| Summary: | Extracts from Polish underground publications compiled and translated into English by the RFE Polish Publication Unit for broadcasting purposes. Introductions to most articles are provided by RFE staff, and items are compiled in issues based mainly on theme and date.
[Three Articles on Workers' Self-Management] On the National Economy and Workers' Self-Management / by Lech Wałęsa[from: Tygodnik Powszechny, no. 80/81 (22 March 1924)]The Polish labor movement has a long tradition of trying to achieve workers' self-management. Immediately after World War II, rudimentary self-management bodies were set up by the workers in individual plants only to be disbanded within several months by the communist authorities. By 1947 the communist party had established firm control over the entire workers' movement. A new attempt to revive self-management was made in the aftermath of a workers' revolt in June 1956; it took the form of a movement to set up workers' councils. The councils' influence had been curtailed by the end of 1957 and they were eventually incorporated into so-called Conferences of Workers' Self-Management, which were completely dominated by the party and government authorities. During the Solidarity era industrial self-management emerged as an important element of various reform proposals. In September 1981 a law on self-management was adopted by the Sejm, giving the workers considerable influence over management through their elected representatives. This law was suspended during the initial months of martial law and was then gradually implemented under the strict control of the authorities. Even so, in certain factories strong pro-Solidarity, self-management bodies were elected and proved determined defenders of the interests of employees. In other places, however, self-management bodies fell under the influence of the authorities, and elsewhere, pro-Solidarity self-management bodies were disbanded. The following three items from the underground press illustrate various attitudes toward the problem of self-management. The first is a statement by Lech Wałęsa on the state of the Polish economy and self-management, issued in March 1984. It gives the view of Solidarity's leadership, focusing on the need for various forms of autonomous public participation in the management of the economy. The second article appeared in the Warsaw based biweekly of the Committee for Social Resistance (Komitet Oporu Społecznego or KOS); it is signed by Katarzyna Uroń (a penname) and argues against involvement in the existing self-management bodies. Katarzyna Uroń does not believe that they can be truly representative of workers' interests at a time when the independent trade union movement has been suppressed. The third article is a statement by a member of a workers' council operating at a large factory in the Warsaw area, who makes a case for continuing involvement in self-management. His argument is based on his own direct experience both as a Solidarity activist on the shop floor before martial law and as a member of a self management body today.
[Three Articles on Workers' Self-Management] Workers' Self-Management? I'm Against It! / by Katarzyna Uroń[from: KOS, no. 27 (14 March 1983)]
[Three Articles on Workers' Self-Management] In Defense of Workers' Self-Management[from: Tygodnik Mazowsze, no. 90 (31 May 1984)]
Farmers' Cooperatives -- A Chance for Stomachs[from: Biuletyn Łódzki, no. 46 (16 April 1984)]This article was published in a weekly underground bulletin appearing in Łódź and argues the need for independent channels of food distribution, both in order to get food from the farmer to the kitchen more efficiently and as a means of independent social activity that breaks the state monopoly. The National Solidarity Committee of Farmers' Resistance [Ogólnopolski Komitet Oporu Rolników (OKOR)] is an oppositional group formed by private farmers and rural activists after the imposition of martial law and with contacts with Solidarity.
The Nobel Prize for Milan Kundera: A Proposal[from: KOS, no. 56 (4 June 1984)]The fortnightly paper of the Committee for Social Resistance (Komitet Oporu Społecznego or KOS) reprinted and gave its full support to the proposal made by the editors of another underground publication, the literary journal "Wezwanie" [The Call], that the Nobel Prize for Literature be awarded to the Czech writer, Milan Kundera. The Warsaw based "KOS" appears regularly, each edition numbering from 6,000 to 10,000 copies. It is also reprinted in the provinces. The paper advocates all forms of independent and grassroots organization by society and supports activities such as self-education circles, underground publishing, and independent cultural life in the form of private art exhibitions or informal theatrical events performed in private apartments. The paper has invited several independent underground oppositional bodies to contribute regularly to its pages. These include the Helsinki Watch Committee, which edits a section on lawlessness; the Social Council for Science, which edits a section on independent education and the situation in Poland's academic institutions; and the (underground) Arts Council, which edits the "Independent Culture" supplement. It was the last of these that printed the following article.
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