He Dared to Hope

(16 of 18)

never given the union any concrete guarantees that its rights would be respected. The authorities seemed to be stalling in hopes that the economic crisis would wear down Solidarity's popular support and split the union. In fact, the regime had never fully carried out any of its major promised reforms. Now the authorities were even talking about curbing the right to strike, which had been at the heart of the hard-won Gdansk accord. The obdurate position of the government, which made any concessions seem increasingly unlikely, goaded the radicals in Solidarity to press even harder for reforms and made the final confrontation inevitable.

As the split between the union and the government grew wider, the church was wary of getting too closely involved in trying to work out a political agreement. The Pope, says a bishop in the Vatican, felt that it was "the duty of the church to proclaim the rights of man, including the right to form trade unions, but the organizational work should be done by laymen." Walesa shared the Pope's beliefs and his concerns. He told TIME: "We cannot put the church at risk, because we do not know how this will end. We may be wrong, but the church has to be right."

As the unity talks dawdled, an astonishing event occurred that showed how much the Communist Party itself had disintegrated during the turmoil set in motion by Solidarity. Trying to put more pressure on the union, Jaruzelski asked the parliament to approve a bill banning strikes during declared emergencies. In Communist countries, anything the regime wants, the parliament automatically approves; the party controls all governmental institutions. But Jaruzelski was told in early December that the parliament would not pass the antistrike bill, stark proof of the collapse of party discipline.

With the party disintegrating, the Soviets pressing him to take stern action and the economy in ruins, Jaruzelski turned to the one institution he still trusted: the army. Quietly, he began to complete plans for imposing martial law while gradually taking the offensive against Solidarity. With army units held in reserve, he used riot police to break up an eight-day sit-in at Warsaw's Fire Fighters Academy by students who were demanding academic reforms. Next, the government went on radio with illegally obtained tapes of Walesa warning, at a hot-tempered Solidarity meeting, that "the confrontation is unavoidable and will take place." The union leader did not deny the quotes; he only said that they had been distorted by being taken out of context. The tone of the government's attacks reached a new pitch. For the first time Walesa himself was singled out for criticism: the army newspaper called him "a great liar and provocateur" leading a group of "madmen" striving for "anarchy and chaos."

Then on Dec. 12 Solidarity radicals gave Jaruzelski the excuse to do what he probably had been planning all along. From the start, the government and the Kremlin had made it clear that they could not tolerate a challenge to the existence of Poland as a Communist state, or any loosening of ties with the Soviet Union. That is precisely what the radicals voted to do at their last meeting in

Gdansk. While Walesa looked on in frustrated silence, they called for a national referendum on the future of the Communist government and a