journal appeared in Poland. Ikre, the organ of thei garlan workers did in 1966 or'as the Czechoslovak work This document was the first rounded Marxist critique • "Despite the climate of police repression promoted by a of the bureaucracy to appear in a workers state since the whole series of already announced rialk and those In tons took place in support of demands for implementation of the bureaucracy. "The UNSR in the War" as the first New Polish Marxist Vanguard A factor, of which little is yet known, is the emergence of a new revolutionary Marxist vanguard in Poland.
alication and the reformist illusions inspired by the deStalinization. The first major sign that a new revolutionary current was developing was the appearance of Kuron and Modzelewski's open letter to the party and Communist youth organizations of the University of Warsaw.
extermination of the Soviet Left Opposition in Stalin's purges.
Student Radicalization In March, 1968, extensive student strikes and demonstraof workers democracy and the principles of Marxism. The protesters at one school issued the following manifesto to the workers:
We students of the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute Inform you that a sit-in is in progress in our school. It is to express our protest against violations of article 71 of the constitution providing for freedom of speech which you yourselves established. We protest because only in condibons of complete democracy can solutions be found to pot our socialist economy in a healthy condition. In an atmosphere of distrust, suspicion, and denunciations, study of economic problems is impossible..
"Long Live the Working Clasi!!
*Long Live Socialism!
"Long Live Democrace!
The students in Wroclaw demanded ronsistent application of the principles of socialism and not empt extelling of it ideals for the wake if protecting positions acquired in the leadership."
The Manifesto of the chidents of the 'niversity of Warsaw ended with the slogins "Long Live Poland'" Long Live Socialism!* "History Will Absolve tet"
In 1968 one-half of the Polish population was under iwenty years of age The majority are now under twenty Under the conditions of bureaucratic dietatorship, it b impossible to judge how widely the influence of the stedent radicalization spread. But there are grounds for believing that its expansion could have been very rapid. The young workers, the contemporaries of the revolutionary students. could be expected to be hardest hit by the technocratic reforms that increased the cost of housing and the extent of unemployment.
In the spring of 1970. apparently, • a new mpposition Prominent Signers of Open Letter to Czech Government cation will be circulated and read.
Poland and throughout the world, the organizer if a movement student strikes:
the people."
cation of an article by boon Trouky on the socal nature of its series Biblioteka Rewolucyjnego Markerizmu (T.J. -brary of Revolutionary Marcismi the same demand for access to honest and complete in for the workers assuming real control of the state and economy that ostensibly belong to them. this demand arises naturally in working class struggles against the bureaucracy. Moreover, it represents a point of roncer Renice between intellectual workers, who moed freedom exploitation Sympathy Voiced in News Media linization of 1964 sections of the press seem to a de Lone over in the side of the workers The paper Gles Seczecinski Is one example. There are aiso reporte that Polish television showed scenes of demonstrating wurkers that contradicted the propaganda of the b.treaurracy.
propaganda machine at the start of the uprising undoubt the facto A New Step Forward ers are the first working class in Eastern Europe to act so clearly against the bureaucracy as a whole They did not fight in support of a bureaucratle faction as the HunGrupa Markustowsko Rewaluesja Revolutionary Marxist Group!: In is first edatonal 1 wrote: For the first time in a whole Poland since Üctober 1966 an independent Marxist publi"For the first time in several decades this publication will retical organ. the reflection of revolutionary struggles in Intro gave this evaluas of the infuence of the March economic management.
preparation. there has seen a general political awakening in Poland since Marei. The permanent economic crisis of the 'socialist countries is galvanizing the discontent of This issue of Iskm als annmanced the clandestine publiincreasing mined.
The insurgent workers in the Baltie coast cities raised formation that the students raised In 1968. A prerequisite the world.
expression to achieve minimum professional dienis, and manual workers trying to compreben! and combat their states.
In the Polish aprisings, as in the Crechoslovak de-StaThe crude slanders churned oul by the bureaucratic Neal Ascherson wrote: edly pave an added acuteness to the workers" demands for that the crowds who Facing this totally uniapiring regime, the Polish wark kes." ers did in 1968. They moved against the bureaucracy an Having thus demonstrated their power in inde pendent action, they are not likely to accept the leadership of a bureaucratic hack like Clerek, especially after their disillusionment with Gomulka Moreover, the Polish workers' rebellion is the first anti bureaucratic upheaval In direct opposition to the technocratic reform that has been the burenucraey's only solu tion to its ever more obvious bankruptcy in the field of By their insurrection, the Polish workers appear to have inaugurated a whole new higher stage of antibureaucratic struggle in Eastern Europe - only months after the bu reaucracy had seemingly totally pacified Crechoslovakia.
After repeated blows - Yugoslavia. the Berlin uprising. Poznan and the Polish October, the Hungarian revolution, the splitting away of China, Albania, and Rumania, the independence of the Western Communist par ties, the Prague Spring, and now the uprisings in the Polish coastal cities — the Soviet bureaucracy's political position seeme on the point of being decisively underThe first antibureaucratic rebellions in the 1950g occurred at a low ebb of revolutionary struggle In the rest of the world. Today the democratic fighters in Eastern Europe can find examples and potential allies all over In the 1950g it was relatively easy for the capitalist and Stalinist press to distort the nature of these revolts. Today a new generation of revolutionists has appeared all around the globe prepared to understand and support the strug fle for workers democracy In the bureaucratized workers In the 1950g there could etill be lusions that these re volts were directed at the collectivist system as such. l was stlll possible for some to defend the idea that peace ful evolution could remove the threat to capitalism repre sented by the bureaucratic regimes, or reduce the antag onlam between the capitalist and noncapitalist systems. Today the fundamental drive of the antibureaucratic re bellions, the revolutionary future they portend. In apparent even from the reports in the capitalist press In the Los Angeles Times of December 27, for example This was not a 'revolt againat , communism, a national outbreak like the mighty rising which toll through the bistory of Poland. It is reported stormed the party headquarters at Gdansk were singing the 'Internaliunale,' and that is the And so, the most astute bourgeois observers found little that was encouraging in the Polish revolt.