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Foreword: From Romanticism to Realism: Our Struggle in the Years 1980–1982
- Central European University Press
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xiii FOREWORD From Romanticism to Realism: Our Struggle in the Years 1980–1982 It is difficult to consider the year 1980 in Poland and its consequences for the world without referring to the past of this Polish nation, exhausted by communism . After all, that year did not occur in a void. We experienced earlier outbursts that were stifled in a bloody manner by the authorities. I had December 1970 strongly etched in my heart and memory. I prayed after those events that I would be given a chance once more to fight the battle. I already understood then that one had to use different methods. It was not enough to go out into the streets and demand one’s rights. We needed a more effective means to employ against the totalitarian system. And with god’s help, which came at an opportune moment, and because of supernatural circumstances, August yielded just such a harvest. I would like to call to your attention one thing that was inconceivable in those days. A Pole became pope, came to Poland, and his word became flesh. “Solidarity ” was born, and its power lay in the fact that for the first time in the post-war years all social groups gathered under one banner: workers, intellectuals, artists, farmers, and the youth. We walked shoulder to shoulder, and we knew where we were heading. The aim of the struggle in August was clear to us all. We had to weather the strike, state our main demands and obtain the approval of the authorities. We achieved this in a dreamlike way, without losses, and without internal splits. The August agreements were precisely a worker’s shoe shoved in the door to freedom . We achieved as much as was possible under those circumstances. We did not intend to stop there, even though we could not enlighten the authorities about this openly. After all, the door to freedom was not entirely ajar, and our demands had not met with official approval. I knew that these demands were evolutionary in nature, that we had to continue to fight for them, and that we would be able to crack open this door, against the authorities’ harsh repression, only by the sweat of our brow. I remembered that we continued to be in this country, and not another one, and that we were still a part of the Soviet bloc. We therefore played a strategic game for each sliver of freedom. We could not irritate the authorities too much. All that was left for us was constantly to wear down that stone with drops of hope and faith from August. After the events of August 1980, Solidarity entered its own period of jubilation . But at the same time it was a period of arduous struggle, followed finally by a letdown and the night of martial law. In August, we were romantics dreaming about a Poland we needed and which we saw in our dreams. After August, more xiv and more, we became realists, having understood what kind of Poland was possible . We were not naïve; we had to fight within the realm of our power and possibilities . It was important to maintain the spirit of the struggle so that it would not die out after what we had already accomplished. At that time, we were not interested in politics in the sense of political parties whose aim is to take over power and sweep out the group in authority. The point was rather to press for a gradual and systematic internal change in the government as it was, since the next one perhaps would be no better—which is something we learned from history. So as not to frighten anyone too much, we first fought for acknowledgement from the authorities of social trends and the creation of a social mechanism that would protect against abuses of power, against open injustices, and against the destruction of people. Later, we wanted to take a step further. It was impossible under those conditions to think about something more, and the goals and desires we posed at the time were, after all, unattainable. With hindsight, all of this looks completely different. A new independent labor union was becoming the motor and the reason for these changes. In this way, we could become advocates of a universal, and not a narrow, cause. And this was where our power lay, because to the world we were not just another political group fighting for power for ourselves , but...