POLAND: Seething with Change

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The unions and the party embark on a delicate experiment

To the cheers of hundreds of sympathizers gathered below the five-story concrete building, two workers proudly hoisted a new red-and-white banner that proclaimed, INDEPENDENT AND SELF-GOVERNING TRADE UNION OF GDANSK. Inside, the wood-paneled hall buzzed with excitement. A young organizer from a tractor factory near Warsaw boastfully announced that 50% to 80% of the workers in his sector had signed up for the new unions. A burly miner from the Silesian coal fields, on the other hand, complained of official harassment against efforts to organize his mine. The familiar figure of Lech Walesa, 37, the triumphant leader of the original Lenin Shipyard strike, rose to make a telling disclosure. During a recent trip to Warsaw, he recounted, the authorities had in effect tried to buy him off by offering him the leadership of the party-controlled official trade union—a lure he had duly refused. Pledged Walesa to a rising cheer: "We cannot lose touch with the workers."

Such were the growing pains of an independent labor movement taking root in hostile ground. The gathering in Gdansk last week was the first nationwide meeting of some 150 organizers, representing new independent unions throughout the country, come together to stretch their new muscle and air their concerns. The convention-like meeting, in fact, was only one sign of the seething activity that was continuing to take place in Poland after two months of labor turmoil. "The Poland of today is not the same as before July 1980," conceded a top government official. "It will be impossible to return to the situation we had before."

For one thing, the strikes had not entirely dissipated. A lingering ripple of scattered stoppages continued at more than a dozen enterprises last week; some smaller factories experienced their second and third walkouts. Moreover, in Berlin, in what some observers interpreted as a spillover from the Polish upheaval, several hundred West German employees of the East German-run railroad* went on strike to press a series of demands: higher wages, new fringe benefits and, not surprisingly, an independent union.

The long shadow of the Soviet Union still loomed over Poland. Indeed, the Pentagon reported signs of ominous Soviet military activity on Poland's borders. The moves involved 20 Soviet divisions in East Germany and 20 in western Soviet military districts. Washington analysts were unsure whether this might be in preparation for an eventual intervention, but Secretary of State Edmund Muskie said the U.S. was closely monitoring the situation. President Carter delivered a promise and a careful warning: "We will not interfere in Poland's affairs—and we expect that others will similarly respect the right of the Polish nation to resolve its problems on its own."