Human Rights and Political Dissent in Central Europe

Between the Helsinki Accords and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Jakub Tyszkiewicz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032035055
• eBook ISBN: 9781000479843
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume examines to what extent the positive atmosphere created by the Helsinki Accords contributed to the change in political circumstances seen in the countries of Central Europe, under Soviet domination.

It focuses in particular on - firstly - a consequent new impetus to bolster human rights in international politics, as Western democracies - especially the US - integrated human rights concerns into its foreign policy relations with Soviet Bloc countries and - secondly – how this Western embrace of human rights seemed to create new incentives for increased dissident activity in Central and Eastern Europe and from 1976 onward. Finally, the book reminds us of the significant role of the Helsinki Accords in developing democratic practices in Eastern European societies under Soviet domination in 1975-1989 and in creating the conditions for the peaceful transition to democratic government in the years that followed.

This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of the history of communism, post-Soviet, Russian, and central and East European politics, the history of human rights, and democratization.

1 US Policy toward political opposition in Poland (1975–1981)¹

Jakub Tyszkiewicz

DOI: 10.4324/9781003187646-2

The new regime in communist Poland, which started in January 1971 under the leadership of Edward Gierek, began the rapid development and modernization of the economy, fueled by Western credits.² At the same time a new Party stressed fulfilling social needs. Undoubtedly, there was a marked improvement in the standard of living for Poles until the mid-1970s.³

In the climate of détente, Gierek also promoted the development of relations with the West, leading to a significant improvement in all areas of the Polish-US relationship. Under Gierek’s leadership, US Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter made visits to Warsaw (in 1972, 1975, and 1977, respectively), and Gierek visited the US in 1974. Bilateral economic cooperation between the US and Poland reached an unprecedentedly institutional level: trade increased, and exchanges of science, technology, and culture expanded. Under Gierek, Poland became one of the US’s best options for promoting its interests.⁴

However, the Polish centralized economy, run inefficiently and without any structural reforms by Communist Party leadership, was soon overheated; efforts to modernize the economy were not successful. Polish products were not competitive in the Western market, and growing foreign debts, which were to be paid with the export of food and raw materials, led to food shortages in Poland.⁵ By the mid-1970s, growing economic crises worsened the social situation and fostered the growth of organized dissidence across the country. When authorities meted out brutal punishments in June 1976 against the protestors and demonstrators who went on strike against price rises announced by the regime, the Workers’ Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników, or KOR) was formed. In its initial phase, KOR focused on securing amnesty for arrested workers.⁶ One year later, it became a permanent institution committed to the defense of human and citizen rights. Other dissident groups soon appeared. Of these, one of the most important was the Movement for the Defense of Human and Civil Rights (Ruch Obrony Praw Człowieka i Obywatela, or ROPCiO), which focused on the disparity between the international commitments made by the Polish government at both Helsinki and the United Nations and its actual policies and practices toward its citizens.⁷ It is worth stressing that due to its increasingly difficult economic situation and its need to maintain good relations with the West in order to receive financial aid, investment, and technology transfers, Gierek’s government did not dare to react harshly to these oppositional activities. This political climate allowed the rise of organized and pluralist dissent, which was among the strongest and most distinctive of Soviet Bloc countries.⁸

Although Washington carefully observed the development of political opposition in Poland after the regime’s suppression of worker unrest in June 1976, the Ford administration seemed not to understand the significance of this new, organized political opposition. It even mistakenly saw KOR’s creation as “an element of the game between the regime and the Catholic Church,” that supported workers persecuted by the regime after the 1976 riots.⁹

Only after the 1976 US presidential election did questions of human rights violations become a leading element of US foreign policy toward the Soviet Bloc. The Carter administration’s policy represented what most scholars considered a major shift in US foreign policy: evaluating the human rights record of other countries became a routine part of foreign policy decision-making.¹⁰

In considering this policy toward Poland, we should not overlook Presidential Directive PD-21, Policy toward Eastern Europe. The directive, approved by Carter in September 1977, stressed that the US would work with regional governments to enhance their independence internationally and to increase their degree of internal liberalization.¹¹ Together with the Presidential Directive on Human Rights/NSC 30 (approved in February 1978), which declared that observing and evaluating the status of human rights around the world was now a major objective of American foreign policy, PD-21 led the Carter administration to wield human rights as an important component of US strategy to pressure Eastern European states to live up to the Helsinki Accords.¹² Assessing how Soviet Bloc countries implemented the Helsinki Accords became an integral component of US actions at follow-up meetings, especially in Belgrade in 1977.¹³ The attitude of the US was to permit Soviet and Eastern European dissidents to publicly report governments’ violations of the Helsinki Accords and, at the same time, pressure these governments to change their policies. In short, the US was determined to shed light on human rights abuses in the Soviet Bloc.¹⁴

Against this background, it is therefore worthwhile to consider how the dissident question affected American policy toward Poland, and to what extent that question guided bilateral relations in 1975–1981.¹⁵ This chapter examines the attitude of the US toward Polish dissidents, explores whether the Carter administration took advantage of this emergent political opposition while developing its foreign policy toward Poland and the Soviet Bloc in general, and discusses whether such a policy was successful.

Generally speaking, Washington held the Polish government’s attitude toward human rights in high esteem as “one of the better ones in Eastern Europe.” The presence of a strong dissident intellectual community was one proof of Poland’s positive human rights record. In this light, when the US included Poland in the itinerary of Carter’s first major international trip in December 1977, it signaled its tacit support of the Polish government’s handling of domestic issues.¹⁶ The fact that human rights were only the secondary theme of Carter’s speeches in Warsaw might reflect the overall positive view of the US toward the Polish authorities’ handling of dissidents.¹⁷

However, the Carter administration paid close attention to the development of organized political opposition in Poland and considered it to be an important human rights issue for both Poland and Eastern Europe as a whole, not least because the harassment of dissidents in various Soviet Bloc regimes both drew and grew the American public’s interest in Eastern European non-conformists.¹⁸

Despite Washington’s interest in dissident activities in Poland, analyses of the situation prepared especially by the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence do not reveal much in the way of evaluation or prescriptive directions for US policy toward Warsaw. The intelligence community primarily stressed the regime’s mild attitude toward dissidents, saying that they were handled “with kid gloves in order to avoid the potential creation of martyrs.”¹⁹ The regime’s amnesty for workers who had been held in prison since June 1976 seemed to confirm such an opinion.²⁰ The CIA rightly considered this as part of a broader effort to convince the US that Warsaw adhered more closely to human rights provisions than other Eastern European countries.²¹

Analysis of CIA sources clearly shows that American intelligence officials were not able to determine how this new political opposition received the human-rights-centered foreign policy. Analyses prepared in CIA headquarters at Langley stressed that there was “no evidence” that Washington’s new approach influenced the thoughts or actions of Polish dissidents, even as one of the first issues of Opinia (the Opinion), an underground journal issued by the ROPCiO, featured an article about Carter’s human rights policy and a letter to Carter in the wake of the Belgrade summit.²² Langley had no doubt that the Carter administration’s position on human rights would be a cause for concern in Warsaw. The Directorate of Intelligence warned that if Carter’s statements made the Kremlin impose a tougher line on dissidents across Eastern Europe, then Gierek, who was up against “a highly volatile and unpredictable situation in Poland,” would have trouble.²³ In other words, the CIA was clearly worried about the potential for the growth of Polish dissidence to foment a crisis which might lead to increased Soviet influence or even Soviet intervention.²⁴

We can get a glimpse of the Carter administration’s growing interest in Polish dissidence by examining its reaction to the detainment of members of KOR by the Polish government in May 1977.²⁵ In assessing this situation, the National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzeziński focused especially on the situation of the leading dissident, Adam Michnik, who was arrested five days after voicing his personal views on the Polish regime’s failure to implement its CSCE obligations. Indeed, Michnik was no stranger to American authorities. The US Congress’s Helsinki Commission stressed the importance of his fate, and the Carter administration reacted positively to news of his and other dissidents’ release.²⁶ Such a positive attitude was further enhanced by an intelligence analysis which noted the emergence of new, half-legal groups in Poland. These groups put pressure on the government to liberalize, distributed a samizdat, organized seminars, and collected funds on behalf of imprisoned workers in towns. This analysis approved of these dissidents’ self-restraint given their volatile political situation.²⁷

For its part, the White House did not want to jeopardize its official, even-handed policy toward Poland by favoring any of these opposition groups.²⁸ Because Americans optimistically assumed that new groups of dissidents signaled the success of US policy, it is therefore not surprising that Carter did not consider meeting with members of these groups during his official visits to Poland.²⁹

Washington continued its policy of receiving all persons who came to US embassies and consulates. American officials’ meetings with dissidents were often organized outside official venues in order to avoid giving the Polish government any pretext for falsely accusing Washington of supporting opposing political organizations.³⁰ Thus, although the US diplomatic mission attempted to maintain contact with all dissident groups to better understand their objectives, tactics, and influence, as well as how they interacted with the regime, it proved difficult to secure and maintain these contacts, because they “depended to a considerable extent on fortuitous circumsta...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Introduction: Human rights and political dissent in Central Europe: between the Helsinki Accords and the fall of the Berlin wall
• 1. US Policy toward political opposition in Poland (1975–1981)
• 2. Human rights in British policy on Poland (1975–1979)
• 3. Basket III provisions in the policies of France and the Federal Republic of Germany toward the Polish People’s Republic (1975–1980): A comparative approach
• 4. Human rights in the policy of Sweden toward Poland 1975–1981
• 5. Between human rights and national opposition: Polish opposition 1976–1989
• 6. Exit, voice, duplicity: Human rights in Romanian understanding (1975–1989)
• 7. The Catholic Church, human rights and the democratic opposition in communist Poland: The case of Father Ludwik Wiśniewski
• 8. The role of human rights in the situation of the Slovak church and persecution of Christians in Slovakia in 1975–1989
• 9. John Paul II on human rights in Poland
• 10. Political opposition, human rights, and political changes in Czechoslovakia in 1989
• 11. Resistance, dissent, and opposition movements: Antecedents of the Hungarian regime change
• 12. Revisiting the revolution of 1989: The end of the communist rule in Romania
• 13. The United States and Hungary, 1956–1990
• 14. The Polish American Congress, Polish diaspora, and human rights movement in Poland
• 15. The ideas of human rights and their impact during and after Soviet rule
• Index