Poland Won’t Escape Its Shambles Without Western Help

Poland’s problems are awesome, the full extent only dimly grasped by Western onlookers. For the latter live in what Poles call normal countries, and Poland is not a normal country. Its economy is a surreal shambles; everyday life is hard, drab and exhausting; queues are everywhere for everything; wages are low, prices high and inflation galloping. Not only is life nasty, horrible and brutish, as Thomas Hobbes might have observed, but it all takes such a long time. And the whole country needs a coat of paint.

I have just returned from a stay in Poland, my second in four years. As soon as I mention where I have been to anyone, they exclaim: “My! What an exciting time to be there.” But it isn’t exciting at all. While many of the people I met were exhilarating in their courage, intelligence and seriousness, their daily travails--the texture of their lives--were deeply depressing. And notwithstanding the extraordinary political developments of the last six months, the problems that await them remain sadly palpable to anyone who spends a moment there.

In the West there is general sympathy for the Poles, mixed with admiration for their courage. Both sentiments are justified but neither instructs us what is to be done. The Bush Administration seems tentative, cautious and undecided about what and how much to commit to Poland’s experiment with democratic reconstruction. It cannot be accused of excessive generosity to date. Yet Poland needs money, skills, infrastructure--not to mention telephones!--that only the West can provide. And it needs help in mitigating the social pain of necessary reforms. Otherwise this unique attempt to build democracy from the ruins of communism will fail. And that would not be Poland’s failure alone. It would be ours. As with an earlier Polish tragedy, whose 50th anniversary we mark this month, Western faintheartedness would be tragic--and not only for Poles.

Helping the Poles extricate themselves from their present predicament should not be considered generosity. It is dictated by Western self-interest. First, the peaceful development of a democratic political order, endorsed by the overwhelming majority of Poles, is a signal and a source of inspiration to all who are committed to democracy. It is especially inspiring to those struggling to establish conditions of freedom (and economic rationality) within the Communist bloc and in despotisms all over the world.

Conversely, should Poland falter, the many and powerful forces--within Poland and nearby--who have been convinced all along that democracy and liberalization are only for fools, will be given heart. (They might also be given their heads.) Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev seems to have recognized this danger when he told the reluctant Polish Communist leader, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, to play ball with Solidarity. It is crucial that we also appreciate the dangers that might yet come from those whom Poles call the “hardheads.” What is happening in Poland is truly unprecedented. What precedent it sets is, to an important extent, up to us.

Shortly after the French Revolution, the philosopher Joseph de Maistre commented, “For a long time we did not fully understand the revolution of which we were witnesses; for a long time we treated it as an event. We were mistaken; it is an epoch.”

The same is true of the Russian Revolution. It has dominated this century. It has bequeathed a technology for seizing and maintaining power that has cost millions of lives and enslaved millions of people. It has reduced once-civilized countries to dilapidated ruins and has threatened still-civilized ones with the same. It may be that this epoch is coming to a close. It is in everyone’s interest that it does.

Communism has lost all ideological appeal, even to the “hardheads” (who nevertheless will fight to maintain it and themselves). The leader of the most powerful communist state is endeavoring to save the system by transforming it. Once-subject peoples, nationalities and social groups have, as the Poles put it, reasserted ownership over their throats.

In all this, the most dramatic developments have occurred in Poland, events that have propelled Solidarity to take power earlier than it had ever hoped, imagined, almost certainly earlier than it wanted. The country is bankrupt, its people exhausted, its prospects dim, its future perilous. And as every Pole knows, if there is a Polish road to democracy, there is also--and more commonly--a Chinese road and it leads elsewhere. Once again the most populous state in the world sought to hold onto its citizens by crushing them. And that, too, is not a matter of merely local significance.

If the Poles succeed against these frightening odds, that will be a triumph. If they fail, that will be a tragedy. Of course the Poles cannot rely on the West to succeed for them. Nor do they wish to. However, they will not succeed unaided.