Poland, and an appeal issued by thirteen intellectuals in support of the workers. The Polish workers and opposition movement have shown that the June events were not a one-shot affair, but the opening of a new period of struggle against the bureaucracy. Solidarity with that struggle has now become a task of the entire international workers move.nent. The intellectual opposition in Poland has reacted very quickly to the police repression against the workers which followed the events of June 25, when thousands of worker demonstrated and went on strike against the government's decision to order price increases. This was a change from what had occurred after the workers rebellions in December 1970. To our knowledge, the first letter of protest was dated July 2 and was followed by further initiatives, such as the open letter of oppositionist Jacek Kuron to Italian Communist party secretary Enrico Berlinguer and the letter of thirteen intellectuals. But the most striking event has probably been the formation of the Committee to Defend the Workers Victimized by Repression, which was set up by fourteen intellectuals in Warsaw on September 26. On several past occasions the Polish opposition has come out for defense of democratic rights, but this is the first time it has come out in defense of the rights of the workers. This is extremely important. It testifies to the leftist evolution of the practical activity of this opposition. For the first time since 1956, the campaign of defense and financial support for the victimized workers (according to the committee's first communiqué, as of September 29 it had collected and distributed 160,000 zlotys; the average monthly wage of a worker is 3,000 zlotys) has permitted the establishment of links between the intellectual opposition and the workers movement. The intellectuals participating in this campaign are doing so at considerable risk. Several of them have been denied the right to publish (the militia has confiscated a manuscript that was the product of several years' work 10
SOLIDARITY WITH THE by Professor E. Lipinski) and several people have been arrested and charged with having ties to Radio Free Europe (as if this ClA-connected radio station was interested in the fate of the workers). When some arrested intellectuals were released they were told that they would be held accountable if any further documents were published in the West. The financial support the intellectuals have contributed to the families of the workers who have been arrested or laid off is quite important, for these families find themselves in a very trying situation, not only because they have been deprived of their major source of income, but also because of the court costs and fines they have been forced to pay. To our knowledge, the July 2 letter of support to the workers has not been published in the West. It reads as follows: We the undersigned consider that it is high time to put an end to the mental ferror being generated by the government campaign and to say out loud what we believe the immense majority of the Polish population is thinking. We are indebted to the workers for their action of June 25, which forced the regime to take public opinion into account. We consider it a national tragedy that the population is unable to intervene effectively in the decisions of the regime except through strikes and serious riots. We think that the moral and political responsibility for the turn taken by events in Plock, Ursus, and Radom falls upon the authorities, who have suppressed all other possibilities for the manifestation of the popular will. We thus protest against the epithets "hooligans, " 'cyni-
cal thugs,' and irresponsible odventurers' which have been used against the workers. We protest against the repression, the arrests, and the threats against the participants in the workers' demonstrations. This reaction by the regime, far from resolving the existing problems, leods only to the deepening of popular discontent." The letter is signed by the following individuals: J. Bulat, J. Cywinski, L.Dorn, L.Gluzinski, L. Jankowski, S. Kowalec, R.Kiszka, M. Kozak, S. Kowalski, D. Lachowska, M.Lukasiewicz, S. Krajewski, B. Mazurkiewicz, S. Puzyna, A.Rusiecki, P. Stasinski, P.Sawicki, W. Sawicki, W.Wypych, W.Zawodzki, and A. Zdzierski. Others letters and appeals followed, among the best known being the letter of the thirteen intellectuals addressed "to all those who solidarize with the struggle of the workers of the entire world for the liberation of labor, " and the open letter of J. Kuron to Berlinguer. Reactions began emerging after the first appeals for international solidarity were issued by the Polish intellectuals. After Kuron's appeal, the Italian CP asked that
"measures of moderation and even clemency" be taken in favor of the sentenced workers, and Berlinguer sent a letter to Gierek, first secretary of the Polish United Workers party (the CP), the text of which was not made public. Following the appeal of the thirteen, - Günther Grass and Heinrich Ball sent protests to the Polish authorities. Toward the end of July trade-union sections and workers in France sent petitions asking that all prosecution of the Polish workers be halted. Several petitions were circulated, particularly in the St. Lazare postal sorfing center in Paris, among the workers of the ministry of finance, and in the Montparnasse postal sorting center, also in Paris. Here is the text of the petition signed by ninety workers of the St. Lazare sorting center: "Several thousand arrests, at least a thousand imprisonments throughout the country, thousands of workers disciplined, demoted with reductions in wages, hundreds wounded to one degree or another, an avalanche of trials - such is the balance of the wave of repression unleashed by the bureaucracy against the workers movement in Poland after the strikes of Friday, June 25. "The French workers movement cannot remain silent before such events, which can only benefit the anti-working-class propaganda of the international bourgeoisie. "The postal workers of the Paris-St. Lazare sorting center, militants of the CGT, CFDT, and FO (the three French national trade-union federations) express their solidarity with the Polish workers in struggle for their demands, condemn the police measures taken by the government, and ask that all sanctions taken against the Polish workers since June 25 be lifted immediately." In Toronto, Canada, a meeting was held this month by a committee that has the support of several well-known trade unionists. This is the road that must be followed. The Polish workers movement and intellectual opposition need massive support from the western workers movement. The bureaucracy has already had to back down. During the appeal of seven workers from Radom all the accused won reductions of their sentences, but if we do not intensify our solidarity, other trials will surely follow. The revolutionary situations in West Europe will have much greater impact on the antibureaucratic movements in the countries of the East if the intensity of the solidarity of the working class of these countries with the repressed Polish workers is increased. The Italian Federation of Metalworkers (FLM) has already asked for a halt to prosecutions of the Polish workers. Other trade unions must protest too. The future of the Polish workers movement is at stake. Solidarity with the Polish workers against repression! Solidarity with the Polish intellectual opposition! Halt all prosecution of the Polish workers!
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