Solidarity and Contention: Networks of Polish Opposition (review)

In 1989 Poland became the first country to reject Communism at the ballot box. This unprecedented free election came after the Leninist state was forced to negotiate with Solidarity, a broad-based social movement, following years of repressive martial law. Explaining how Solidarity first emerged in 1980 therefore has huge historical significance. This book takes up the challenge, comparing what happened in 1980 with two earlier episodes: 1956 and 1966- 68-70. The author's explanation deploys the familiar trinity of political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framing.

Political opportunities explain the upsurge of protest in 1956. De-Stalinization, emanating from the Soviet Union, divided the Party elite. In response, workers and students took to the streets demanding economic improvement, political freedom, and national autonomy. The Party elevated a reformist, Wladyslaw Gomulka, to the position of first secretary, but he soon turned against the opposition. For the other waves of protest, however, political opportunities appear less significant. Indeed, they seem to be overshadowed by economic grievances. Strike waves in 1970, which forced the Party to replace Gomulka with Gierek, and in 1980, which led eventually to Gierek's downfall, were both provoked by steep price rises. Closer attention to changes in the real wages and working conditions of industrial workers would have been useful.

Mobilizing structures are the centerpiece of the book. Rather than continuing to debate the concept of "civil society," the author has collected data on 45 formal and informal organizations outside the Communist Party. Biographical information on 1700 members reveals the organizational network, with ties between any pair of organizations measured by the number of individuals belonging to both. The result is a series of nine detailed portraits of the network before, during, and after each upsurge. Despite cyclical fluctuations, the network grew in size and cohesion at each peak of mobilization. By 1978-79, it was larger than ever before. "The number of strong ties grew, groups representing various social/ideological categories were strongly linked to organizations outside their sectors, and brokerage roles were shared between the older Catholic core groups and the new civic associations." When Solidarity emerged in August 1980, it became the central node, connected to 14 other organizations.

Cultural framing is the third component of explanation. "In the Polish case, the us-versus-them formulation was a master frame that allowed various collective action frames to collect comfortably under its umbrella." This form of binary opposition is surely universal; what really matters is its content. The book describes evocatively how the dichotomy was enacted through ritual. At the end of the 1950s the Catholic Church began organizing an endless succession of celebrations focusing on the Black Madonna. A copy of the painting, blessed by the Pope, toured parishes throughout the country. Bishops proved adept at outwitting the state's bumbling prohibitions. When it banned the carrying of religious pictures, the clergy substituted an empty gold frame filled with flowers. This, of course, did nothing to deter religious devotion; it merely emphasized the state's alienation from the national religion and enabled citizens to practice a subtle defiance. Although leftist intellectuals had been suspicious of popular religious fervor, by the late 1970s many began to see the Church as an ally.

One is struck throughout by the emotional force of past events. The wave of protest in 1966 coincided with the celebration of a thousand years since the founding of the Polish state and church, along with the tenth anniversary of the 1956 wave. The newly elected Polish Pope wanted to visit his homeland for the feast of St. Stanislaus, victim of an oppressive monarch in the eleventh century; fearing the subversive subtext, the Communist authorities delayed his visit, and so the Church simply postponed the official anniversary. In 1980, the strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk shifted beyond economic grievances — for which management had already offered concessions — when the Interfactory Strike Committee decided to erect a cross in memory of four...