Transl. of "Über Die polnische Gewerkschaft Solidarność und ihre Publikationstätigkeit 1980 - 1983" / von Klaus Reiff
It was in 1980 in Warsaw that I first heard about a group representing worker interests operating from the underground in the then communist Poland. At that time, an opposition against Poland's United Worker's Party (PVAP) had long since formed. For instance, there was the Committee for Societal Self-Defence (KOR), which had begun years earlier building the structures of a new trade union organisation which would be independent of the united communist trade union. Since its foundation in 1976, which was connected with the riots of Radom and Ursus, the KOR was engaged in a constant struggle with state power. KOR activists were arrested on a regular basis. The communist regime saw its social monopoly endangered.
In June and July 1980, Poland was hit by a wave of protests and strikes, which were aimed against the continuous price hikes and finally culminated in the legendary strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk. On 14 August 1980, all work stopped at the shipyard. A strike committee was founded, which posed 21 demands to the government in Warsaw. This strike was the place and hour of the birth of Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the free national trade union which arose from the solidarity displayed by the workers against the government.
At once, the new trade union began building up independent trade union structures in the entire country and creating its own press, because the communist party-controlled media had no intention of opening their newspapers and radio stations to Solidarity. In May 1981, a list of newsletters published by the free trade union, already consisted of 87 titles. In fact, however, there were far more such newsletters than just the ones on the list. Nobody was able to say exactly how many, since the publications were not registered centrally anywhere. The titles of these trade union newsletters, many of which can now be found in the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Library, were a political manifesto all by themselves: "Wolny Zwiazkowiec" (Free Trade Unions), "Glos Niezaleznych" (Voice of the Independents) or "Wolne Slowo" (Free Word). Most of them were cheaply printed or photocopied and attained a small circulation only. The larger "Solidarnosc" periodicals, which emerged all over Poland as time passed, finally reached a total circulation of more than one million in October 1981. At this point, the new high-circulation periodicals included "Samorzadnosc" (Self-Government) in Gdanks, with 250,000 copies, "Jednosc" (Unity) in Szczecin, with 100,000, "Odrodzenie" (Rebirth) in Jelenia Góra, which also came to 100,000 copies, "Solidarnosc Jastrzebska" (Jastrzebian Solidarity) in Jastrzebie (Upper Silesia) with 50,000 copies and "Solidarnosc - Niezalezne Slowo" (Solidarity - Independent Word) in Walbrzych (Lower Silesia), amounting to 10,000 copies.
The weekly "Solidarnosc", which was published in Warsaw and constituted the free trade union's central organ, was also its highest-circulation periodical with a circulation of 500,000 copies. Only after a lengthy tug-of-war with the local authorities was the first edition of the weekly allowed to appear on 3 April 1981. Editor-in-chief was the Roman-Catholic publicist and one of Lech Walesa's closest advisors, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who became Poland's prime minister in 1989, after the fall of communism. In its negotiations with the government, the union had originally demanded official approval for a circulation of one million copies for its weekly. This request was quite understandable, considering the fact that Solidarity already had some ten million members at that time. Nonetheless, the union paper - even with the circulation of 500,000 copies that was authorized - became Poland's most widely distributed weekly and thus outperformed the party-owned "Polityka" published by its editor-in-chief, Mieczyslaw Rakowski.
The union weekly's first edition was, as were all others, sold out at Warsaw's newsstands within hours, as only 42,000 copies were made available in the capital. This newspaper, too, turned into a black market object very quickly. Very soon, the first edition fetched a price of several hundred zloty, while its issue price had been 7 zloty. As far as its presentation was concerned, however, the independent trade union's weekly was fairly boring. Long, tiring articles, entire columns of minutes published in print, and relatively few illustrations made the outward appearance of "Solidarnosc" quite similar to that of the official party press. The articles, however, were anything but ordinary. It definitely was not a weekly for blue-collar labourers, but an intellectually demanding paper which critically dealt with Polish domestic policy developments and informed readers about Solidarity's activities. There were hardly any articles that dealt with foreign policy. Still, this was no trade union organ as we know it, but instead a socio-political polemic treatise which fought for a reform of the system prevailing in Poland.
The declaration of a state of martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981 brought an abrupt end to Solidarity's flourishing press activities. Immediately, however, the unionists began publishing from the underground, printing - often extremely primitively - information bulletins, pamphlets and even a miniature version of the "Solidarnosc" weekly, always being subject to the danger of being discovered by state security informers. Each month, the number of titles published from the underground grew. Their printing quality also vastly improved. No longer were the texts only typed by typewriter; instead they were often cleanly type-set and had an attractive typographical layout. Most probably, the unionists had managed to save some technical equipment from the militia's clutches during the night that martial law was imposed on the country. For instance, a weekly called "Tygodnik Wojenny" was published in Warsaw by the regional Solidarnosc organization of Mazowsze, which operated from the underground, and later there also was a once-a-week edition of the "Solidarnosc" weekly in smaller format, which had a circulation of 60,000 copies according to its masthead. These and many other publications moved from hand to hand and thus attained considerable readership.
For me, it often was an adventure to acquire these underground press materials. I had resolved to collect all materials from that period I could possibly get my hands on - I wanted to document the revolutionary movement which was going on in our Polish neighbours' country and which, as we know today, led to the fall of communism and finally brought unification to us Germans.
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