Working People's Movement
The Working People's Movement, also known as the Movement for the Working People, or the Movement of Polish Working People, is a left-wing political party and trade union in Poland. It was founded on 10 October 1989 by trade unionists of All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions to serve as the political wing of OPZZ. Initially founded as a "political front", it became a political party on 16 December 1990 and was registered on 18 January 1991. It became one of the 30 founding organizations of the Democratic Left Alliance in 1991, and from 1991 to 2001, RLP held 11 seats in the Sejm as part of SLD. In 1999, the RLP broke away from SLD because it opposed the decision of the SLD to transform from a coalition to a centralized political party, as it wanted to maintain its identity. From 1999 to 2000, the party's MPs formed a parliamentary group together with the Polish Socialist Party, but this was dissolved in 2000 over policy disagreements. The RLP did not participate in the 2001 election and thus lost its 11 seats. It then became a loose political association, and its members joined the far-left Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland. RLP campaigned for the leader of Self-Defence, Andrzej Lepper, in the 2005 presidential election, and ran on its electoral lists in the 2005 and 2007 parliamentary elections, with Szymański, the leader of the RLP, winning a seat in 2005. The RLP was reactivated on 26 May 2012.
The party is a part of the Polish post-communist radical left. Its goal is to "protect the working people and their material, political and social interests". The ideology of the Working People's Movement mixes many currents - it is a union of left-wing trade unions, makes populist appeals based on public discontent towards the Balcerowicz Plan and reality of capitalist Poland, and considers itself a part of the left-wing tradition of the Catholic Church, which is expressed by elements of Catholic moralism in the party. On one hand, the Working People's Movement seeks to take over the legacy of the fallen ruling communist party, the Polish United Workers' Party, but on the other hand it denounces it as "a workers' party in name only". The RLP presents a democratic socialist vision, calling for a socialization and parcellization of the Polish economy into four unique portions - 20% is to be owned by the state and follow state socialist principles, another 20% is to form the "communal sector" based on workers' cooperatives, 40% is to be given to a "public sector" based on "stock cooperatives" where both the owners and the workers would own a fixed share in stocks, and the remaining 20% is to comprise a private sector of small businesses only.
History
Foundation
The Working People's Movement was created by Alfred Miodowicz, who protested against the decisions of the party leadership of Polish United Workers' Party, and who during the 2nd part of the 13th meeting of the Central Committee, 29 July 1989, resigned from the membership of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers‘ Party. Miodowicz envisaged the emergence of his own party as the Polish United Workers’ Party did not meet his expectations. He declared to defend the working people, ‘their material, political and social interests’. He represented the party faction of Adam Schaff, an anti-globalist communist theorist who was removed from the Polish United Workers' Party in 1984 but briefly reinstated in 1989.Alfred Miodowicz was heavily critical of the Polish communist authorities in the late 1980s, calling the economic program implemented by it a failure and fundamentally flawed. Miodowicz was outspoken on his criticism of the state of the Polish economy and the living conditions of the society. However, he advocated evolutionary changes to eliminate ‘anarchy’, arguing that the West was interested in the destruction of Poland and would only support it if Solidarność was legalised, which would revive the fighting spirit - he stated: ‘I am convinced that we will only receive support when we are at each other's throats, when we repeat the lesson from Lebanon’. This also led him to oppose the re-legalization of Solidarność.
The decision to establish a group that would politically represent the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions, a trade union headquarters controlled by the Polish United Workers' Party union headquarters, was taken in autumn 1989. On 10 October 1989, Alfred Miodowicz organized trade union activists of various left-wing organizations and founded the party. RLP was initially supposed to be a political wing of the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions, but throughout 1990 it was reformed into a wider socio-political movement of left-wing trade unions.
Early activities
On 30 November, the representatives of the Working People's Movement together with Wojciech Wiśniewski, a member of the executive committee of OPZZ, met with the steelworkers, where they discussed the expected increases in various articles from 1 January, related to the increase in the price of coal; these were of particular concern to the workers. In its statements, RLP was to bring together representatives of the political left, including members of the Polish United Workers' Party, but it was not ruled out that "our social movement will be forced to transform into an independent political organisation." The founding congress of the party then took place on 16 December 1990, and entry into the register of political parties was obtained on 18 January 1991.The party's organization was formulated to reflect that of a trade union - from 19 November 1989 until 16 December 1990, it was led by a Coordination Council with Ewa Spychalska as the chairwoman and Paweł Gieorgica as the secretary. At the founding congress, the Coordination Council was replaced by the National Assembly of Delegates as the supreme authority of the party, and another body, the National Council, was created to de facto rule the party between the sessions of the National Assembly of Delegates. The National Council had 65 members, and each left-wing organization joining the party was guaranteed to receive at least a single seat.
The RLP was temporarily headed by professor Roman Broszkiewicz, who was replaced a year later by the long-time chairman of the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions, Alfred Miodowicz. In 1995, the party was headed for several months by Member of Parliament Wit Majewski and, from the autumn of the same year, by Lech Szymańczyk. The organisers also included a group of academics from the Academy of Social Sciences, which was affiliated with the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party. Adam Schaff, a communist activist and Marxist theoretician, became the ideological leader of the party. The party structures of the Working People's Movement became the remnants of the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions - this allowed to party to have 200,000 members in 1991.
Joining the SLD
In the 1990 Polish presidential election, RLP endorsed Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz of the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland, calling him "a man whom the people of the left can unite around". The Working People's Movement became one of the founding members of the Democratic Left Alliance, which at that time was a coalition of around 30 parties, trade unions and associations. Support for a united left-wing political front was reflected in the Working People's Movement since the beginning, as in 1990 it declared: "We are in favour of a single strong, offensive left-wing party. Only such a party can effectively protect endangered livelihoods and the socialist idea of work." RLP candidates ran on SLD lists in the parliamentary elections in 1991, 1993 and 1997, winning several seats each time. In the Sejm of the Republic of Poland of the first three terms, the party was represented by Barbara Hyla-Makowska, Teresa Jasztal, Jacek Kasprzyk, Bogdan Krysiewicz, Janusz Lemański, Wit Majewski, Kazimierz Milner, Regina Pawłowska, Ewa Spychalska, Lech Szymańczyk and Jan Szymański. In the 1995 Polish presidential election, the Working People's Movement endorsed Aleksander Kwaśniewski of Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland, who was supported by the majority of the SLD; however, some left-wing parties at the time, such as the National Party of Retirees and Pensioners and Polish People's Party, did not endorse Kwaśniewski. RLP then signed a joint SLD declaration urging for further support for Kwaśniewski.Break with SLD
RLP was re-registered in 1998 in accordance with the new Political Parties Act. A year later, its authorities opposed the party's accession to the unified formation being created on the basis of the Democratic Left Alliance, which sought to become a single, centralized political party rather than a loose coalition than it has hitherto been. The Working People's Movement argued that it wanted to retain its own political identity. RLP also criticized the decision of the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions to join Democratic Left Alliance, stressing that RLP itself came from it. As a consequence, Lech Szymańczyk and Kazimierz Milner left the parliamentary club of the Democratic Left Alliance, co-founding a new parliamentary group together with representatives of the Polish Socialist Party. Polish Socialist Party and the RLP were both amongst the parties that opposed the reformation of the Democratic Left Alliance. On 31 March 1999, RLP instead entered talks with Labour Union to formulate a common program and political front, and both parties signed a cooperation agreement on 23 July, where both parties were to represent the "interests of the working class". On 30 September 1999, RLP then signed another agreement with the Polish Socialist Party and the National Party of Retirees and Pensioners.Despite officially breaking with the Democratic Left Alliance, the RLP remained somewhat cordial to it in the Sejm. It held a vote through which it attempted to make Stefan Niesiołowski responsible for his insults towards Democratic Left Alliance officials; Niesiołowski called Ryszard Kalisz "pornominister", and Aleksander Kwaśniewski "pornopresident". The Working People's Movement also voted in favor of the failed motion to ban "soft" pornography.
However, in 2000, the parliamentary group broke apart because RLP opposed the way the leader of the Polish Socialist Party, Piotr Ikonowicz, voted on issues. In May 2000, together with the Polish People's Party, Democratic Left Alliance and the Polish Socialist Party, the Working People's Movement spoke in favor of a referendum on privatization of national forests. The calls for a referendum came after a report revealed that privatization of institutions related to forest preservation to severe negligence; a petition for a referendum on this matter was signed by over 543 thousand citizens.