by MarekNYC
Wed Dec 21st, 2005 at 03:34:08 PM EST
from the front page. Gierek replaced Gomulka on Dec. 20, 1970. On a slightly related note, see also Chris Kulczycki's diary: Polish Intelligence Official Confirms CIA Use of Polish Facility. Will the revolt against US hyperpower also start in Poland? -- Jérôme
On Friday, December 11 1970 the Politburo of the Polish Communist Party ordered a rise of ten to thirty percent in forty five basic groups of food items. In response, on Dec 14, the workers of the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk went on strike, singing patriotic hymns and the Internationale. They elect a strike committee led by a young worker named Lech Walesa. On December 17, with all the port cities of Poland in the grip of a general strike and demonstrations beginning elsewhere, the leadership of the Party orders the army to use force. Demonstrators marching through the streets are met by armed police, soldiers and tanks. After they refuse to disperse the shooting begins. The same scene was repeated in the other port cities. The official casualty toll was 45 dead and 1165 wounded, among the wounded several hundred police and soldiers. The reverbations of the workers' revolt would eventually lead to the freedom of Eastern Europe and open the door to European unificiation.
In response to the price hikes the workers of the Lenin Shipyard gathered on the morning of Monday Dec. 15 in front of the management offices, demanding to speak to the head of the provincial Party committee. The management refused and ordered them to go to work. They refuse and begin to sing - the national anthem, the song of the Communist resistance movement, patriotic religious songs, the Internationale. A strike committee is organized, led by young workers. A flag with a red ribbon is hoisted up over the shipyards. They then march onto the streets calling out `come with us' to the city residents. Many join in, but most students famously don't, still bitter at the workers' hostility when their demonstrations were repressed in 1968. They are met by tear gas and are beaten by the police. The demonstrators respond with stones and Molotov cocktails. The next day they march on the local Party headquarters. A panicked police officer begins shooting and the demonstration turns into a riot. The headquarters are trashed and burned as a helicopter evacuates senior officials from the roof. Eight workers are killed in Gdansk that day.
The city is soon in the grip of martial law and a general strike. The movement also spreads to the other coastal cities of Poland. The most organized is Szczecin where every branch of the economy creates strike committees which in turn elect a general strike committee. For a week that committee runs what is in effect a workers' republic
A meeting of the striking workers
On the morning of Dec. 17 the police open fire on workers walking to work in Gdynia. In Gdansk demonstrating workers are shot and crushed under tanks. Street battles rage throughout the day, at the end the authorities regain control of the city. In Szczecin the situation is similar but. here the workers are victorious. The next day there are more clashes and scattered strikes begin in other parts of Poland.
Szcecin
Gdansk
On Dec. 20 an emergency meeting of the Central Committee dismisses First Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka from power, along with four other senior Politburo members. The new leadership under Edward Gierek starts negotiations and promises to review the price increases and the actions of the authorities. Two days later the strike is over. However, the price increases are not repealed until new strikes occur in January and February, particularly among the textile workers of Lodz.
In the years that follow living standards rise with the help of massive Western loans. At the same time the leaders of the strikes are quietly fired and blacklisted. But after the oil crisis Poland's economic situation becomes difficult. A first attempt at new price rises is met by strikes in Lodz and Radom. Again, the price rises are repealed, strikers made to walk through police gauntlets, and the leaders blacklisted. Intellectuals and worker activists join together in the late seventies to plant the seeds of a new, organized opposition movement.
When in the summer of 1980 strikes break out again, the workers know that they must avoid all violence and remain in their workplaces. They also realize that the only way they can guarantee a permanent voice for themselves is through free unions. One of their demands is a monument to the fallen workers of 1970. They succeed and ten million Poles join Solidarity - about half the working age population. The martial law and mass internment of Dec. 13 1981 forces the movement underground, but it does not break it. By autumn 1988, faced with a catastrophic economic situation, and with no public support, the Party decides it must negotiate. The next spring comprehensive talks pave the way for democracy and a peaceful transfer of power to the opposition. The new Soviet leadership makes it clear that it won't intervene. With the Poland as an example of what is now possible, the populations of one country after another of the East Bloc stage their own peaceful revolts in the months that follow. Over forty years of dictatorship comes to an end and the road to European unification is open.
The monument in Gdansk - three ship anchors inverted to appear as crosses
The title of this diary is taken from a song that would become an unofficial anthem of Solidarity. I have vivid memories of listening to it in the early eighties, in concerts, at home, and at a mass demonstration in early 1982 in front of the Polish and Soviet embassies in Bern.
Boys from Grabówka, boys from Chyloni
Today the police opened fire
Bravely we stood, accurately we threw
Janek Wiśniewski fell
On a door we carried him along Świętojańska
In the face of the pigs, in the face of the tanks
[...]
The bombs sound, the gas spreads
Blows fall on the workers
Women, elderly, women fall
Janek Wiśniewski fell
One is wounded, another killed
Blood was spilled on a December dawn
It's the Party that's shooting at the workers
Janek Wiśniewski fell
Shipyard workers of Gdynia, workers of Gdansk
Go home, the battle is over
The world heard, and didn't say a thing
Janek Wiśniewski fell
Don't cry mothers, it wasn't for naught
The red banner above the shipyard
For bread and freedom, and a new Poland
Janek Wiśniewski fell
Janek Wiśniewski's real name was Zbyszek Godlewski. The photo of him being carried on a door in front of a procession of workers is the most famous image of December 1970.
For the Polish speakers at Eurotrib here's the original
Chłopcy z Grabówka, chłopcy z Chyloni
Dzisiaj milicja użyła broni
Dzielnieśmy stali, celnie rzucali
Janek Wiśniewski padł
Na drzwiach ponieśli go Świętojańską
Naprzeciw glinom, naprzeciw tankom
Chłopcy, stoczniowcy, pomścijcie druha
Janek Wiśniewski padł
Huczą petardy, ścielą się gazy
Na robotników sypią się razy
Padają starcy, dzieci, kobiety
Janek Wiśniewski padł
Jeden raniony, drugi zabity
Krew się polała grudniowym świtem
To partia strzela do robotników
Janek Wiśniewski padł
Krwawy Kociołek to kat Trójmiasta
Przez niego giną dzieci, niewiasty
Poczekaj draniu, my cię dostaniem
Janek Wiśniewski padł
Stoczniowcy Gdyni, stoczniowcy Gdańska
Idźcie do domu, skończona walka
Świat się dowiedział, nic nie powiedział
Janek Wiśniewski padł
Nie płaczcie matki, to nie na darmo
Nad stocznią sztandar z czarną kokardą
Za chleb i wolność, i nową Polskę
Janek Wiśniewski pad
