Word: walesa
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Later the convention gave Walesa its endorsement, but whether he can run his "dictatorship" and keep the radicals in check, let alone carry out his strategy of undercutting them before Solidarity's next meeting later this month, remains to be seen. Emboldened by the passage of last week's resolutions, the advocates of confrontation may ultimately seize control of the fledgling labor movement, especially if the country's economic debacle drives frustrated Poles to the boiling point. Said one government official in Warsaw: "The hard-liners in Solidarity play into the hands of the hard-liners...
Just before Solidarity's meeting, Union Chairman Lech Walesa said in an interview with the Cracow party daily that he was fed up with radicals trying to politicize the organization. Said he: "The truth is that when the tanks move in I will meet them first. They [the radicals] will escape, but I will not. What are they up to?" At the conference, Walesa took no part in the debates over the controversial resolutions. Sitting quietly in his front-row seat, chain-smoking cigarettes, the former electrician said it was "my turn to listen." But he finally spoke...
Standing at the wooden lectern, beneath the emblem of a silver Polish eagle and a crucifix, Walesa told the delegates: "I am in the union to win battles and not to lose them. But if we do not have a strong leadership, we shall be losing battles." He added: "This will be my dictatorship for the coming two years. When we have nothing, and are headed for a clash quite soon, we have to be hasty and somewhat dictatorial." Criticizing the delegates for their internal bickering, he said that some of them were acting "like a bunch of clowns...
What was most notable about the increases was that the government did not clear them beforehand with Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa and his colleagues. Solidarity had maintained that there should be no changes in food prices until an economic reform program had been agreed upon. The government went ahead anyway, and Solidarity acquiesced, to avoid yet another showdown...
...Solidarity's leaders are faced with uncertainty over what to do next. Moderates like Walesa try to strike a balance between attack and accommodation; some of his lieutenants think only in terms of striking out at the Communist establishment. Like all Poles, they are obsessed with their history: of rising up against oppressive neighbors, only to be defeated and subjugated; like all Poles, they know that the Soviets could still intervene. A fortnight ago, the new primate of Poland, Archbishop Jozef Glemp, reminded his countrymen of the nearly 150 years of bondage they had endured after the partitions...