TWENTY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE 307regarded as a unique national catastrophe. It is amazing how little trouble there
was. Within the limitations imposed by the economic crisis, much was done. The
eight-hour day was introduced by the Sejm in 1919; safety precautions were
governed by the statutory legislation; living conditions were improved by the
Society of Workers' Estates (TOR). Yet the direct intervention of the govern-
ment in welfare was largely confined to state-owned enterprises. Less than 2,0 per
cent of the registered unemployed qualified for relief payments of any sort. The
task of ameliorating working-class life was largely left to overburdened charities,
or to self-help organizations run by the PPS and the NZR. The abuses of private
employers were not easily controlled, and disruptive action against state enter-
prises carried heavy criminal penalties. Industrial strikes occurred on a large
scale in 1922-3 during the Hyperflation, and in 1933-7 at the height of the Slump.
On the former occasion, the trouble began with a general strike of railwaymen
in February 1921, which was answered by the militarization of the railways. In
November the following year, the miners of Dabrowa launched another general
strike against reductions in pay; and courts-martial were established to deal with
troublemakers. This was the prelude to the 'Cracow Rising' of 6 November 1923,
which flared from a general strike called by the PPS. Street demonstrations
turned suddenly into pitched battles with the police. Soldiers summoned to
restore order came to the aid of the workers, who for a couple of hours found
themselves in control of the city. By which time, thirty-two workers and police-
men were dead, and the organizers had called an end to the proceedings. On this
occasion, more protracted but less violent disturbances occurred in Lodz, and
Dabrowa. The industrial 'sit-in', known as the 'Polish Strike', provoked legal
sanctions against state employees, and inspired a stricter definition in the
Criminal Code of the right to strike. Polish workers had little to be pleased
about, except for the fact that they were not peasants.^20
In economic policy, the necessary priorities were perfectly clear. In the first
years of the Republic's existence, the entire economic system had to be
constructed from scratch. There was no integrated infrastructure, no common
currency, no established financial institutions or government agencies. There
was no direct rail link between Warsaw and several provincial cities. Until the
opening of Gdynia in 1927, there was no Polish seaport. In 1918-20, the German
OstMark, the Austrian crown, and the Polish mark, were all in circulation and
all inflating wildly. In November 1918, the rate of the Polish mark against the
US dollar stood at 1:9; by January 1923 it reached 1:15,000,000. Stop-gap taxa-
tion barely covered 10 per cent of expenditure. The budget could not be bal-
anced until 1926. From the start, the priorities were first stability, and then
investment. The problems were of the same magnitude as those facing Russia.
Yet the chosen methods excluded coercion. In the 1920s a series of reforms
largely associated with the name of Wladyslaw Grabski, brought matters under
control. The introduction of the 'Zloty' currency, the establishment of the Bank
Polski in 1924, the diversion of taxation from wealth on to income and turnover,
the raising of foreign loans in America, France, and Italy, and the growth of