Poland: A May Day Show of Defiance

Jaruzelski eases martial law, but Solidarity stages a protest

As a 24-gun salute boomed across Warsaw to begin the official May Day parade last Saturday, a crowd of some 10,000 Poles gathered in the capital's old town began to clap rhythmically. They were not applauding the regime. Instead, they were rallying under the defiant banner of the independent union Solidarity. Flashing the victory sign and waving placards demanding FREE THE INTERNEES, the demonstrators headed off in the general direction of the authorized parade. They called to bystanders to join the march, and soon more than 20,000 were chanting "Solidarity," "Leszek" (for the interned Lech Walesa) and "Down with the junta."

Passing the residence of Polish Roman Catholic Primate Archbishop Jozef Glemp, the marchers paused, hoping that the church leader might appear, then sang a hymn beginning "Return us our free fatherland." Finally, farther along their route, they encountered opposition: massed militia units with dozens of vehicles armed with water cannons. There was no clash. The protesters turned away, hurling insults at the militia ("Gestapo," "Whom do you serve?") as they walked toward the Vistula River. There the march broke up. Said one young worker triumphantly: "That was exactly what we wanted. There was no violence. It was a real morale booster."

The surprising outbreak of protest, by far the largest demonstration against the regime since martial law was declared last Dec. 13, was hardly a morale booster for Poland's junta leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski. He and his comrades had hoped to blunt just that sort of anger. Earlier in the week, Poland's Interior Ministry announced that sufficient progress had been made in "the normalization of public life" to justify lifting some of the more onerous martial-law restrictions. The nightly curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. would be suspended (a concession that the protest may well have jeopardized), and Poles could make long-distance telephone calls within the country without going through an operator. The announcement also informed Poles that 1,000 political internees would be released, 200 of them on parole. But if any of them dared to resume "activities aimed against the binding legal order," the statement warned, they would be subject to summary criminal trials without the right of appeal.

Many of the workers, farmers and intellectuals who were freed late last week seemed stunned by their sudden good fortune. Cautious in commenting about prison conditions, they did not claim to have been maltreated by the authorities. Neither Walesa nor any other top leaders of the banned Solidarity union were among those released. In fact, there were reports that some Solidarity advisers, including Historian Adam Michnik, had been moved to Rakowiecka Prison in Warsaw and would be tried for antistate activities. Said a former Communist Party member: "It is possible that the authorities plan to release all but the most active people, who will then be identified as political criminals and kept isolated."