4 MAY 1985, Page 15

THE MAKING OF POLISH PRUSSIA

Timothy Garton Ash on the

implications of a dissident academic's sudden dismissal

Warsaw SOMETIMES we must thank heaven for little subs. 'Kremlin Nod to Polish Re- forms' said the headline in Monday's Times, above a hopeful article about Mr Gorbachev's visit to Warsaw, but some subversive sub-editor had inserted into this article, in bold type, a short Reuter report that Professor Bronislaw Geremek, one of the senior Solidarity advisers who recently met Sir Geoffrey Howe, has been sum- marily dismissed from the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he has worked for 30 years. 'Howe's Solidarity Contact Sacked' said the sub-headline. The counterpoint was painfully exact.

Bronislaw Geremek is a distinguished mediaevalist. Until August 1980 he was best known as the author of a book about marginal life in mediaeval Paris: a Polish Cobb. Like many of the brightest Polish intellectuals of this generation, he had travelled along the path of youthful enthu- siasm for building a Polish socialism in the aftermath of wartime devastation, disillu- sionment under Stalinism, hope revived in the 'Polish October' of 1956, to hope finally abandoned after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, when he left the Party: but he had never been known as a political activist or dissident.

Then, in August 1980, he and a friend were delegated to carry the text of a declaration by Warsaw intellectuals to the strikers in the Gdansk shipyard. Lech Walesa greeted them with open arms and a plea: we are only workers, he said, these government officials are educated men, stay and help us to negotiate with them. . . and so they did, working day and night towards the signing of the Gdansk agree- ment, which they had no small part in drafting, and the birth of Solidarity. Sud- denly, the historian found himself making history. In the 16 heady months until the imposition of martial law, Professor Geremek was rarely far from Walesa's Side, a slightly bowed, bearded figure, pipe in hand, advising, cautioning, struggling to find common ground in those endless, exhausting, fruitless negotiations with the government. I remember him most vividly In the incongruous setting of a private farmers' strike in early 1981, the Warsaw Professor surrounded by a hundred griz- zled old peasants, a face from Chagall strayed into a picture by Breughel. I also remember how the young hotheads in Solidarity would fume at his readiness to compromise, his constant search for forms of words which the Communist authorities could just possibly defend in Moscow, his tireless reiteration of the limits of the possible and the need to 'do business with' people like deputy premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski — very mucl1 in the sense that Mrs Thatcher suggests we should `do busi- ness with' Mr Gorbachev, not because we agree with or admire each other (far from it), but because we have to live in the same world — or, in Poland's case, in the same country.

Like most Solidarity advisers, Bronislaw Geremek was interned on 13 December 1981. He spent the next year in prison camp. Since his release, he has continued to help Walesa in drafting statements and speeches which still constantly call for peaceful change through 'dialogue': but he has also been able to return to his history books. When I talked to him shortly after his discussion with Sir Geoffrey, he told me he had just completed an essay on 'Suffer- ing and laughter in the work of Francois Villon'. Ten days later he received his notice from the Secretary of the Polish Academy of Sciences. No reason or justi- fication was given. Under the peculiar regulations of the Academy, Professor Geremek's only right of appeal is to the Secretary who sacked him.

This little piece of Husak-style 'norma- lisation' may be seen as part of the current attempt to intimidate the academic com- munity which has been fiercely defending its independence. Geremek is now the second professor to be sacked by the Jaruzelski regime this year. But given the timing, it is more likely a punishment for his political activities, and, incidentally, a slap in the face for Sir Geoffrey. Of the four other Solidarity advisers who took part in the discussion at the British Ambas- sador's residence, two would enjoy direct Church protection, one is a don at Warsaw University, which might come out in pro- test if any action were taken against him, and one could not be sacked because he has been sacked already. Professor Geremek was therefore, on reflection, the obvious candidate for official revenge.

So much for Gorbachev's `Polish re- forms', then? Well, not entirely. It is not wrong to suggest that General Jaruzelski's closest political advisers have plans for 'reform'. We must just be clear what these plans are, and what chance they have. On all the available evidence, Gorbachev wants the Poles to do what last week he implausibly complimented them on already doing: overcome the crisis under the all- round leadership of the Communist Party. But Jaruzelski's advisers know this is im- possible in standard Soviet form because the Polish Party has ceased to exist as a mass organisation. So instead, they are trying to build a new kind of Polish mansion, to be constructed by people from all camps and defended, not by the eternal watchfulness of a million Party eyes, but by a whole new structure of draconian laws, enforced by the state judiciary and police. A kind of Polish Prussia. Inside the mansion there will be a splendid debating chamber called 'parliament', and all sug- gestions will be gratefully received by the management on the top floor. All the people downstairs must accept is that the people upstairs (General Jaruzelski and Co) take all the decisions, have all the powers, and ultimately know best. Only citizens who don't accept this, like Profes- sor Geremek or a shipyard worker called L. Walesa, will be locked out at the park gates. There is thus no necessary contradic- tion between the 'reforms' and the repres- sion: nor can the latter always be explained away by reference to shadowy 'hard-liners' and disgruntled secret policemen (although of course they too exist). Indeed, in Profes- sor Geremek's case there is reason to believe the most energetic 'reformers' were most keen on the reprisal.

This was not merely an unjust act — it was also a foolish one. For the Jaruzelski team simply does not have the bricks and mortar to build the mansion it may plan. Most of the Polish people are still standing with Walesa outside the park gates, and those who have agreed to come inside (in the new trade unions, for example) often start to behave like those outsiders.

Moreover I found in Warsaw, rather to my surprise, that most — qualified — obser- vers now agree that the curve of working- class discontent is rising again. We may not see more than scattered economic strikes if the government goes ahead with its plan- ned meat price rises in June. But it would be a brave man who predicted that the next few years will not see another explosion of working-class protest, and if that happens, the Jaruzelski government will need all the Geremeks it can get, to negotiate, to conciliate, to dissuade people from just storming those park gates. Of course, the government can always shoot people in- stead of talking to them. But if, as we may believe, it would prefer to talk, then it will have to talk through people like Professor Geremek. So it is not only Francois Villon studies which will lose by the sacking of a mediaevalist.