Poland: Back to the Precipice

Workers and government square off in the shadow of Soviet tanks

The factory sirens began to wail at 8 a.m., and for the next four hours all Poland held its breath. In Warsaw, trams and buses draped with red-and-white national flags sat idle in their barns. In Silesia, brawny coal miners folded their arms and refused to descend into the mines. In the Baltic port of Gdansk, where last summer's strikes first launched Poland on its present, breathtakingly dangerous course, shipyard workers laid down their welding torches and rivet guns.

Until noon, the country was at a standstill, as millions of Poles downed their tools in the latest—and perhaps riskiest—confrontation with the Warsaw regime. "We don't want to overthrow the Communist Party," Solidarity Union Leader Lech Walesa told fellow strikers at a Warsaw steel mill. "We only want to get rid of the people who are putting the brakes on Poland's renewal." Specifically, he meant the officials responsible for a police attack two weeks ago on 26 union members in Bydgoszcz. Beyond that, however, Walesa and his comrades were boldly challenging a powerful group of hard-liners in the upper echelons of the Communist hierarchy.

Friday's strike, intended as a warning to the government, was observed by most of Solidarity's 10 million members (who account for nearly one-third of Poland's population). It was the first nationwide work stoppage since Oct. 3 and one of the biggest such actions ever to take place in the Soviet bloc. There were no clashes with police this time, but no one could predict what might happen if the workers carried out their threat to launch an unlimited general strike early this week.

Never, since the outbreak of last summer's labor unrest, had Poland seemed so close to the brink. The union-government dialogue that had repeatedly staved off outright confrontation in recent months was sputtering. Party Boss Stanislaw Kania branded the union challenge "an invitation to suicide." Fears rose that the government might impose martial law, especially if the hard-line faction in the Central Committee took over.

As Poland's government and workers squared off once again, the Soviet Union broke an ominous silence on the Polish question with some even more ominous warnings. In a sizzling attack on "anti-socialist forces within Solidarity," TASS called the general strike threat "a declaration of war." Similar charges echoed throughout the East bloc. Noted a senior Western diplomat in Moscow: "It looks like a collision course, and the Soviets are urging the Polish government not to shrink from it."

Moscow's tough talk was backed up by extensive Warsaw Pact maneuvers in and around Poland. The war games, originally scheduled to end last week, were prolonged indefinitely. Lengthy nightly television reports gave Poles a chilling view of amphibious landings, mock tank battles and simulated aerial assaults. Warsaw Pact maneuvers had preceded the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia; the message was not lost on the Poles.