A Risky Spring Offensive

By Patricia Blake

The opposition comes out of hibernation, and the state responds with muscle

During the dark days after General Wojciech Jaruzelski's imposition of martial law last December, a defiant slogan appeared on walls and in underground publications: "The winter is yours, the spring will be ours." Last week, as tulips bloomed in Lazienki Park and the sun streamed down on the reconstructed facades of Warsaw's Old Town, thousands of Poles tried to turn that threat into a reality. Citizens who had chafed, sullenly and silently, under military rule for five months took to the streets in a nationwide affirmation of their disapproval of Jaruzelski's regime. Chanting "Down with the junta!" they waved white-and-red Polish flags and brandished the symbol of the banned Solidarity labor union.

But the scene turned to violence as Poland's authorities sought to break up the protests. Swinging rubber-covered lead batons and spraying powerful jets of water from special vehicles, they tried to disperse some 10,000 people who had gathered in Warsaw's Castle Square. Similar confrontations occurred in at least twelve other cities. By week's end, according to the government, some 70 policemen and hundreds of demonstrators had been injured in the clashes. In addition, 1,372 people had been detained, and many were facing summary court proceedings.

The events showed that many of Poland's 36 million citizens continue to support Solidarity and that the government's efforts at reconciliation, including the recent suspension of some restrictions, had failed. The fact that demonstrations took place throughout Poland at the same time was more a result of spontaneous feelings than of coordinated underground activity.

In Warsaw, the riots erupted two days after more than 20,000 residents had marched through the capital's old city in a counterdemonstration aimed at the official May Day parade that was passing through the city's major thoroughfares. Anxious not to cast a pall on a sacred Communist holiday, the government ignored the protest. But when Poles reconvened for another demonstration on May 3, Constitution Day, the police had orders to break it up.

The date had special significance for history-conscious Poles. It commemorated the liberal 1791 constitution that had given Poland a bill of rights. As thousands of people, most of them young, gathered in Castle Square, militiamen in padded uniforms massed in squads of 100 or more at the entrances to the vast square and at other key points in the city.

Undeterred by the show of force, Solidarity members and supporters put up a huge poster of their leader, Lech Walesa, who remains interned. When banners bearing the suspended union's familiar SOLIDARNOSC logo were unfurled, the crowd's cheers were interrupted by the shrill sound of police loudspeakers issuing orders to disperse. Then the militiamen charged, beating demonstrators and bystanders indiscriminately. When the protesters responded with shouts of "Gestapo!" the militia began firing flares and tear-gas canisters into the crowd. High-powered water cannons drove some demonstrators into side streets. Others, less fortunate, were knocked down or mercilessly pinned against walls and doorways.

The rioting soon spread to other parts of Warsaw. One group headed for the main railway station, where it replaced the red Communist flag with a SOLIDARNOSC banner. Skirmishes between demonstrators and militia broke out near the Communist Central Committee building and the Sejm (parliament). Shortly after midnight, the government dispatched hundreds of public works employees to clean up the damage. As the stench of tear gas permeated the dark city, the workers put down new cobblestones, replaced broken glass and even placed pots of tulips in areas where some of the worst fighting had occurred.

But no cosmetic efforts could disguise the extent of the opposition to martial law. In other Polish cities, riots erupted as local security forces sought to suppress Constitution Day demonstrations. In the port of Gdansk, where Solidarity was born in the wake of strikes during August 1980, some 5,000 people reportedly joined in the fighting. In Lublin, 178 people were detained when clashes with police became daily occurrences. In Gdynia and Elblag, demonstrators reportedly concentrated on tearing down the red flags that had been put up for May Day.

The scope of the rioting apparently came as a surprise to the country's military leaders, who had hoped that five months of stringent martial law would restore order and stability to Poland. The Sunday before the Constitution Day riots, the government had felt secure enough to lift the nationwide curfew that had been in effect since December. Said one Western diplomat in Warsaw: "They had very high hopes that the relaxation would have a visibly soothing effect on the people." Ironically, riots in front of the Sejm occurred shortly after Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski had finished delivering a speech saying that an accord between the government and other forces in society was still possible in Poland.

After the riots, the government quickly reintroduced the curfew in Warsaw and eight other cities and temporarily cut off telephone communications in the capital. But it tried to play down the importance of the demonstrations. Appearing on national television, Interior Minister Czeslaw Kiszczak blamed the riots on young "hooligans." He also claimed that the demonstrations had been organized by "enemies of socialism" in Poland who had plotted with "reactionary forces" in the West. Kiszczak blamed the West for stirring up trouble to divert attention from its own problems, including "the shameful colonial conflict over the Malvinas," or Falkland Islands.

Although the population is becoming more vocal, the underground remains divided. When Radio Solidarity took to the air waves for its third clandestine broadcast last week, the announcer explained that the interruption of a program on the eve of May Day was the result of a technical failure and not of successful jamming by the government. In fact, the transmission may have been broken off because of a dispute within Solidarity over whether Union Leader Zbigniew Bujak should be allowed to issue an appeal that differed from the views of other underground leaders on how the May Day demonstrations should be handled.

Poland's Roman Catholic bishops sharply dissociated themselves from the Constitution Day demonstrations, which they declared were "delaying social accord, halting steps toward normalization and leading youth astray." Poland's Primate, Archbishop Jozef Glemp, issued an appeal to young people to resist being drawn into violence by people with "hearts of stone." These statements dismayed many Solidarity members who take the church's support for granted. Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II said he still wished to go to Poland in August, provided that "appropriate conditions" were met for his visit.

In spite of the church's efforts, no accord between the government and the country's 19 million workers is likely. The demonstrations showed that many Poles remain unconvinced by Jaruzelski's argument that martial law was necessary to save the country from civil war and to create conditions for "socialist renewal." One of the government's biggest challenges is to convince Poles that it is capable of improving their economic lot. But so far, efforts to redress economic imbalances by drastically raising the price of food and basic staples have only reduced standards of living and increased popular resentment. Jaruzelski announced last month that any substantial improvement in the economy was unlikely until 1990. The Polish economy is saddled with an estimated $28 billion debt to Western banks and governments. Following last week's disturbances, Western bankers and businessmen are even less likely than before to offer much help.

The riots fueled rumors in Warsaw that Jaruzelski's position may be in danger. There was speculation that he will now come under pressure from hard-liners within the Communist Party for having been too conciliatory. At the same time, the Soviet Union has never been happy with the idea of the military running a Communist state. Says a Western diplomat in Warsaw: "They accepted it because it looked like the army could at least keep things quiet here. That is obviously no longer the case."

The government's ability to cope with the new mood of resistance will be tested further this week as opposition groups mark the end of the first five months of martial law. A clandestine university organization urged all students to wear armbands on May 13 in support of workers who are planning to stage a 15-minute work stoppage at noon that day. More ominous was the warning by Wladyslaw Hardek, a local Solidarity leader in Cracow, that "if the authorities continue to ignore us, [opposition] groups will slip out of control. Killing, devastation and sabotage can occur." For a nation that takes its tragic history seriously, the spring of 1982 is fraught with the potential for new, possibly even more violent, confrontations.

--By Patricia Blake. Reported by Richard Hornik/Warsaw

With reporting by Richard Hornik/Warsaw

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.