POLAND: Playing Russian Roulette

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Strike-happy unions continue their risky game with Moscow

For a time it seemed to have all the makings of a rerun of last summer's strike drama. Threatening a citywide general strike, workers in Warsaw put up posters and donned red-and-white armbands. Many newsstands stopped selling government newspapers and displayed small Polish flags, a symbol of union protest. At the Ursus tractor factory, flash point of the 1976 food riots, more than 600 assembled workers cheered as union organizers from other Warsaw plants pledged to shut down their enterprises. The battle cry was contained in a poem read by one union leader: "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."

On the eve of Thursday's strike deadline, the authorities caved in to the union's chief demand. They released Jan Narozniak, a union volunteer, and Piotr Sapelo, a government employee, both of whom had been arrested on charges of stealing a secret state plan for cracking down on dissidents. The 13-page document was uncovered when police raided the Warsaw branch of Solidarity, the national federation of Poland's new independent unions and their estimated 10 million members.

Although the two men still face criminal charges, their release from jail was counted as a major concession from the government and reason enough to call off the citywide strike. To keep the pressure on, steelworkers briefly closed the giant Huta Warszawa plant, and the Warsaw union put other factories on "strike alert." The aim was to force talks on a series of other, highly incendiary demands. Among them: creation of a parliamentary commission to investigate the operations of the police and the state prosecutor, and budget cuts for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which oversees law enforcement. By thus challenging the state security apparatus, the unions were in effect directing a challenge at the heart of the Communist system itself. "This is absolute foolhardiness," said a worried East bloc specialist in Bonn. "This goes against Walesa's assurances that Solidarity's purpose was more economic than political. It adds to the tinder."

Lech Walesa, the Solidarity leader, has had increasing difficulty controlling his unruly rank and file. In recent weeks he has been counseling moderation and discipline, arguing that the union should concentrate on organizing instead of spending itself on a series of local skirmishes. He is also worried that the union may be overplaying its hand. As he told workers in Warsaw last week, with an unmistakable warning about the ominous possibility of Soviet intervention, "It will be a great mess if we go on strike . . . Let us not forget that tanks and rockets could be the reply."