It is now clear that Poland is in the midst of a social crisis more profound than any Communist national has ever experienced, with the possible exception of Hungary in 1956. I choose my adjectives carefully. Previous crises in Poland itself, in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, China, and on several occasions in the Soviet Union, have been sharper and more spectacular, but none has sprung from sources so deep inside the social structure. The leading actors in this Polish drama are not the volatile intellectuals and students accustomed to being seen and heard in public places, or the hardened professionals of the Party rat race. The drab, silent and unseen mass, the workers of shop, mill and factory, Marx’ genuine, original “proletariat,” have suddenly, unbelievably, taken over stage center.
When the first scene opened in December in the Baltic port cities, the global media treated it as merely one more in the irregular sequence of minor tumults in the lesser Communist nations. After three or four days, news from Poland receded to the usual empty Warsaw handouts, and the Polish government did its best to keep them empty.
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