly, with the Soviets preoccupied with internal politics and Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s proclaimed greater tolerance of diversity in the East Bloc, the international situation, as well, is favorable for compromise.

The stakes in the negotiations for both sides are high. Walesa and the Solidarity leadership must decide how much restraint they are willing to try to impose on Polish workers in exchange for a real voice in politics and the economy. They must be careful not to promise their support for marginal concessions or vague promises. Rakowski and his officials, on the other hand, are concerned with minimizing the autonomy granted to Solidarity for its assistance in helping Polish workers swallow the bitter pills of uncertainty and austerity that economic reform will require. While both sides want reform, its form, the distribution of austerity and the terms of the political compromise that Solidarity wants for its support are far from resolved. The conditions stipulated by the Central Committee resolution of Jan. 19 clearly give the party too much room to constrain the union’s activity for Solidarity to accept.

Yet the difficulty of the negotiation process itself is not the only obstacle to compromise. Both Walesa and Rakowski must deliver the support of their sides for it to work. The strikes of 1988 that put Walesa in his present position of strength were made by young workers not old enough to have been members of Solidarity in 1980-81. Though they heeded his call to end the strikes in August, their allegiance to him is untested. His role as leader is based on his identification as a symbol of 1980-81, not on the democratic approval of the membership. He will be subject to pressures from those within the union who want Solidarity to fight for bread-and-butter issues and to stay out of politics, and those who hope for a greater role for the union in politics.

Rakowski and Jaruzelski have dragged the Communist Party, kicking and screaming, even to get to this point. Rakowski, a pragmatist by party standards, has many political rivals. Clearly, many local leaders and party bureaucrats view the Solidarity era as the party’s nadir from which it barely escaped, and thus oppose negotiation. Even among the national leadership, eight Politburo members were replaced in the days before the decision to negotiate was taken, and Jaruzelski reportedly threatened to resign in order to push the decision through the Central Committee. Recently, two priests who supported Solidarity died under mysterious circumstances. This raises questions as to whether the secret police or conservative party elements are trying to sabotage the talks before they start.

Thus chances for reaching a compromise in Poland are not only difficult because of the distance separating Solidarity and the party, but because neither Rakowski nor Walesa can guarantee the unequivocal support of those for whom they are negotiating. What goes on across the table will be important, but what goes on underneath the individual sides of the table may be even more critical.