[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 216 (Wednesday, December 15, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9205-S9206]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    40TH ANNIVERSARY OF S. RES. 268

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to take note of the enduring 
support by the American people and by this body for the cause of 
democracy and human rights in Poland.
  It is difficult to acknowledge so much time has passed, but it was 40 
years ago this week, on December 13, 1981, that the Soviet-backed 
communist government and General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state 
of war in Poland. People called it ``martial law;'' in fact, it was 
quite literally a war declared by a government on its own people.
  The U.S. Senate, led by the late statesman and Senator from New York, 
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, acted quickly to adopt S. Res. 268. On 
December 15, on the last day of the first session of the 97th Congress, 
this body adopted by vote of 95 to 0, S. Res. 268, ``on the imposition 
of martial law in Poland.''
  The resolution declared that:

       ``it is the clear and unassailable right of the Polish 
     people collectively to determine their own future''

  It also directed that:

       ``the President and his Administration should consult 
     intensively with our allies to develop a concerted and 
     sustained response to the threat to the democratization 
     process in Poland.''

  By 1989, thanks to continuing support for the people of Poland that 
this Senate expressed 40 years ago today, democracy prevailed in 
Poland.
  Only two Members of today's Senate were present and voting on 
December 15, 1981, and I want to express my appreciation, these many 
years later, for their support for the resolution: Senator Charles 
Grassley of Iowa, then in his very first year in the Senate, and 
Senator Patrick Leahy, then already in his second term in the Senate.
  The trade union Solidarity had emerged on August 31, 1980, at the 
Gdansk Shipyard when the communist government of Poland signed the 
agreement allowing for its existence. Lech Walesa and others soon 
formed a broad anti-Soviet social movement ranging from people 
associated with the Catholic Church to members of the anti-Soviet left. 
Polish nationalism, together with pro-American liberalism, played an 
important part in the development of Solidarity in the 1980s. 
Solidarity advocated nonviolence in its members' activities. In 
September 1981, Solidarity's first national congress elected Walesa as 
its president and adopted a republican program, the ``Self-governing 
Republic''.
  The first resolution adopted by Solidarnosc, at its First Congress in 
1981, expressed a vision for the world, one based on the principle of 
its name. It stated:

       The ultimate goal of Solidarity is to create dignified 
     conditions of life in an economically and politically 
     sovereign Poland. By this, we mean a life free from poverty, 
     exploitation, fear and lies, in a democratically and legally 
     organized society.

  By December, the government in Warsaw and its backers in Moscow 
decided that they had enough of an assertive civil society. And so 
martial law was declared and the repression commenced, 40 years ago 
this week.
  The terrible repression next door in Belarus today compares, but even 
it does not match the brute force of the war against the people of 
Poland declared by General Jaruzelski, the simultaneous deployment of 
hundreds of thousands of riot police, soldiers, armed vehicles, and 
tanks to occupy all workplaces and cities and to crush the resistance 
of an entire society organized in independent, self-governing unions. 
Yet Solidarity lived.
  A democratic movement in Belarus also lives today. It is not 
inevitable, however, that it will win, just as it was not inevitable 
that Solidarity would win. Much depended on the indomitable will of the 
Polish people--and also on the actions of Western democracies.
  The first people in the United States to stand up on behalf of the 
people of Poland were writers and intellectuals who formed the 
Committee in Support

[[Page S9206]]

of Solidarity, including Susan Sontag, Adam Ulam, Czeslaw Milosz, and 
others. An energetic young man named Eric Chenowith and wise strategist 
named Irena Lasoda soon became familiar faces in the Halls of Congress, 
circulating information about the struggle of solidarity and people in 
Poland to endure the repression they confronted.
  The political force that kept the democratic world focused on support 
for the people of Poland then was the American labor movement, led by 
its president Lane Kirkland and his secretary-treasurer Tom Donahue. 
They immediately established the AFL-CIO's Polish Workers Aid Fund and 
put Tom Kahn, the international affairs director of the AFL-CIO, at its 
helm. They persisted in making the steady argument, even after December 
1981, that in Solidarnosc lay the potential for a new, more democratic, 
more just, and more peaceful world.
  It was the AFL-CIO, representing 16 million people, that gave voice 
and strength to the free trade union Solidarity in the United States. 
We forget how many were willing to forsake Solidarity in the period of 
martial law. Indeed, only the AFL-CIO, backed by the committee, 
pressured President Reagan and his administration to adopt stronger 
sanctions in response to the state of war. As importantly, it was the 
AFL-CIO that made sure Solidarity was sustained through financial and 
material help, some of which was supported by the National Endowment 
for Democracy, after its creation in 1984.
  Thanks to that support and steadfastness, eventually the government 
relented, especially once Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in the USSR 
and began to pull back the support for the repressive policies in 
Poland and elsewhere in the Warsaw Pact.
  Roundtable Talks between the government and Solidarity-led opposition 
led to semi-free elections in June of 1989. In an arrangement that was 
similar in some ways to what transpired more recently in Burma, 
partially free elections were organized in which a large block of seats 
in the legislature were reserved--in the case of Burma for the military 
and in the case of Poland, in 1989, for the Communist party and its 
allies.
  All seats in the newly recreated Senate of Poland were to be elected 
democratically, as were 161 seats--35 percent of the total--in Sejm. 
The remaining 65 percent of the seats in the Sejm were reserved for the 
Polish United Workers' Party--the Communist Party--and its satellite 
parties. These seats were still technically elected, but only 
government-sponsored candidates were allowed to compete for them. In 
addition, all 35 seats elected via the countrywide list were reserved 
for the Communist Party's candidates to ensure that the most notable 
leaders of the Polish United Workers Party were elected.
  But in the June elections, the people of Poland voted so 
overwhelmingly for the representatives nominated by Solidarity that the 
Communists and the military lost all credibility. By the end of August, 
a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed, and in December, 
Tadeusz Mazowiecki was elected Prime Minister.
  Poland has since then developed into such a strong democracy and 
economically liberal country that it has led its neighbors into joining 
the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It has 
become in every sense an ally of the United States. And in the past 2 
years, it has again been true to the heritage of Solidarity by 
providing safe haven for many political refugees from Belarus and 
elsewhere.
  While many of us continue to have concerns about some aspects of 
Polish Government policy, its treatment of certain media outlets, and 
the fate of the rule-of-law in the country, the government of Poland is 
a friend with whom we can have honest conversations. Indeed, I am 
sitting down later this afternoon with the newly arrived Polish 
ambassador to Washington, Marek Magierowsk, to continue these 
conversations. This is especially important at this time because Poland 
will become the chairman-in-office next month of the Organization for 
Security and Cooperation in Europe--the OSCE--and will play a major 
role in shaping the OSCE's response to efforts by Russia and others to 
undermine the work of the organization and stability in the region.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of S. Res. 
268 from the 97th Congress, as adopted on December 15, 1981, be printed 
in the Record at this point, along with the announcement of December 
15, 1981, of the creation of the Committee in support of Solidarity.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                              S. Res. 268

       Whereas the American and Polish peoples share a deep and 
     abiding friendship;
       Whereas the imposition of martial law, and the suspension 
     of workers' rights in Poland on December 13, 1981, constitute 
     grave abridgements of the human rights and civil liberties of 
     the Polish people;
       Whereas it is the clear and unassailable right of the 
     Polish people collectively to determine their own future: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That it is the Sense of the Senate that--
       (1) the American people desire an early and peaceful and 
     popularly supported resolution of the issues which have led 
     to the imposition of martial law in Poland;
       (2) the American people deplore the imposition of martial 
     law in Poland, the suspension of the rights of workers to 
     organize and peaceably to defend their interests, and the 
     arrests of leaders of Solidarity; the free trade union;
       (3) recent events call into question the suitability of the 
     further provision of assistance to the government of Poland 
     except for humanitarian programs;
       (4) it is the right of the Polish people to resolve their 
     own problems without outside interference of any kind;
       (5) the support of the American people for continued United 
     States dealings with the present government of Poland will 
     relate directly to the degree to which the Polish government 
     avoids violence and bloodshed, and demonstrate by its actions 
     its respect for a full and legitimate role for the Solidarity 
     labor union and its commitment to the continuation of 
     Poland's reforms;
       (6) the President and the Secretary of State should 
     continue to stress this United States position in all 
     dealings with Polish officials;
       (7) the President and his Administration should consult 
     intensively with our allies to develop a concerted and 
     sustained response to the threat to the democratization 
     process in Poland.

                           Committee in Support of Solidarity,

                                  New York, NY, December 15, 1981.
       We, the Undersigned, Declare: At midnight on December 13, 
     1981, the Polish army and police raided the offices of the 
     Independent Trade Union ``Solidarity''; thousands, perhaps 
     tens of thousands, of people were arrested in their homes. 
     The Prime Minister, Minister of Defense and First Secretary 
     of the Polish Communist Party in one person, General 
     Jaruzelski, declared martial law.
       Polish society, in whose overwhelming support Solidarity 
     has its strength, has exercised the utmost restraint in the 
     face of countless acts of provocation on the part of the 
     government. In the sixteen months of its existence, 
     Solidarity has committed no illegal acts; it has rigorously 
     respected the Polish constitution and all the forms of 
     political life accepted in civilized societies. Each and 
     every voice from Solidarity, even if termed ``radical'' by 
     the Communist Party or the western media, has been no more 
     than the exercise of that right to free and open discussion 
     of national affairs which is guaranteed by the constitution. 
     The party and the government, on the other hand, have 
     violated almost every agreement they have signed; they have 
     also violated the basic right of all citizens to freedom of 
     expression.
       The present events are not the ``internal affairs of 
     Poland.'' The Soviet Union has been intervening in Polish 
     internal affairs since 1944. The Junta of General Jaruzelski, 
     by linking the arrests of Solidarity members to those of 
     former party officials, is clearly attempting to blame 
     Solidarity for the thirty-six years of indolent and 
     devastating communist rule that have brought Poland to 
     economic collapse. The strikes called by Solidarity have 
     resulted in the loss of one day's work in sixteen months; 
     mismanagement and lack of supplies have resulted in the loss 
     of over twenty work days.
       We appeal to every democratic government, and to all those 
     who believe in the Polish people's right to basic freedoms, 
     to immediately halt all economic and other transactions with 
     Poland, until every member of Solidarity is freed.
     Stanislaw Baranczak.
     Josif Brodsky.
     Leszek Kolakowski.
     Czeslaw Milosz.
     Susan Sontag.
     Adam Ulam.
     Stanislaw Wellisz.
     Thomas Wenzlowa.

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