484 SOLIDARNOSC
as to everyone else. So Walesa was challenging the most sacred myth which
underpinned not merely the People's Republic of Poland but every other part of
Moscow's empire. A well-dressed deputy prime minister was sent up from
Warsaw to lead negotiations. Mieczyslaw Jagielski blustered and expressed
pain but could not budge his proletarian adversaries. In the end, he realised that
only two alternatives remained — either agreement on the strikers' terms or an
immediate resort to force for which the Party was not prepared.
The Gdansk Agreement of 31 August 1980 contained twenty-one points.
Some of the clauses, such as that demanding the reinstatement of sacked work-
ers, possessed purely local significance. But others marked a fundamental shift
in the prevailing political order. For Walesa insisted not only that his new
nationwide trades union should be 'independent' and 'self-governing', but also
that the right to strike, freedom of speech, and access to the media should be
guaranteed. Equally, he insisted that he and his colleagues be granted immunity
from arrest or punishment. As he knew from hard experience, the usual practice
of the Communist authorities when faced with dissent was to make tactical con-
cessions on paper and then to nullify them through the exercise of arbitrary
measures. He signed the Agreement in the hope that this time the concessions,
once granted, would be unstoppable. Jagielski signed it, with the approval of the
Politburo, on the usual Communist assumption that concessions granted by the
Party could later be withdrawn by the Party. A young British observer, who was
given exceptional assistance by Polish colleagues eager to inform the outside
world, recorded the proceedings in inimitable style.
Day Seventeen: Saturday 30 August'PROLETARIANS OF ALL FACTORIES UNITE!' - a large banner is strung above the
main gate.
About half-past ten Jagielski finally arrives... and cheerfully shakes hands all round.
In the glass room, Gwiazda reads out the working-group's draft agreement on points 1
and 2, passing rather quickly over the controversial passage about the new unions 'rec-
ognizing that PZPR plays the leading role in the state, and not disturbing the established
system of international alliances.. .' Jagielski, with a certain flourish, announces his
acceptance of the first point. A roar of applause from the hall; they have won, after all,
they have done the 'impossible'...
The second point promises not only the 'right to strike' but also the personal security
of the strikers and 'persons helping them'. 'Mr Chairman,' the voice of Jagielski comes
crisply through the loudspeakers, 'I should like to know ... are the words "persons help-
ing them" necessary at all?'. .. But his voice is drowned by a surge of indignation. .. 'We
accept, we accept.. .' Jagielski cries above the babble...
Jubliation. Walesa carried shoulder high to the main gate. 'Sto lat, sto lat.. .' they
sing, 'Let him live for a hundred years.. .'
Day Eighteen: Sunday 31 August
9 a.m. You could be forgiven for thinking the Pope has come again. In the same brilliant
sunlight, the same vast, excited gentle crowd, and over the loudspeakers, the sound of a
Mass being celebrated...