Journey to Gdansk: An Introduction

1 62 fe ldm Journey to Gdansk An Introduction Halina Filipowicz While the emergence of the Solidarity movement In Poland was Instantaneously recorded on film by Andrzej Chodakowski and Andrzej Zajaczkowski in a remarkable documentary, Workers '80, and by Andrzej Wajda in the politically-charged, award-winning Man of Iron, Janusz Glowacki's Journey to Gdansk is the first dramatic or literary work to deal with the long Polish summer of 1980. Published in Poland in February 1981, the play is set in mid-August 1980, when workers of the Lenin shipyards In Gdansk began a sit-in protesting a sudden Increase In food prices. The Initial demands are for higher wages to compensate for the higher prices; reinstatement of three dismissed workers, outspoken critics of the regime; erection of a memorial to strikers killed by the Polish Communist police in December 1970; and creation of self-governing trade unions Independent of the party and employers. Lech Walesa, unemployed electrician and free trade union activist, climbs over a shipyard wall to join the sit-in. He soon emerges as charismatic leader of striking workers throughout Poland. Authorities agree to the first three demands, but reject talks about the free unions and cut off all communications between Gdansk and the rest of the country In an effort to isolate the strikers. A false strike committee spreads the news that the shipyard strike Is over. Following the party line, many media reporters chide and cajole the workers, euphemistically referring to "work stoppages" and viciously attacking "enemies of the people" and "antisocialist elements." Other journalists sign a resolution deploring the constraints and obligations imposed upon by the press by authorities. 63 Despite the communications blackout In Gdansk, strikes and sit-Ins spread throughout the country. After prolonged and dramatic negotiations, on August 31, In Gdansk the government signs an agreement with members of the interfactory Strike Committee, headed by Walesa. The essential points of the agreement include the right to establish Independent trade unions; the right to strike; freedom of speech and religion; relaxation of censorship; access of the unions to the government-controiled media; and release of political prisoners. Within a few months, some ten million people joined the free unions, now called collectively Solidarity. This genuine social avalanche was fueled by a new hope for the democratization of the system and for the Solidarityinspired renewal of Poland. But the initial enthusiasm and optimism soon gave way to an angry and bitter realization that, to authorities, the agreement with the workers was not even worth the paper it was written on. The independent unions were refused any decisive role In the management of factories and businesses, and most of the original accords were simply Ignored by authorities. And yet, in blatant anti-Solidarity propaganda, the government never failed to blame the labor federation for the deepening economic and political crisis in the country. On December 13, 1981, sixteen months after the birth of Solidarity, all of the newly won liberties were wiped out as martial law was clamped down by General Woiclech Jaruzelski's military government. Labor activists were rounded up and whisked off to detention camps. Walesa found himself under house arrest. The Gdansk shipyards once again became a resistance center and had to be cleared by security forces In riot gear. The protagonist of Journey to Gdansk, a history major underemployed as a magazine reporter, is offered a chance to travel to the Lenin shipyards In order to cover the August sit-in. Thrown off guard, he panics-not simply because he is a nervous wreck whose only acts of defiance include marital infidelities. Rather, he is painfully aware of the previous, unsuccessful attempts at liberalizing Poland's political and economic system. Workers stood up for their rights in 1970 and 1976, only to be shot down and turned back. Students and intellectuals revolted in 1968, only to be barred from graduate studies and academic posts. Glowacki's protagonist himself has been intimidated by losing his position at a research institute (possibly for his involvement in the 1968 protests) and having his articles censored as "anti-proletarian" and "anti-Polish." Placed In an untenable position, he nevertheless tries to reconcile...