The Breakthrough by Eckel Jan; Moyn Samuel;

Author:Eckel, Jan; Moyn, Samuel;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Published: 2014-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

The Polish Opposition After 1968

Gierek, who had already acquired a reputation as a successful pragmatist in his home voivodeship in Upper Silesia, was the quintessential manager with a socialist slant. His willingness to set aside ideological concerns enabled him to address the fundamental grievances of the striking workers. Without apologizing for the harsh measures taken by the security forces, he announced in his first televised address on December 20, 1970, a new comprehensive social, wage, and economic policy. Wages would be increased, food prices frozen or even reduced, and the housing situation improved. In other words, Gierek put his predecessor’s entire five-year plan into question.19 Although isolated strike actions, such as the one in Łódź in February 1971, threatened from time to time to derail the reform process, Gierek managed to turn public opinion in his favor. Eventually the price increases from December were also revoked.20 The Sixth Congress of the PUWP was moved up to December 1971, and the passage of the new five-year plan endorsed the revisions that had already been carried out during the course of that year. It was also now at least generally possible to honor the promises that had been made during the process.

As Gierek readjusted the economy, he was also propelled by the success of détente, especially after the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1970. For instance, in the first five years of the Gierek government, that is, up to 1975, the gross domestic product grew by 39 percent, real wages rose by 41.5 percent, and industrial production doubled.21 Turning away from a further expansion of heavy industry in favor of the consumer goods industry noticeably raised the quality of life. This rebound, however, came at a price of considerable new indebtedness and a huge trade deficit with Western states. It should consequently come as no surprise that crises in the Western industrialized nations had an impact—somewhat delayed—on Polish society.22 Contemporary discourse on the internal state of the People’s Republic of Poland was already dominated by the notion of crisis itself.23 At the same time, it now became clear that economic and social reforms had been implemented without any political concessions—such as free trade unions, which had already been demanded during the strikes of 1970.

But the various strands of the Polish opposition remained unconvinced by Gierek’s newly declared pragmatism. As in almost all societies of the Warsaw Pact, 1968 was a breaking point in Poland, first and foremost for groups critical of the system. There were two major events that left a lasting impact. First, there was the anti-Semitic campaign precipitated by the protests in March 1968 against the cancellation of national poet Adam Mickiewicz’s play Forefathers’ Eve in Warsaw; second, there was the crushing of the Prague Spring with the participation of Polish troops within the framework of the Warsaw Pact.24 Especially affected were the progressive, more left-leaning members of the opposition surrounding Adam Michnik and Jacek Kuroń, who a few years earlier had still espoused a revisionist attitude.

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