We Want a Decent Life

The dangerous struggle between workers and their party masters

For three hours the crowd swelled with new arrivals: miners from Silesia wearing their traditional long black coats and plumed czaka, railway workers from Lublin, bus drivers from Pulawy. Hundreds of thousands strong, they spilled out into side streets, waiting patiently in the early twilight while the tender strains of a Chopin piano concerto wafted from a loudspeaker. They had come to Gdansk to honor the memory of 45 workers killed by police and army bullets ten years before in riots along the Baltic coast. At long last a monument had been built: three slender trunks of steel crowned by crosses that bore dark anchors, like stylized Christ figures. To some, the 138-ft.-high sculpture outside the main gate of the Lenin Shipyard symbolized the futile workers' uprisings against Poland's governments in 1956, 1970 and 1976. To others, it recalled specifically the three workers gunned down there early one December morning in 1970. But most of all, last week's ceremonies represented the revolution of the moment: a danger-laden struggle between Poland's workers and their Communist masters.

Shortly before 5 o'clock, the dignitaries were introduced. Poland's President Henryk Jablonski, a silver-haired figure in a black overcoat: a smattering of applause. Franciszek Cardinal Macharski of Cracow wearing crimson biretta and robes: hearty applause. Then Union Leader Lech Walesa, the improbable hero of last summer's strikes, bundled in his customary duffel coat: tumultuous applause. After a minute of silence, the city's church bells began to peal, and ship sirens wailed from the port, a keening cry that sent shivers through the crowd. The names of those who died at Gdansk and Gdynia in 1970 were read aloud, with the-workers shouting back after each one: "Yes, he is still among us!" Walesa lit a memorial flame, which at once burned brightly despite a light drizzle. Said he: "This monument was erected for those who were killed, as an admonition to those in power. It embodies the right of human beings to their dignity, to order and to justice."

It was an extraordinary sight, this huge throng bathed in floodlights with the trifurcated sculpture reaching for the inky sky. But the occasion was even more extraordinary for its message. With the world anxiously looking on, representatives of union and church and state sat together on the podium, unified as Poles despite their differences, all hoping to change the face of Communism without bringing on Soviet intervention. "Our country needs internal peace," said Walesa. "I call on you to be prudent and reasonable."