Workers and Their Unions in Eastern Europe

What was the state of the labour movement in Eastern Europe on May Day 1991? There were no May Day parades in the former communist bloc. The red flags have been furled. The working class is in virtually total disarray in terms of a political project or coherent organization. The trade union movement ? though really one can no longer speak of it in the singular ? is fragmented and dispersed. To be a worker or a trade unionist of any hue in Eastern Europe today is difficult indeed. The old system is rapidly dying if not dead, but it is far from clear what new system is currently being born. The role of workers in this process of change has been absolutely central. The main death blow to centralist control over workers as inherited from Stalinism (though the denial of independent worker-controlled trade unionism was enthusias tically supported by Lenin and Trotsky) was dealt by Polish workers when they formed Solidarity after the epic strikes of 1980. This removed from the Polish communist leaders ? and by extension other communist leaders ? the basis for their rule: that is, their claim to govern in the name of the working class and with at least its passive, if not democratic consent. Communism helped dig its own grave with its emphasis on industrialization. In the Soviet Union, as Moshe Lewin pointed out, it was not until well into the Brezhnev years that the majority of the population became an urbanized working class. Stalin and the communist leaders who took power after 1945 in East Europe had to rule over countries which were still largely rural and agrarian in their social

Political science · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition