Poland

1980-1: Class Struggle in Poland

As a follow up to our recent article about Solidarność (see: leftcom.org) we are republishing three of the leaflets that the CWO and Battaglia Comunista distributed in 1980-1 among workers in Britain, Italy, France, and the USA on the events unfolding in Poland.

Solidarność: Trade Unionism or Self-Organisation?

Political and economic crises led to the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc. The downturn in the post-war accumulation cycle, the Cold War, the USSR’s disastrous intervention in Afghanistan, as well as the popular revolts in Central and Eastern Europe all played a role. But it is the class struggles of 1980s Poland to which we turn our eye here.

Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto - Bernard Goldstein

Jewish fighters captured in the aftermath of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, 1943.

Memoirs of life in the Warsaw ghetto from Bernard Goldstein, leader of the Jewish Labour Bund, recounting his underground activities in Nazi-occupied Warsaw such as how he (and the rest of his group) smuggled food, clothing and, eventually, arms into the Jewish ghetto in preparation for one of the most significant anti-Nazi uprisings during World War Two.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - Marek Edelman

Jewish fighters captured during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, 1943.

First-hand account of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, and the increasingly inhumane living conditions imposed on the ghetto by the Nazis in the years leading up to it, told by Marek Edelman, member of the socialist Jewish Labour Bund and co-founder of the Polish anti-Nazi resistance group, the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB).

Biographies of and works about Rosa Luxemburg - reading guide

Rosa Luxemburg speaks with banner of F. Lassalle

Book length or pamphlet length (10,000 words+) or otherwise notable biographies of the life of and works about Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) with considerable reference to her politics in chronological order. No works by Luxemburg except in edited collections or extracts.

Anarchy #04

Fourth issue of the second series of Anarchy magazine, published in early 1971 cover article concerns the class struggle in Poland.

Tenants in Warsaw organize against high heating costs

In November 2017, the Warsaw Tenants’ Association (WSL) initiated a campaign against the high costs of heating. The most eager response came from women tenants in the South Praga district of the city. Many of these women are single mothers who struggle to make ends meet while working at home and for wages in low-paid jobs.

From the Heart of Darkness: Anatomy of a March in Poland

The rise of so-called populism and the far right over the past few years has been a global trend. We have written about it before – "reactionary ideologies always feed on social decomposition, atomisation and growing insecurity."

A Worker’s Message From Poland And The Ghetto: “Socialism Lives and Will Dominate the World”

letter_from_worker2

The second private letter from a German worker and soldier active in the underground socialist movement in Germany, sent to a friend in the United States and published in The Militant in 1942. This one recounts the three weeks that the author spent in Warsaw at the end of 1941, explaining the situation in occupied Poland and the socialist movement there.

Defence of the Polish post office in Danzig

Memorial to the workers outside the post office

A short account of the employees of the Danzig post office who fought the Nazis for 15 hours during the invasion of Poland before they were captured, written by Nikola Budanovic. This article was first published on warhistoryonline.com.