Solidarity after the Coup

The paradox of Poland is quite straightforward. The workers, intellectuals and activists who formed Solidarity did not know how to convert the gains of August 1980 into permanent change. The generals, security officers and party hardliners who declared a 'state of war' on 13 December 1981 did not know how to convert the locking up of Lech Walesa and other Solidarity leaders into a lasting solution of the country's economic and social problems. The list of problems without easy answers is long enough inside Poland. But the history of Solidarity and the continuing struggle of the Polish working class has presented a number of questions for Western socialists: what is the nature of Russian and East European political systems and what should be the relationships between organisations of the Western labour movement-political parties and trade unionsand organisations with similar names in Comecon countries? Also Western socialists have had to consider what political and economic response would best support Solidarity. The situation has produced some strange bedfellows. Ultra-leftists have joined forces with right-wing reactionaries in demanding a complete economic boycott of Poland and the Soviet Union and a withdrawal of credit that would push Poland into default. Western Communist Parties have stood shoulder to shoulder with bankers in Wall Street, the City and West Germany, in arguing against any interruption in financial and economic relationships with Poland. The paradoxes stretch far beyond the Polish frontier