Polish workers revolt in Poznan
Karol Modzelewski was an inspiration to anyone fighting for a socialist society where ordinary people are in charge. He always supported workers’ struggles, right up until his death last week.
Modzelewski played a key role in the ten million-strong Solidarity rebellion that rocked the Stalinist dictatorship in 1980-1. And after it was brought down in 1989, he opposed neoliberal shock therapy.
The Poznan Workers’ Uprising of June 1956 turned Modzelewski into a revolutionary socialist. For all the Stalinist regime’s rhetoric of socialism and people’s democracy, workers had no control in Russia and the Eastern Bloc. They were state capitalist societies, where the state bureaucracy behaved like bosses in the West.
In Poznan, western Poland, workers rose up amid attacks on living standards. The Stalinist authorities sent tanks to quell the revolt, killing around 50 workers. But discontent continued to bubble across the country. Rebellious Lechoslaw Gozdzik, the 25 year old workers’ leader at Warsaw’s FSO car plant, asked Modzelewski and other rebellious students to organise discussions with workers. He went every day.
By October 1956, the Russians were ready to send tanks into Warsaw. Modzelewski joined the occupation of the FSO plant, where workers were armed with a few guns, metal castings and petrol bombs. A new Polish leadership diffused the situation and the tanks turned back, but Modzelewski continued to oppose the dictatorship.
In 1966 Modzelewski and Jacek Kuron wrote the Open Letter to the Party, a powerful Marxist indictment of the Stalinist system. They argued that state control of industry did not make Poland a socialist state. It was a class society where the bureaucracy’s goal was “production for the sake of production”. This echoed Karl Marx’s words about how profit maximisation and accumulation are central to capitalism. It was published by socialists around the world, including the forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party.
Modzelewski and Kuron were sentenced to prison for this call for genuine socialism. And Modzelewski received a further prison term for being one of the leaders of the 1968 student revolt in Warsaw.
In the 1970s, Modzelewski devoted his time to academic studies. But when the Solidarity workers’ rebellion began in 1980, he rushed to become involved. The new movement’s power was based on mass strikes, occupations and the formation of inter-workplace strike committees (MKS).
Modzelewski saw a group of strikers in Gdansk with a banner that said MKS Solidarity. On his suggestion the new independent union was named Solidarity. Modzelewski was no longer a revolutionary, but he was committed to building a strong workers’ movement. He resigned as Solidarity’s official spokesperson in March 1981 after Solidarity leader Lech Walesa called off an indefinite general strike.
He was interned when the regime introduced martial law in December 1981. Modzelewski was one of the few well-known Solidarity opposition leaders to oppose the neoliberal “transformation” after 1989.
In the early 1990s he tried unsuccessfully to form a Labour-type party. But he continued to back strikers. Only days before his death he called today’s leadership of Solidarity strike-breakers. They had cut a deal with the right wing government before the massive school and nursery strike took place.
Wildcat strikes—purrfect way to claw back workers’ rights
Wildcat strike by oil refinery workers blocks the road in Grangemouth, Scotland. (Picture: Twitter)
As the cost of living surges, wildcat strikes are back. An increasing number of workers are downing tools to rage against the bosses. The term “wildcat strike” is used to describe a workers’ strike that bypasses the limitations of the trade union bureaucracy and the Tories’ oppressive anti-union laws.
Instead of waiting to go through the process of negotiations, indicative ballot, strike ballot and then waiting for strike dates, a wildcat strike is where workers act immediately. Most importantly it is action that rank and file workers push from below.
Amazon workers who took part in wildcat strikes last week showed that they could do just that when they refused to accept a pay rise of just 35p. These strikes have spread to other Amazon “fulfilment centres” but it’s not just Amazon workers taking action.
Construction, oil refinery and other workers are coming together and participating in wildcat strikes, demonstrating a radical mood to fight back immediately. These strikes should be celebrated and encouraged to spread.
The distinction between what is “unofficial” and “official” has often been blurred. One example was a series of powerful unofficial walkouts at Royal Mail in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Often these would be over outrageous disciplinary moves by management.
Workers didn’t want to wait for ballots—they wanted the decision reversed immediately. And they often won very quickly.
Formally the walkouts were utterly spontaneous and nothing to do with the union. This was so they could avoid punishment under the anti-union laws.
But anyone who knew anything about what really happened was aware that the better union officials sometimes played a role. This was known as giving a “nod and a wink” to the rank and file.
Often workers take unofficial action alongside official action. This was especially true in the 1970s.
The workers’ revolt at Amazon keeps spreading
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In 1973 Colin Barker wrote in International Socialism journal, “The building workers’ strike in 1972 was turned into a national strike by unofficial action. In varying degrees, the same was true of strikes in the docks, at Ford, in the Post Office and the local authorities. In each case, the leadership was forced into giving official approval by a rising swell of unofficial action and the threat of ‘loss of control’.”
The most important lesson that wildcat strikes teach us, is that workers can organise themselves. Workers can use their knowledge to decide what to do, where to protest, who to contact about joining strikes and how not to get sacked. They can develop new tactics to fight, as they are the ones who truly know the best way to slow down production.
Building rank and file organisation and control of workers’ strikes terrifies the bosses. And it is through participation that workers’ confidence and ideas to win can grow.
A wildcat strike by refuse workers at Welwyn Hatfield Borough council managed to oust a manager that staff said was a sexist bully. Now workers say they have the confidence to strike for better pay.
For non-unionised workers, wildcat action raises the issue of what comes next. For some that will be signing up with one of the established unions.
That may provide protection and an existing layer of support. But it can also extinguish the element of raw anger and struggle. The union can mould the activists to its way of organising rather than the activists continuing to call the shots.
On other occasions, as at Amazon in the US, workers set up their own union. As Tory rules push working class people to the brink, every strike, whether official or wildcat, must try and replicate the militancy the wildcats have shown.
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