Following its establishment, the PZPR moved to suppress its political opponents while at the same time expanding party membership and presence within the country. Within a few years it had reached into every village and every industrial enterprise. Through control of the state administration, the media, and the educational system, the ruling party had numerous tools at its disposal to push through its policies, to control the flow of information, and to shape the ideological indoctrination of the public. The party harnessed labor activism by establishing a hierarchical labor confederation, the CRZZ. Most working Poles belonged to the CRZZ, whose primary mission was ensuring workers’ compliance with the political and economic goals set by the party
Despite these control mechanisms, the PZPR found it difficult to subordinate workers to the party and to maintain their political support. The periodic eruptions of labor protest resulted from the regime’s inability to improve living standards of workers in exchange for their political subordination. The PZPR’s reactions to these expressions of worker discontent were colored by internal party dynamics. Starting with the strikes in Poznań in 1956, the regime’s response was twofold. Although it tended to move swiftly and often brutally to quell the protests, it invariably gave in to many of the demands. And while the party elite usually backtracked on some of the concessions, it was never willing to abandon them wholesale. This pattern of labor protest and regime concessions reached a peak in 1980–81 when workers succeeded in forming and legalizing an independent trade union. Even when Solidarity was disbanded many significant Solidarity demands were enshrined in law, substantially strengthening the bargaining leverage of unions and workers’ councils at both the national and enterprise levels. In other words, over time the composition of the concessions granted changed. While initially these concessions were primarily substantive, later they shifted toward procedural ones.
These concessions to organized labor seem surprising in light of the apparent asymmetry of power between labor and the state. As will be discussed in the following chapter, such worker protests also occurred in Mexico. Yet in the Mexican case, while the regime was willing to be responsive to some demands concerning wage levels, its reaction was harsh whenever protests threatened to undermine the regime’s control over organized labor. In those instances, the PRI government did not hesitate to use force or mass layoffs. Similarly, the Czechoslovak regime succeeded in maintaining a quiescent labor force. What differentiated Polish state-labor relations from those that developed in Mexico and Czechoslovakia was a distinct pattern of intraparty dynamics. Unlike the PRI and the KSČ, the PZPR, throughout its existence, remained deeply torn by factionalism.
The PZPR, like other parties in Eastern Europe, was modeled on the Soviet Communist Party and had a hierarchical, pyramid-like structure. At the lowest level were party cells, or committees organized primarily in places of work, which were responsible for both oversight of workplace activities and for the political indoctrination of employees. Above them were local-level party units, which oversaw all party activities in a given village or city. Next were provincial party organizations, which ensured that the directives flowing from above were implemented by the local and workplace party committees. The Party Congress, which was composed of delegates from all the provinces and met about every four years, was theoretically the most important party institution. In practice, real power was vested in the Central Committee and the Politburo, which met regularly between the Party Congresses and set the policy agenda. Finally, at the very pinnacle of the party was the party’s first secretary. The party was governed internally according to the principle of democratic centralism. This doctrine, developed by Lenin, encouraged discussion and the exchange of views and airing out disagreements during party meetings. However, once a decision was reached, all party members were expected to abide by it, not to question it in public, and to follow through with its implementation. All mass organizations, such as trade unions, youth leagues, and farmers’ associations, were supervised by the party and served as channels for the political mobilization of the public.38
Alongside the party were the state administrative institutions. In theory, the government and its bureaucracy were independent of the party, and the council of ministers was the supreme executive agency. In practice, though, the separation between the party and the government was illusory, since the PZPR was explicitly empowered to provide the direction and maintain oversight over government administration. The hierarchical nature of the party, its presence at all levels of the political system down to village and state firms, as well as its dominance over the state administration, was to provide the PZPR leadership with the resources necessary for maintaining control over society. Nevertheless, in practice, the PZPR struggled to retain its dominance of Polish political life. The history of the PZPR is one of a continued struggle to establish effective control over the society and of continuous, ultimately futile efforts to create an effective, internally cohesive party organization that would enable the leadership to overcome factional struggles.
The party leadership was unable to devise mechanisms for resolving internal party disputes and disagreements and once the initial period of Stalinization was over, few incentives remained in place to reward loyalty to the party while making disloyalty costly. Although on occasion dissenters were expelled from the party, this penalty was applied only sporadically. The divisiveness of the party elite had two distinct but interrelated consequences. In the first place, it made the pursuit of coherent economic policies difficult, because various party factions pushed for different policies, thus contributing to reoccurring economic crises.39 These crises in turn provided a trigger for labor mobilization, further exacerbating tensions within the PZPR. At the same time, the party’s factionalism made it more susceptible to demands put forth by organized labor as party rivals appealed to workers for political backing. In this way, the divisiveness that hindered policy making also provided labor with a favorable opportunity structure for extracting concessions.
Although the party was continually torn by factionalism, the lines of cleavage shifted over time. During the 1950s, the deepest divisions existed between the Moscow-oriented faction, which wanted to replicate the Soviet model as closely as possible, and groups that pushed for a more indigenous road to socialism. The factions clashed for the first time following Stalin’s death, when political repression eased and discussions of democratic reforms came to dominate party meetings. While conservatives sought to preserve Stalinist controls, the nationalist faction pushed for reducing ties with Moscow and for internal political reforms. The conflict came to a head following the brutally suppressed workers’ protest in Poznań in 1956. The nationalist faction emerged victorious from this confrontation. Led by the politically rehabilitated Gomułka, it believed that the PZPR had to extend tangible benefits to social groups in order to consolidate the party’s authority rather than relying primarily on suppressing dissent. This faction sought the support of peasants by advocating an end to the agricultural collectivization program and of the industrial workers by promoting wage increases and promising an improvement in their living standards.40
By the late 1960s, as the economy was running into trouble, another faction emerged. Led by first provincial party secretary Gierek, it advocated placing more emphasis on economic modernization. The emergence of this new faction signaled the deepening of internal PZPR conflicts. The conflict intensified with the eruption of workers’ protests in December 1970 in the Baltic cities of Gdańsk and Szczecin that resulted in Gomułka’s downfall. As the three factions battled one another, they sought to augment their political clout by appealing to disaffected social groups. The smallest, and in the end least influential, of these factions sought support among the intelligentsia by promoting political and economic liberalization. Another group, led by Edward Gierek, a party boss from the coal-mining region of Katowice whose power base lay among industrial workers, pushed for a major economic restructuring that would improve living standards. The most serious challenge came from a faction led by Mieczysław Moczar, deputy minister of internal affairs and Central Committee secretary in charge of internal security. This group also appealed to the increasingly dissatisfied workers, but unlike Gierek’s faction, it sought to stir nationalist sentiments and place the blame for Poland’s economic problems on minority groups and Jews in particular.41 Edward Gierek edged out Moczar and took on the title of first party secretary. Despite taking over the top post, however, he was unable to secure a dominant position within the party and the state apparatus remained deeply divided. The prime minister’s post,