Poland's Third way

Here is an article about Poland's current political scene.


Poland's Third Way

Looking at television images and papers in Poland one gets an
impression that ten years after the victory of Solidarity over
communist regime the momentum of political struggle is still being
maintained . It is not less than in former heroic days when
charismatic Solidarity leaders rallied huge masses of people of all
walks of life to bring down the hated regime which itself was
increasingly unable to hold on. Now, however, the leaders are new and
the huge masses of people gather on occasions to protest against the
very Solidarity that brought communism to the end of its rule. Is it
then that Poland is undergoing  a "permanent revolution" and is unable
to stop until it becomes a "second Japan" as promised by Lech Walesa
or until the prospect of becoming a second-rate peripheral European
country, unable to organize its political life, acts as a break on
current confusion and compels the society to move in a more positive
direction?

What is currently happening in Poland is that the uneasy coalition
between united Solidarity groupings (AWS) and a centrist party
representing mainly intelligentsia and professional elites - Freedom
Union (UW) proved themselves unable to produce a government capable of
efficient administration of the country's affairs, and the resultant
stalemate in governing the country threatens to introduce chaos,
disrupt social services and jeopardize Poland's chances of entering
further global and European institutions for the membership of which
she has so long aspired. Various signs proving that the above risks
are not just a distant possibility include numerous protest actions of
different professional groups - miners, farmers, teachers, nurses,
etc; breakdown in the functioning of vital services - health care,
education, local administration; various scandals and crises inside
the government - especially in secret services and judiciary, and, as
a reaction to these developments, uncontrollable actions on the part
of marginalized strata led by a new "charismatic" leader (Lepper).

If one looks closer at the developments of the recent years, the
present crisis was only to be expected. The famous Polish trade union
Solidarity, seeking to exclude from political power Social Democrats
(SLD) who have among their ranks the former members of the Communist
party, took a decision "to go political" - to create a political
association composed of Solidarity plus various minor right-wing
parties which stood no chances to go it on their own. The project was
truly an exercise in extreme Machiavellianism and was elaborated by a
think tank which included some university professors who had passed
the tests on the Solidarity "barricades". The idea was simple as every
stroke of genius - the aim justifies the means; since Solidarity
enjoys overwhelming public support but is not a political party
(according to its statute and direction of activity), what needs to be
done is to make it a political party by proclaiming it one. 

No sooner said than done: the Electoral Action Solidarity (AWS) won a
crashing victory over Social Democrats (SLD) during last election,
gained the majority representation in Polish parliament (Sejm) and
proceeded to form a government in coalition with a moderate centrist
UW party. It was then that some strange things started to happen. High
as the new political block rode on the wave of enthusiasm and euphoria
over the newly-gained victory, the leader of Solidarity Marian
Krzaklewski - a youngish and theretofore not particularly prominent
Solidarity activist who had replaced on that post the living legend of
Lech Walesa - declined to take the top job in the government and
instead put forward a rather obscure figure: an academic, professor of
chemistry at some provincial college, albeit a political
brother-in-arms - one Jerzy Buzek. Krzaklewski excused himself as
being too busy and too indispensable for consolidating the multicolor
variety of right wing-oriented political groups. 

The new Prime Minister in full consultation with his political back-up
brought into government more of relatively unknown personages to sit
as Interior Minister, Health Minister, Coordinator of Secret Services,
Head of Public Insurance, etc. Several post were also allocated to the
coalition partner. These, however, were filled by a well known public
figures, such as Hanna Suchocka (Justice Minister), Bronislaw Gieremek
(Foreign Minister), Janusz Onyszkiewicz (Defense Minister), etc. 

The first major reforms carried by the ruling coalition in the fields
of public administration, health care and public insurance proved to
be disastrous - public administration turned out unable to
administrate, health care unable to care and public insurance found it
rather difficult to ensure. There began to grow a suspicion that Prime
Minister Buzek's "quite charisma" is but an euphemism for weakness and
inability to take decisions, and the man looming large behind his back
and steering him in the quietness of the party cabinets (Marian
Krzaklewski) had lost control if not orientation.

In this situation opposition did not do much to eject the coalition in
power; the coalition itself split and began to fight internally with
the frenzy that dismissed all previous pretensions at partnership.
Listening to inner coalition debates one can not but get the
impression that there is infinitely more in common between one half of
the coalition (UW) and opposition (SLD), than between the two
coalition members. This is not the first time that such similarity has
revealed itself. Also on various previous occasions it used to be
crystal clear that UW and SLD shared the same views about the main
political issues, had similar approaches to practical measures and
matters of moral and ethical nature. This similarity of positions was
evident as much at the time when SLD was in power as it is now when in
power is UW in coalition with AWS.

What unites the approaches of the two formal antagonists is the
recourse first of all to reason rather then emotion in deciding the
matters of state, the feeling of responsibility for what one does,
"modernity" of worldview, reciprocity, sophistication and fair play.
This basically are the qualities which are accepted as desirable in
"political society". Not surprisingly, since these two parties belong
to political society. They belong to it mainly because they observe
the rules in playing the political game, which is what politics is all
about.

What about AWS then? Do they agree to play the game? If one recalls
the events of the last years one will probably have to say no. The
very emergence of AWS as a block of political forces put together to
win the elections, pragmatic as this may have appeared at the time,
was a breach of rules of the political game. Not that such venture was
illegal. What was performed was an act of political engineering
whereby one part of civil society gained a foothold in political
society and began to operate there. The effect turned out to be
comparable to the effect of rugby players playing the game of football
on a football pitch but according to the rules of rugby. Has such a
game a chance to succeed? The answer seems obvious. This, to my mind,
is exactly what happened in Poland in the last couple of years.

Let us now for a moment turn to the matters of a broader character.
What has recently been discovered is that we are all living in a
global world, one in which the same things happen to all of us even if
we are not always aware of this. Even during high and low communism
this world had been one: trends towards more openness, freedom of
expression, free market relations and human rights were operating on a
universal scale, although they were much suppressed in communist ruled
parts if the world. Poland with her particular sensitivity and
capacity for psychic mobility absorbed this trends to the fullest;
hence she initiated the overturn of communism and took the lead in
post communist transformation. It is my thesis, that the present
tendency for the forces oriented towards private and public
enterprise, democracy and social justice to unite both from the right
and the left of the political spectrum - the so-called third way - is
also entrenched in Poland. It is entrenched de facto if not de jure.
The convergence of the political views of the representatives of AWS
and SLD is a clear expression of this.

There are numerous obstacles for this convergence to become
formalized. Not least important are the obstacles of cultural nature,
whereby Poland has not yet got rid of traditionalism in which status
holds a firm grip on the members of the society. In the context of
this article this reference to status makes one party view the other
as "former commies", and in return is viewed as a tight group of
intellectuals and academics unable to mix with broader public. There
are still more principled points of difference, not to mention the
views on ethics and honor. If these differences were overcome, Poland
would gain a powerful element in her political society which would
organize the political scene around real issues of how to build a
modern and dynamic society ready to live in the world which is
entering its third millenium. 

If such merger proves to be unrealistic and the two parties chose to
"go it on their own" there is a chance that Poland will move in the
direction of the American model with UW acting like a Republican party
(and there is every reason to believe that its ethos may turn out to
be very close to that of American republicanism), while SLD will be
fulfilling the function of American Democrats. For this, however, UW
would have to part with its actual partner, which is probably not so
difficult for UW to do.

As regards AWS the best it can do to survive as an entity of some
importance for Polish life is to go back to where it had started - to
trade unionism. Some segments of AWS would of course join the two main
parties as their radical wings, or even create some parties of their
own to promote the ideals of national culture and Catholic values, but
as regards the core of AWS which is Solidarity per se the sooner it
recovers its identity the better for the whole country.