POLAND's underground resistance is very much alive. That is what the action of tens of thousands of finished.
On 23 March, after a meting between the TemCo-ordinating bulal Committee of Solidarnosc (TKK) and Lech Walesa, an appeal called on Polish workers to demonstrate on May Day. They said that the regime feared 'that our celebration wil show the the truth about Tens of thousands of Poles came Into tne streels with major demonstrations in at least 20 towns According to the Times 'Official estimates say that 40,000 demonstrators Unofficial LOCK estimates put the figure much higher.
Gas The largest demonstrations took place in Gdansk, Warsaw ana in the southern steel producing town of Huta Clashes there are reported mave columucu until 7.00pm with baton wielding police using water cannon and tear gas to disperse thousands of proThe body of subsequently was found - beaten to death by the police did not stop thousands of Solidarity sympathisers mers inf through the streets Warsaw on the evening of chanting .blave militia at the assembled units of riot police.
The response to the appeal even more remarkable after the efforts of the regime to nead off any mass Solidarity A government communique firm and effecmised.. tive action' to assure respect essablshed legal order the decision of the TKK to call for public protests on May Day has met wil creascu coreosiull. iNational leaders of Solidarnosc such as Andrzej Slowik from Lodz, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk Zbigniew Romaszewski from Warsaw have already been sentenced to terms of four to six years in prison A renewed effort to break up the regional leaderships has involved dozens of additional arrests.
A reported 1310 seizures of printing equipteen clandestine radio staAna ve fallen to the police. Heavy SAHILS WCle trouble on May Day would lead to the cancellation o1 the scheduled papal visit in Miners Initially the Catholic primate, Archbishop Glemp, cane oul l ou position to demonstraFinally week DOS before the Day deadline military operational groups WCIC deployed throughout the CoH OSC SUV. akul" ding to Time magazine, to inquire about living conditions and investigate These units Colso alLs. were last deployed in this manner in preparation for the military clampdown The dismissal of the film director Andrzej_ Wajda director Warsaw s a nim unlis nere. ly the latest example of the extension of this policy into the cultural sphere.
despite thesmeasures the of Day have confirmed the junta's total failure to achieve its much desired 'normalisation' Despite massive attacks on Ine ane san dards of the working class Lech Walesa - back at the Lenin shipyard the economy remains in a Only in coal cmaca statc has a significant increase production, (100 per 1983, compared ao et ot previous year) beet recorded-and a good part of this officially acknowledged as the gains of cmioosilla six day work week for miners.
Tbe fate of the new better Inaugural metings have frequently lack of support. To day, 19 been abandoned months after the imposition of martial law, less than half the members nave actually joined them Fresh confrontations with the bureaucratic inevitable Decisive to their outcome will be the support of the internationa. movement.
In their May Day appeal TKK acknowledged the support they recieved from workers throughout the world from the first essential support stands firm in the clashes to come.
BEATRIZ DIAZ is 18 years the Socialist Action: 13 May 1983 Wing medicines militarised. defeats that the army has been sufier - the army has limited the sale of
----- pull-quotes -----
Polish workers over the last week has confirmed, puncturing the bureaucracy's boast that it