THE OPPOSITION MOVEMENT IN POLAND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T01017R000404050001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 10, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

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The Opposition Movement in Poland
The opposition movement in Poland has undergone
dramatic change since 1980-81 when Solidarity --
with the support of the majority of the Polish
people -- was on the threshold of changing the
Polish political system. Solidarity as a centrally
controlled mass organization no longer exists, but
the spirit and ideals that it represented are very
much alive. A resentful society has developed a
number of social and political activities outside of
government control plus a small underground network
that is the core of anti-regime activity.
The Polish "underground" is composed of several
hundred illegal opposition groups that vary in size,
sophistication and activity. The largest is
Solidarity and many of the others are loosely
associated with it, but some are hostile to the
former union. Their goals and strategy vary and
even Solidarity is badly fragmented and hampered by
communication problems now that it has been driven
underground. All of these organizations, however,
have one unifying element -- their opposition to the
Polish Communist regime.
Recent publicity on the arrest of key Underground
Solidarity leader, Zbigniew Bujak, and the
underground's continued inability to organize
nationwide, large-scale protests gives the impression
that the opposition movement is collapsing. We
believe, however, that the underground remains a key
locus for opposition to the regime. Underground
activists produce a flood of books and periodicals that
influence the thinking of millions of readers. Unlike
other East European dissident movements, the Polish
This memorandum was prepared byl I East
European Division, Office of European Analysis. It was
coordinated with the NIOfor Europe and the Directorate of
Operations. Comments and cruestions are welcome and should be
addressed to Chief, East European Division
EURM86-20081C
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underground has ties to the workers -- through
educational programs and factory level organizing --
that ke it a force to be feared by the authorities.
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Solidarity
Underground Solidarity has a nationwide three-tiered
structure. Its national leadership, the 5-7 member Temporary
Coordinating Commission (TKK) shares the national limelight with
Lech Walesa and the remnants of the Solidarity leadership: that
existed when the union was legal. Walesa has increasingly become
a symbol and it is the TKK that now sets Underground Solidarity's
general policies and guidelines for action. It is supported by a
staff of 70-100 people divided into cells which coordinate
relations between TKK members and the rest of the underground,
provide logistical support and information, and produce the most
important underground newspaper, Tygodnik Mazowsze. Parallel.to
the TKK is the Committee for Education, Culture, Science and
Health (OKNO) which carries on increasingly important educational
and cultural activities. OKNO, currently funded by the US
National Endowment for Democracy, was formerly subservient to and
financed by the TKK, but both bodies agreed this spring that OKNO
would be independent. 25X1
The second tier consists of approximately 24 regional
executive commissions which decide how to implement the national
directives of the TKK, coordinate the movement's activities among
the factories in their regions, and represent their constituents
before the TKK. Hundreds of factory committees established since
the imposition of martial law in December 1981 constitute
the lowest tier. They support Underground Solidarity by paying
dues and by participating in anti-regime activities as well as 25X1
the movement's educational and cultural activities. A Solidarity
Coordination Bureau representing the union abroad tablished
in July 1982 and is headquartered in Brussels. was 25X1
Underground Solidarity, in our estimation, is growing more
and more fragmented. According to a US Embassy officer who
monitored the underground, the TKK's influence is limited only to
the biggest industrial enterprises in larger cities. 25X1
in mid-1984, the TKK did not exert direct
control over his regional commission. The recent arrest of
Zbigniew Bujak, the most important and best known TKK leader,
will likely accelerate the TKK's decline as a national leadership
body. His absence will make the regional and local bodies more
inclined to direct their own affairs.
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Troubles also exist at the regional level. 25X1
in the highly industrialized
Silesian region, the factory committees paid little attention to
the authority of the regional commission. An extensive report on
the underground in Silesia prepared by our Consulate in Krakow 25X1
provides many insights into the divisions and distrust that exist
in Solidarity organizations in this industrial and mining region.
Some of these groups are suspected of having been penetrated by
the secret police. Others disagree on tactics and attack each
other in underground publications. Relations are so poor that
some accuse others of being "agents of Moscow." 25X1
This muddled picture is equally confusing to the national
leadership. there is little 25X1
hard information on the size, strength or activities of
Solidarity groups in the factories. Active leadership at the
factory level is fading and in some areas no longer exists and
there is no coordination of activities between factories in a
region. no new leaders are willing to step 25X1
forward and run the risk of arrest to revitalize a clandestine
union structure. 25X1
Underground Solidarity clearly is not the mass movement of
more than nine million members that existed before the imposition
of martial law. Current estimates of membership by Solidarity
and Western observers, based on those who pay union dues range as
high as six million, but we suspect this figure is inflated. For
example, some underground publications are now being sold instead
of financed by union dues and distributed free -- possibly an
indication that dues paying members have declined.
25X1
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sympathy for the union and 25X1
the underground is widespread. Solidarity officials estimate
that twenty-seven percent, or seven million people of the voting
age population, heeded Solidarity's call for a boycott of last 25X1
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year's parliamentary election, despite the implied threats of
regime retribution. Even the government's polling results show
that five and a half million voters bypassed the ballot box. F_
The Other Underground
Serious competitors to Underground Solidarity are few and
only two can claim developed structures and wide membership.
"Fighting Solidarity" split from the parent organization in June
1982 because it rejected Solidarity's willingness to compromise
with the regime. Late last year, it claimed to have several
hundred active members nationwide -- probably an-accurate figure
given its ambitious and widespread publishing program
. The Committee for Social Self Defense
(KOS) is a more diffuse social movement composed of thousands of
"Resistance Circles" whose membership frequently overlaps with
Solidarity.
Other underground groups, some of whom claim to be political
parties, include the Committee for an Independent Poland (KPN),
founded in 1979, and "Independence." KPN is an
ultra-nationalistic group that claimed 60,000 members at the
height of Solidarity. Its current leaders -- most of whom were
recently given stiff prison sentences for fomenting public unrest
-- admit the KPN lacks both popular support and material means.
Another party, "Independence," is one of the numerous
organizations founded around a publication. It rejects
Solidarity and has formally allied itself with Fighting
Solidarity, with whom it shares radical views. The periodical,
according to RFE researchers, has an active readership of more
than five thousand. We believe, the movement is little more than
a sounding board for ideas.
The dozens of remaining organizations that are known in the
West run the gamut from the human rights monitoring groups to'
underground organizations of doctors, lawyers, and teachers.
Youth groups are particularly numerous. Western monitors of the
underground have recorded at least 30 publications for young
people. Many of the groups that have sprung up around these
periodicals, we believe, are ad hoc and probably short-lived.
The bravado and inexperience of their youthful members have
frequently caused them to fall easy prey to the police, judging
by reports in the press.
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Underground Publications
Uncensored publications have increased substantially in the
last three years. There are five main clandestine publishers of
books and periodicals, an 25X1
additional eleven as highly successful in turning out uncensored
monographs on contemporary Polish history, politics, philosophy,
economics, and literature, and, more recently, audio and
videotape casettes. 10,000 25X1
people are involved in writing, publishing, and distributing
illegal material -- a figure that may also include people
involved in a range of other conspiratorial activity. Since the
imposition of martial law well over 1,000 periodical titles have
appeared and new ones keep appearing despite high attrition. The
Minister of the Interior said last month that his men liquidated
1200 printing presses and distribution points, and confiscated 5
million "hostile publications" since 1981 -- clear testimony to
both the energy of the police and the printers. 25X1
We believe the authorities will never be able to supress
completely the flow of underground literature and have reconciled
themselves to its existence, just as they tolerated dissidents in
the 1970's. The secret police, according to 25X1
the US Embassy, have revealed detailed knowledge of 25X1
ongoing underground printing activities during interrogations of
activists.
the police o not want to destroy the clandestine Drint business.
only control it.
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Strategy and Tactics
Both Lech Walesa and the TKK advocate the restoration of
Solidarity and the full implementation of the 1980 Gdansk
Accords, but they disagree over how to achieve these goals. The
TKK -- especially its recently captured chief, Zbigniew Bujak --
have long advocated work stoppages and anti-regime
demonstrations, even though declining participation in such
illegal acts is a clear indication that the people are unwilling
to risk their jobs or safety. Walesa, who 25X1
has a better sense of the public mood than the
isolated, clandestine TKK, rejected the strike weapon as
unrealistic more than a year ago. He told reporters on the fifth
anniversary of the creation of the union that Solidarity did not 25X1
need millions of demonstrators, but "small wise rou s of
thinking people" who build concrete programs. 25X1
The ultra nationalist KPN, Fighting Solidarity, and the
"Independence" political party. advocate nothing less than the
overthrow of the communist government. Nonetheless, the
underground has virtually ruled out sabotage and violence.
Walesa and the TKK have always disavowed violence as a tool,
arguing that Solidarity was a peaceful protest movement from the
beginning. Nonetheless, occasional acts of sabotage and
vandalism done in the name of Solidarity are reported in the
press . These isolated acts, we believe, 25X1
are not part of a trend toward violence but evidence of the lack
of control the underground has over its members. 25X1
The tactic of educating the populace is becoming, in our
estimation, a goal in itself throughout the underground.
Solidarity took the lead in 1982 when it called for the creation
of an underground or "parallel society" to break the regime's
monopoly on education, publishing, and the media. Solidarity
hopes to keep alive the spirit of the union, organize society and
make it self sufficient in preparation for the next major
political crisis which it believes will force the government to
make concessions. Even the radical groups have adopted this
tactic, adding to the flood of illegal literature, casettes, and
educational programs. argued this 25X1
year that the formation of a large parallel society would be more
effective in pressuring the regime to implement some political
changes than the biggest strike. We believe these activities
have flourished because they are well suited to the underground's
increasingly fragmented organizational structure and the popular
reluctance to engage in open anti-regime activity. Producing
underground books and organizing lectures on recent Polish
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history does not require direction from a strong central
leadership just as, by all accounts, reading the books or
attendin7 lectures entails little risk to the interested citizen.
The Attitude of the Church
Church support has been crucial to the success of the
parallel society and other underground activities. The Church
has effectively adopted the underground society program as its
own through a wide variety of educational, cultural and social
welfare programs it took up immediately after martial law when
Solidarity was in disarray.
Effectiveness
By all accounts, publishing and related educational 25X1
activities are the most successful and effective aspect of the
underground's activities. Surveys conducted by the underground
in icate Poles read "samizdat" and their
political thinking is affected by it. In our judgement, the
underground's continued ability to break the government's
monopoly on education and the media and a heightened level of
political sophistication of the Polish populace will make the
regime's efforts to make the people forget how they were able to
organize and the victories they won during the Solidarity era
The underground, through the educational programs of the
parallel society, has also managed to preserve the alliance
between the workers and the dissident intellectuals, arguably the
most important political achievement of the Solidarity era and
25X1
25X1
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the
7. the regime feared the most
25X1
The spectre of reformed Trotskyite Solidarit
ad
i
y
v
sers
lecturing workers on collective bargaining in a Church hall,
according to US Consular officers from Western Poland, is clearly
unsettling to the regime. 25X1
The strike has become less effective as a weapon of political
intimidation on a national scale because of the fragmentation of
Solidarity and the apathy of the people, but it apparently still
has impact at the local level. Underground newspapers are full
of unconfirmed reports of brief strikes or job actions in small
factories throughout the country which achieve short term goals
but which are inevitably followed by punishment of the
instigators. 25X1
Outlook
We believe that continued regime pressure, organizational
problems and the obvious success of underground society
educational programs will make Underground Solidarity evolve from
a centrally led trade union type organization to a more
traditional but very large and widespread dissident movement. As
i
ssues such as Chernobyl and Poland's catastrophic environmental
and public health problems increasingly come to the fore, the
underground leader of the future is less likely to be the
shopfloor union organizer than the doctor or university
professor. A symbol of this trend is the virtual eclipse of the
TKthe once subservient science and cultural committee, OKNO.
Underground Solidarity, however, in our estimation, will not
go the way of other elitist East European dissident movements and
break its ties to the workers. With little prospect of dramatic
economic improvement for the next decade, worker dissatisfaction
will remain high and the underground will have no shortage of
adherents or sympathisers. Similarly, despite the paramount
interest in education, teams of Solidarity activists will always
be poised to exploit an incident of regime oppression -- as they
did after the murder of the radical priest, Father Popieluszko in
1984 -- in ways that will benefit their cause through agitation
and p
rop nd
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ILLEGIB
SUBJECT: The Opposition Movement in Poland
Distribution:
%25
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