Crackdown on Solidarity

By William E. Smith

The government uses force after new defiance by the union

Throughout Saturday evening there had been ominous signs of the trouble to come. Reports reaching the Warsaw headquarters of the trade-union movement Solidarity from regional offices warned of an unusual amount of troop activity throughout the country. Tanks were seen on provincial highways. In late evening, telephone and telex lines between Poland and the outside world were suddenly cut. And then, at midnight, eleven police vans appeared on Warsaw's Mokotowska Street, where the local headquarters is located, and blocked the thoroughfare. Moments later dozens of steel-helmeted riot police stormed the building, where they arrested union members and confiscated documents.

At about the same time, police and soldiers were rounding up union radicals elsewhere. The door of one unionist's apartment was smashed as police pushed their way inside. Additional arrests were made in the Baltic port city of Gdansk, where the ruling committee of Solidarity, including its leader, Lech Walesa, had been in stormy session. Also taken into custody were several former government officials, including former Communist Party Chief Edward Gierek. Despite the apparent size of the operation, the news blackout had been planned so carefully that even in the capital, few Poles were aware of what was happening.

At 6 a.m. Sunday, exactly six hours after the crackdown began, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish party chief and Premier, made a radio address to the country. He declared a state of martial law and announced that henceforth the country would be ruled by a "military council for national salvation." Speaking in a tired voice, he said, "Our country is at the verge of an abyss. The state structure has ceased operating." Solidarity's leaders, he charged, "threaten us with the use of force. They no longer obey the law. Everyone is on strike. They call for confrontation with the Reds. We had to do something before they thrust us into civil war . . . We have to come out of the crisis by ourselves by our hands. History would never forgive us if we failed." And so, he said, "from today, a state of war is declared in Poland."

Under the martial law decree, Solidarity was "suspended," as were other forms of union activity. Also prohibited were all public meetings, except religious services held inside churches. Poland's borders were sealed and its airports closed. Telephone and telex communications were severely disrupted, both with the West and with friendly countries such as the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Inside Poland, phone communications were also interrupted. Poles were told to seek out military patrols in the street if they needed emergency assistance.

A curfew was imposed between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and Poles were ordered to carry identity papers at all times. House searches were legalized. Movement between cities was restricted, as were such activities as sailing on inland lakes and territorial waters. The government said people suspected of threatening the state would be interned in "isolation centers" around the country.

The government moved forcefully, but there was also evidence of official caution. Many top Solidarity officials were detained, but Walesa was flown from Gdansk to Warsaw for consultations with government officials. Said a government spokesman: "Walesa is not arrested and not interned. He is being treated with all due respect. He is considered the head of Solidarity, and Solidarity's activities have only been suspended." It was not known what the government was seeking from him, or what would happen if Walesa could not or would not get Solidarity to comply with government demands.

Six hours after his radio announcement, as a light snow fell on the capital, Jaruzelski outlined the state of emergency on national television. Looking drawn and tense behind his customary dark glasses, he spoke with slow emphasis, as if to make sure that his listeners would not miss anything. It was revealing that he addressed his audience as "citizens" instead of using the Communist "comrades." He did not mention the party, and he was introduced as Poland's Premier and head of the armed forces, but not as party secretary, a post he also holds.

Jaruzelski's rhetoric at times was forgiving ("We do not intend to pursue a policy of revenge"), but his message was all muscle: civilian government will be restored only when "the situation is promising enough." In what seemed to be an effort to take some of the sting out of the crackdown, Jaruzelski announced that several dozen deposed Communist party officials had been "interned" or would be rounded up later. In addition to Gierek, who was ousted at the height of the labor unrest in Gdansk last year, these included former Premier Piotr Jaroszewicz, former Propaganda Chief Zdzislaw Grudzien and Jan Szydlak, a hard-liner who once headed Poland's official trade-union federation. Jaruzelski said they had been taken into custody "in connection with the state of affairs in the 1970s." By seizing on scapegoats within the party, Jaruzelski hoped to make it clear that Solidarity was not solely responsible for Poland's calamity.

The careful timing of the police and army dragnet and communication blackout indicated that the government had been planning to move for some time. But as luck would have it, Solidarity provided a perfect pretext, presumably just as the government was about to start its roundup. Meeting in Gdansk on Saturday, the union's national leadership passed a seven-point resolution demanding greater freedom and vowed to call for a national referendum on the Communist leadership if the government did not respond to Solidarity's requests. During the debate, one official said, "Whether we want to or not, we have to take power." The union then proclaimed this Thursday "a day of protest against oppression." The Solidarity demands were unexpectedly radical, and probably would have forced government action within days even if it had not been planned ahead of time.

By Sunday afternoon all Poland knew the worst. Troops and tanks were stationed at key crossroads in major cities. There was little traffic, but in some areas Poles took to the streets, and demonstrators pelted army trucks with snowballs. Outside Solidarity's headquarters, union members handed out crude leaflets demanding an immediate nationwide general strike. Another leaflet condemned the martial law decree as a "brutal provocation of the country's legal order and an attempt at paralyzing and crushing Solidarity and society." At one point police turned fire hoses on 200 demonstrators.

The move against Solidarity caused shock and dismay throughout the West. In Washington, President Reagan was kept closely informed of the Polish situation throughout the weekend. In Brussels, Secretary of State Alexander Haig hastily put off a planned trip to Israel. He said the U.S. and its European partners were "surprised" by the ominous developments in Poland. "We're watching very carefully," he said. "And we are consulting with our concerned allies here on the Continent." In a direct warning to the Soviets, Haig said, "It would be hard to call the West guilty of interference. And we have increasingly insisted that others not interfere either." The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was ready to call an emergency meeting of foreign ministers if the situation in Poland warranted. West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was described as "very upset" by events, though he stressed that "the news from Poland could have been worse"--meaning Soviet troops were not involved.

There were no immediate signs of Soviet military intervention, and Jaruzelski's comment that Poles should solve the crisis by "our hands" appeared to imply that he was striving hard to avoid such an eventuality. Clearly speaking to both Poland and the Soviets at once, Jaruzelski said: "Citizens, just as there is no turning back from socialism, so there is no turning back to the erroneous methods and practices of pre-1980." But then he said: "The Polish-Soviet alliance is and will remain the cornerstone of the Polish raison d'etat." Within hours of the imposition of martial law, Radio Moscow carried an approving bulletin on the government's action. Said a government official in Moscow: "The Soviet troops in Poland are in their barracks. Polish troops have control of the situation." Jaruzelski's move was reported without comment in most of the other East bloc countries.

The most poignant reaction came from Pope John Paul II. Giving his Sunday blessing before a crowd of 30,000 in St. Peter's Square, he declared: "Polish blood must no longer be spilled. Everything must be done to build peace in the future of the homeland."

Though the Polish people have seen the level of political pressure rise and fall repeatedly throughout the past year and a half, they had realized for several days that the nation might be approaching a crisis. Early last week the government launched a propaganda barrage against Solidarity by broadcasting over the state radio some tape-recorded excerpts from a closed-door meeting of the union's leadership. The excerpts accounted for only about 30 minutes of what had been a twelve-hour discussion, but they tended to portray the leaders as troublesome and uncompromising. Walesa was quoted as having said: "The confrontation is unavoidable, and it will take place . . . I wanted to reach [it] in a natural way, when almost all social groups were with us. But I made a mistake because I thought we would keep it up longer and then we would overthrow these parliaments and [local government] councils." Walesa cautioned union leaders at the meeting against declaring publicly that confrontation was inevitable, but told them that they should say, "We love you, we love socialism and the party and, of course, the Soviet Union . . . We should do our work and wait."

The fact that somebody had tape-recorded the proceedings of a union meeting was not in itself surprising. Regional leaders, for example, routinely record union debates in order to demonstrate to members back home that their interests have been properly represented. Walesa did not quarrel with the quotes but said his remarks had been "terribly distorted." If anyone was seeking a showdown it was the government, he continued, adding: "We would like to hear their private conversations when they are talking about us secretly." Moreover, union leaders pointed out, the meeting had taken place just after the government had sent police to break up a sit-in demonstration by students at Warsaw's Fire Fighters Academy, and the unionists were angry.

What was alarming about the broadcast of the tapes was the harsh tone the government had adopted against the union. For perhaps the first time, Walesa was vilified by the state press and television. As a series of still photographs of Walesa was shown on TV, an announcer intoned, "Do you want to follow this band of revolutionaries, or would you prefer a peaceful national understanding of the kind the government is seeking?" The army newspaper Zolnierz Wolnosci called Walesa "a great liar and provocateur" who headed a group of "madmen" who were striving for "anarchy and chaos."

At midweek Walesa met in Warsaw with Poland's Roman Catholic Primate, Archbishop Jozef Glemp, who was attempting to mediate between the government and Solidarity. Glemp had already spoken out against the government's bill seeking broader emergency powers, saying that it could "disturb the internal peace and cause a grave social conflict." Following his talk with Walesa, there were rumors that the two might meet with Jaruzelski. But such a meeting was not arranged, and Walesa returned to Gdansk. For his efforts at peacemaking, the Archbishop received a blast from Moscow, which accused the Polish Catholic Church of stirring up "anti-Communist sentiment."

One important indication of the fear of government action in Poland was the fact that some 33,000 Poles have fled to Austria as refugees since last January. In addition, many of the 30,000 Polish "tourists" now in Austria are expected to seek resettlement. Of the 33,000 official refugees, only 6,700 have thus far received immigration visas to enter the U.S., Canada or Australia. Last week the Austrian government suspended a 1972 agreement that permitted Poles to travel to Austria without first obtaining visas. As a Vienna newspaper put it, "The government has decided that this country can no longer serve as the waiting room of the free world, a sort of Ellis Island of the West."

As tensions in Poland were rising all last week, unionists and government officials had repeatedly traded warnings. In itself, this was not unusual: Solidarity and the government have been testing each other since the union came into existence 16 months ago. What was unusual was the explicitness of the union's challenge. By calling for a referendum on the government, the radicals of Solidarity played into the hands of the hard-liners of the Polish Communist party. The government had already staked out its position: in the event of demonstrations "organs of public order" would move "decisively" to block such protests. A midnight Saturday, General Jaruzelski carried out that threat, with consequences to the Polish nation that cannot yet be assessed. --By William E. Smith Reported by Richard Hornik/Warsaw

With reporting by Richard Hornik, Warsaw

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