Showing who is Boss

By John Kohan

Lech Walesa comes home to a movement in disarray

It was a gamble, but it appears to have succeeded. In releasing former Union Leader Lech Walesa after eleven months in detention, the government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski conveyed a new sense of self-confidence rather than any weakness toward Poland's still rebellious population. Now the focus is on a special session of parliament that has been set for Dec. 13, the first anniversary of the military crackdown. Many Poles believe that Jaruzelski, who has successfully contained resistance, will choose that day to lift martial law altogether.

Such a move may not make much of a difference to most Poles. The government will probably still have the power to keep opposition leaders in detention and militarize industrial plants. As a former Warsaw journalist wryly observes, "It is like a man with a knife asking for your watch in a dark alley. You can give it to him when he asks for it, or you can give it to him when he puts a knife to your throat. The authorities have lowered the knife, but they still want the watch."

The government's self-assurance was reflected in its treatment of Walesa's release. A planned television interview with Walesa was unceremoniously shelved, and newspaper reports were limited to nine lines on an inside page. Said Government Spokesman Jerzy Urban: "The information is tailored to the scale of the news. Lech Walesa is a private person."

Perhaps, but to many of his supporters Lech Walesa, or "Leszek" as they affectionately call him, is still the man who has become inextricably linked with the word Solidarity. For three days, hundreds of supporters kept a vigil beneath the second-story window of his apartment block on the outskirts of Gdansk. Suddenly, late in the evening, an excited murmur spread through the milling crowd. Before the convoy of four cars could pull to a stop, it was mobbed by surging onlookers who struck up the chant, "Leszek, Leszek." At the center of the commotion was a familiar figure with a drooping mustache. Looking noticeably more rotund, Walesa, 39, had come home.

Security men swept Walesa up the stairs to his waiting wife Danuta. She quickly dispatched them with a bottle of vodka and the stern warning, "Don't you dare intern my husband again!" Then, before turning in for the night, Walesa pulled aside the living room draperies and flashed a defiant V-for-victory sign to cheering supporters. It was a scene both comic and joyful, but devoid of triumph. Walesa's independent union Solidarity, which was formally banned by the government on Oct. 8, lies in ruins.

Still, as if trying to revive the heady days before the military crackdown last December, Walesa received reporters in his apartment to talk about his release and make plans for the future. He said he now wanted to find a solution to Poland's problems "courageously and cautiously, within the reality in which we live." Speaking in rapid-fire phrases, he explained how the conciliatory message that he wrote to Jaruzelski two weeks ago had resulted in a meeting the following day with Lieut. General Czeslaw Kiszczak, the Minister of Internal Affairs. After almost four hours of "manly conversation" in Arlamowo, a hunting lodge 200 miles southeast of Warsaw, where he had been held since May, Walesa thought he would be sent to join other union activists at the Bialoleka prison, outside Warsaw. Said Walesa: "During those eleven months, I did not sign anything, did not resign from anything, made no declarations and made no commitments. I was released to my great surprise without any obligations, as a completely free man."

Two days later, fugitive union leaders admitted in a statement published in an underground weekly that their failure to organize a nationwide strike on Nov. 10 had been a "serious blow" to Solidarity. The confusion surrounding Walesa's release only added to the movement's woes and aroused suspicion that the popular union leader had been duped by the generals. Said a Solidarity supporter at the Warsaw steel mill: "We have to wait and see what kind of Walesa we have."

Offering a cryptic explanation for his note to Jaruzelski, Walesa drew reporters' attention to the time that his letter was sent to Warsaw: 10 a.m., Monday, Nov. 8. It was the precise moment at which the government had announced the date for Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland next year, and just about the time that Roman Catholic Primate Jozef Glemp and Jaruzelski were concluding a meeting in which they discussed Poland's continuing domestic troubles. The hint sparked speculation that Walesa's release might have been part of a church-state understanding, in which the military regime might have promised to lift martial law in return for the church's cooperation in preventing further civil disorder.

Jaruzelski, it seems, had quietly strengthened his bargaining position by applying pressure on the clergy. Building permits for new churches were delayed, use of foreign-currency accounts by the church was restricted, and young priests were threatened with military service. It was enough to show Catholic leaders that the regime was ready to take them on too.

If Poland's military rulers seemed to have gained even more ground against the opposition last week, their position was far from unassailable. The Polish economy is still in shambles. So much of Poland's production is dependent on Western imports of technology and raw materials that it has proved impossible to find enough substitutes in the Soviet Union or other East-bloc countries.

In preparing to lift martial law, the Polish government hopes to persuade the U.S. to ease trade sanctions against Poland. But so far Washington remains unconvinced that anything has fundamentally changed in Poland. --ByJohnKohan. Reported by Gregory H. Wierzynski/Warsaw

With reporting by Gregory H. Wierzynski/Warsaw

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