Polish prisoner interviewed It will be a truly monstrous trial'

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ADAM MICHNIK is a 37-year old historian and one of the leading members of the former Workers' Defence Committee, KOR. Like other democratic opposition activists, he was harassed continuously by the authorities for his independent publishing and other activities, and was imprisoned several times. After August 1980, he became an advisor to the Mazowsze Region of Solidarnosc. He was interned at Bailoleka Internment Camp on 13 December 1981, and in September 1982, transferred to prison in Rakowiecka Street, Warsaw, where he has remained under investigative arrest ever since.

In mid-October his indictment, along with that of three other imprisoned KOR members, was announced by the Polish government.

We reprint here an interview with Adam Michnik published in Voice of Solidarnose No. 73, October 22 1983.

You have already been in prison for longer than Solidarnosc existed. How do you keep yourself going?

It is always the same: work and a belief in something. I read a great deal and try to make use of the time for studying. Information coming in to me from outside indicates that through our imprisonment we can serve as a part of the Solidarnosc resistance movement. Particularly now, when the regime is constantly lying about progressive normalisation and agreement, our incarceration is one of the proofs that this is not the cáse. (....)

The trial of KOR is astonishing: the regime wanted to expose you, but it has only exposed itself. Virtually no-one has testified; you yourself have been digging your way through the indictment for some months now...

And the Prosecutor even tried to make this impossible for me. This was only one of his ingenious ideas; I will speak of others during the trial. Indeed, it will be a truly monstrous trial. The regime is not exposing itself now because it already did so on 13 December 1981. Now it is exposing only its own stupidity. Mr Jaruzelski had the splendid idea to add nearly a year of internment to our sentence. These gentlemen display unusual intellectual inventiveness in thinking up methods of locking people away. The trial cannot expose us, but it can Adam Michnik KOR - the Workers Defence Committee - later renamed the Committee of Social Self Defence - was formed after the events in Radom and Ursus in June 1976 to help persecuted workers and their families, by providing legal, financial and medical aid to those who were arrested, sentenced, beaten and thrown out of work.

Its aims were the creation of a network of social organisations to spread the idea of social self-organisation, ultimately leading to the control of the authorities in Poland.

However, the idea that 'an understanding' favourable to the workers could be reached through a gradual increase of social control over the Stalinist bureaucracy is purely idealist and un-Marxist.

It was a concept of a self-limiting revolution, of slow, two-sided compromise, shown as being unrealistic and impossible through the actual history of the Solidarnosc movement..

expose them, and we are therefore very eager for it to take place. The indictment is a mine of information, not so much about KOR, but about the ruling powers. I will relate what I have read in the indictment about the "sad engine-drivers of prison trains" , as Milosz would say, at the trial. Jaruzelski believes in the discipline of the judges who will be sentencing us. He should not believe in the discipline of the accused.

Your 'Letters from Bialoleka" prove that a dialogue through prison bars is possible. You were not mistaken when you stated in your diagnosis of April 1982 that we have to be What scenario of future events is it worth considering?

In my opinion, a scenario of agreement with the present (ruling) team is certainly not worthy of consideration today. It would be a waste of time. This team may chew at the "concrete" (reference to a hardline faction within the CP), they may leap at each others' throats, but they are in complete agreement on one issue: in Poland, there is room for Solidarnose only behind prison walls.

The struggle that is being waged within the ruling apparatus must be understood, but we should not expect anything good from any of the struggling cliques. Our only chance lies in the bed dront of abend, miiactivities and hard resistance.

I am not a prophet, and therefore cannot foretell either the when or wherefore of the impulses for the next changes. But changes in the direction delineated by Solidarnose are inevitable. The existence of organised structures is a phenomenon that cannot be treasured too much, creating as it does a chance that the next occasion will not be wasted. But the march is indeed likely to be a long one. The movement must have a perspective counted in years. We must also observe the situation in the USSR with particular attention. There the tremors are ever closer. Two qualities are of primary importance today - on both sides of the bars: consistency and patience.

In your lectures for the 'Flying University' [TKK] you explained that the tragic nature of Poland's fate lies in the fact that, irrespective of Polish actions, society has been sentenced to Sovietisation. What in Poland and in the world today inclines you to optimism?

I am an optimist by nature. You have to believe that things can change in order to attempt anything. Were it not for the resistance of contemporary optimists like Cardinal Wyszynski, Kisiel (dissident Catholic writer) and Herbert (famous contemporary Polish poet), we would not even have what we have today.

Resistance always pays off for society. Today, communism has exhaused its power both as a social system and as an ideology. It is but a conservative dictatorship of a narrow elite -the nomenklatura. The process of raising resistance against its totalitarian structure has an international character and it will intensify. We - and the entire so-called socialist camp — face two possibilities: democratisation or progressive decay and possible war. We are working for democratisation and for peace, while Jaruzelski believes in the possibility of restoring traditional communism through r. tional movement. I know how difficult their lives must be, and sincerely admire them. I am aware of the dangers facing the underground, and wrote about this honestly in one of my "Letters from Bialoleki". But we have no other option. We were pushed underground, along with the entire nation -because, in practice, everyone is conspiring today. Abortion of the conspiracy on the terms of the regime would signify surrender. And I would reiterate here that after 1947, following the appeals for people to emerge from hiding and the declaration of an amnesty, all the leaders of the Home Army (anti-Nazi nation-wide guerrilla organisation, later hunted down by the Soviets), were returned to prison. Jaruzelski will not rest until his regional operational groups break our moral backbone. This is why we must defend ourselves.

There has been an amnesty, but you have remained in prison as one of the hostages of the regime. What is your opinion of the amnesty and the lifting of martial law?

This appears to be yet another sham manufactured by the ruling team. I am, of course, pleased that many people have been released, and particularly so for those who provided an example of how one should behave under investigation and during a trial - like Zofia Romaszweska. But what kind of an amnesty is it that leaves in prison Frasyniuk and Bednarz, Slowik and Modwelewski, Gwiazda and Jurczyk?

As for the lifting of martial law, this can only be a ritual gesture for the benefit of foreigners and those who are lers informed, because nothing

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pared for a "long march', pre- not for a "sudden change"