State, Labor, and the Transition to a Market Economy: Egypt, Poland, Mexico, and the Czech Republic

Chapter 2: Ruling Parties, Organized Labor, and Transitions to Democracy: Poland and Czechoslovakia

When the Polish and Czechoslovak governments initiated economic reforms following the fall of Communism, they encountered very different labor organizations . Polish unions, as will be examined in Chapter 4, emerged as influential actors and significantly shaped the process of privatization design and implementation . Unions in Czechoslovakia, however, were unable to play such a central role during the reform processes. The source of this difference between the two cases can be located in the state-labor dynamics of the pre-reform period. The contentious encounters between the Polish ruling party and labor resulted in the acquisition by the latter of important resources, in particular, legal prerogatives, financial autonomy, and the long experience of successfully challenging the state. Thanks to these resources, Polish organized labor could not be brushed aside by the government as the latter sought to push through market reforms. Czechoslovak organized labor traveled along a very different trajectory that left it with few resources it could draw upon as it confronted structural adjustment reforms. This chapter will examine how despite similar initial conditions following the Communist takeover in both countries, organized labor entered the new democratic era with such differing resources. The Labor Movement in Communist Poland In July 1944 on Polish territory controlled by the advancing Soviet army, the Polish Workers Party (ppr) announced the formation of a new government. A bloody and protracted civil war, with the Home Army supported by the Polish government in exile, based in London, followed as the ppr sought to consolidate ruling parties, organized labor, and transitions to democracy Poland and Czechoslovakia 2 power. Immediately following the end of World War II it appeared that an agreement hammered out in Yalta between the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain that mandated free elections in Poland would hold. In June 1945 Stanisøaw Mikoøajczyk, the prime minister of Poland’s government in exile and leader of the Polish Peasant Party (psl), returned and joined the ppr-dominated government. In January 1947 the ppr, which ran in coalition with the Polish Socialist Party (pps) and two smaller parties, the Democratic Alliance (sd) and the Peasant Alliance (sl), won the parliamentary elections largely thanks to fraud and intimidation.1 Following the election the ppr quickly moved to consolidate power. In October 1947, facing imminent arrest, Mikoøajczyk fled the country. In December 1948 the ppr merged with the pps, forming the Polish United Workers Party (pzpr).2 By 1949 the new regime had abolished all independent political parties and organizations and began the process of Stalinization, sending thousands of political foes to prison or into exile. The pzpr, led by first secretary Bolesøaw Bierut, also expanded the police apparatus extending surveillance over the population and the party itself. In March 1949 it created a special department within the Ministry of Security and charged it with the elimination of all opposition forces that may have penetrated the party. Within the next couple of years, in the name of the “battle for revolutionary vigilance,” numerous high party dignitaries were expelled from the pzpr. Others were incarcerated. The pzpr also moved to transform the Polish economy, nationalizing industry and instituting central planning mechanisms. At the same time that the pzpr was busy eliminating its political rivals, it also sought to appeal to the rural and urban poor with promises to undertake revolutionary socioeconomic restructuring of the society. Containing political opposition and mobilizing support also meant that the party had to extend control over organized labor, which had become increasingly militant in the 1930s. It entrusted Edward Ochab, a high-ranking party official, with formulating a plan to reshape union organization. In June 1949, a centralized trade union organization was formed, headed by Politburo member Aleksander Zawadzki, with branch unions subordinated to the Central Council of Trade Unions (crzz). Gradually, the number of branch unions was reduced from the prewar high of about three hundred to twenty-three. Fortynine councils were established at the national level along with about thirty state, labor, and the transition to a market economy 40 1. For additional information about the rigging of the elections, see Teresa Toran;ska, Oni (Warsaw: Agencja Omnipress, 1989). 2. Gøos Ludu—Robotnik, December 15, 1948. thousand factory councils.3 The party wanted to ensure that all workers joined the organization and the crzz membership quickly expanded. By 1949 it had 3.5 million members. In 1954 membership swelled to 4.5...