Threat Hangs Over Poland

Scan page 5

The stunned silence greeting the salvoes from Solidarnose's Congress was shattered within days as Albin Siwak — a member of the PUWP (Polish Communist Party) ruling Politbureau announced that "Solidarnose must be delegalised. For this we have enough men in the security forces and the army". Siwak, an old trade union boss, is known and ridiculed throughout Poland and its free trade union press as the man set up to make (whenever necessary) the appropriately chaotic and violent outbursts against the union.

But this buffoonery could. only be allowed officially as there was a substantial amount of agreement within the Politbureau itself for a course of open confrontation.

Other blows föllowed in quick succession. In Wroclaw, Kornel Moravinose, a delegate to SolidIs national congress and leading light on the union's local monthly journal (The Lower Silesian Bulletin) was arrested and charged with activity detrimental to •the allies of the Polish Republic"

Menacing

He was accused of distributing two appeals to Russian soldiers in Poland written and signed by Russian exiled trade unionists, calling on the troops to understand the real nature of events in the country and support Solidarnosc.

The following day, the PUWP declared that the Gdansk agreement - the concordat signed between the workers and the bureaucracy last summer — had been unilaterally ripped up by Solidarnosc's 'provocative' Congress.

The union, according to the PUWP Politbureau, 'has opted for a programme of political opposition...... an orientation towards a menacing and perhaps bloody confrontcontinued from back page ation."

Throughout the Eastern bloc these obligatory meetings expressing "'Workers'' horror at what the Poles are doing, are held with monotonous regularity. Photos of unhappy Russian workers (as distinct from the laughing, carefree kind waving red roses about) in front of protest placards having as "its main objective to vilify and calumniate the first socialist state in the world and the very idea of socialism itself, and to encourage hostility and hate amongst the Poles with respect to the Soviet Union and the Soviet people. To cut the ties of friendship and to liquidate socialism in And the PUWP, what is it doing about all this?, demands the note in a hurtful tone. Nothing.

"On the contrary, they allow them (i.e. Solidarnosc) to use local offices European-style are laid to waste, as Walesa hiniself admits:

"I would like Solidarity to be a trade union movement. But life introduces corrections. If suddenly the problem of political prisoners appears, or food queues get longer and longer and people are dissatisfied, I can't stay in an enterprise, limit myself to the enterprise and forget about these problems...... As a union I can wait, as a Pole 1 would die"

Spectre

The union, in reply to the Politbureau's vicious attack, stated that it "would not enter into the scenario of provocation" prepared by the bureaucracy, the rising war of words and tempers.

As far as Solidarnosc was concerned " the real reason for the clash over the last few weeks has been our union's activities in the face of the ruin of the economy.

'It's a matter of pushing back the spectre of hunger and creating the conditions which would guarantee that the sacrifices and extra i work agreed to by society as a whole are not wasted and squandered again" — not squandered and wasted by bureaucratic misrule and mismanagement.

But this can only be done by the workers throwing out the bureaucrats, effectively seizing power. and runt ling the economy thensel 'es. DOGAN TARKAN is a Turkish socialist and former trade union official whom the Home Office are threatening to deport. If they send him back to Turkey, he will certainly be jailed and tortured by the military regime there.

This week Dogan OVER 250,000 workers took part last Saturday in the biggest US protest march since the Vietnam war.

The demonstration had been called in Washington by leaders of the AFL-CIO trade union confederation, under pressure to show some opposition to the vicious domestic policies of the Reagan administration.

The protest was termed 'Solidarity Day' after the Polish trade union, and was the first national action called by the AFL-CIO since the Ford government.

But it does not reflect any turn by the AFL-CIO bureaucracy towards a break from the twin capitalist political parties in the US.

Alienated by Reagan, the union chiefs have turned not to the building of a Labour spoke to Socialist Organiser about the campaign against his deportation.

AS A result of the successful campaigning of the Turkey Solidarity Campaign in my defence, and the growing support for me inside the British labour movement, the Home Office invited me for an interTme Party, but towards strengthening links with the Democratic Party, whose present leaders are equally committed as Reagan to attacking the working class at home and abroad.

Socialist Organiser will carry a full one-page on-thespot report on the march next week. view on September 15.

They asked questions about my involvement political struggles sinced 1965 — which suggests an ongoing investigation about me by the Home Office -and about my organisation (Kurtulus). There was othing new in these ques lons, since they asked mi similar questions when I entered Britain.

However, in my view, for the Home Office to ask me to this new interview was a development in a positive direction.

So far we have around 2,500 signatures on my petition, including a number of trade union leaders such as Arthur Scargill (NUM), Lawrence Daly (NUM), Terry Marsland (Tobacco Workers), Tom Jackson (UCW), and Bil Deal (Fire Brigades Union); 16 Labour MPs; five Danish MPs; and several Labour Party constituencies, Pay contend anil Party and trade union branches.

Home Office Some organisations have taken up my case directly with the Home Office, suct as the TUC, the Indiar Workers' Association, anc the Society of Socialist Lawyers.

In brief, I am delightec to see the international sol idarity of the British labou movement which has beer expressed in defence me as a Turkish socialist and my right to remain it Britain until such time as 1 can return to my country freely.

But we ghould keep ur the pressure on the Home Office. We must pass fur. ther resolutions in trade union branches and Labow Parties, collect more signa tures, send protest letters to the Home Office, and hold further meetings.

----- pull-quotes -----

ioin US march