Poland

Polish farmers block Ukrainian grain

Reactionary mobilisations of Eastern European farmers to halt the movement and sale of Ukrainian grain products continue, especially on the Polish-Ukraine border. For the last two weeks Polish farmers have blocked the border. On Tuesday 13 February Polish farmers seized and dumped Ukrainian-produced grain on to the road at the Medyka-Shehyni border crossing. The nationalist-protectionist farmers chanted, “This is Poland, not Brussels. We do not support Ukrainians.” Last week grain was destroyed by Polish protesters after a cargo train was stopped. 2,900 trucks were backed-up on the Polish...

Snares in Poland after election

There is much to agree with in Ann Nukeman’s article on the Polish election ( Solidarity 687 ). I would like to add some further detail on the mobilisation of pro-choice voters and a more critical assessment of Lewica, the main left-wing electoral alliance. The All-Poland Women’s Strike, the organisation that provided the most prominent leadership in the 2020-21 mass protests against the near-total abortion ban, supplied a website where people could enter their postcode to see a list of politicians in red who do not support abortion. However, Women’s Strike’s role was minimal and politically...

A film for trackworkers everywhere

It’s no surprise that the first film to be screened featured a train. Think of the number of films that include train journeys: The General (Buster Keaton), The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock), Shanghai Express (von Sternberg)… and many more. Night Train (1959) by Polish director Jerzy Kawalerowicz does have resemblances to a Hitchcock thriller, but there is more to the film than that. There is a killer on the Łodz-Hel train (Hel is a resort on the Baltic coast). The murder occurs before the journey starts and the director seems more interested in exploring the personas of nine particular passengers...

Women’s vote tips Polish election

When the results were announced of Poland’s general election on 15 October, progressives breathed a sigh of relief. The ultra-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party was finally out of power. PiS’s eight years in government were characterised by attacks on democratic institutions, LGBTQ+ people, migrants and women. In 2020, a move to further restrict Poland’s already draconian abortion law led to the biggest wave of protest in the country’s democratic history. While the mass demonstrations didn’t manage to stop the near-complete ban on abortions, the election was seen as an opportunity to...

Choose Life — Have an Abortion: The story of Justyna Wydrzyńska

Since January 2021, Poland has had a near-total ban on abortion. Before this, Poland already had some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, which only allowed for abortions in a small number of scenarios: if the pregnant person has been raped or the pregnancy has resulted from incest; if their life was in danger; or in cases of severe foetal abnormality. The ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal declared the last of these no longer valid. In 2020, there were approximately 1,000 legal abortions. Following the introduction of the new law, that number fell by 90%. Justyna Justyna...

The Warsaw ghetto: 27 heroic days

April 19 2023 is the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In October-November 1940 the German occupiers herded Warsaw’s 400,000 to 500,000 Jews into a ghetto. From 22 July to 12 September 1942, German SS and police units deported about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka. They killed approximately 35,000 Jews inside the ghetto during this operation. By early 1943, only 70,000 to 80,000 Jews survived in the ghetto. Activists — Bundists, left and right Zionists — organised armed groups. In October 1942 they gained contact with the Polish Home Army and got a small number of weapons...

The dark side of Ikea

As a company based in Sweden, which is home to some of the world’s most powerful unions, you would think that IKEA would be an employer that understood the importance of workers’ rights. And if you read what the company says about itself, it sounds wonderful. On their website, IKEA says that it takes into consideration “at a minimum” the following: “the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.” That...

Conspiracy theories about the Poland missile

At 3.40pm (local time) on Tuesday 15 November, a Russian-made missile fell on the Polish village of Przwodow, killing two people. Within hours, Joe Biden and Poland’s leaders said they believed the missile, though Russian-made, had been fired by Ukraine, defending itself against a massive wave of Russian missiles targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The first news of this, apparently passed to Associated Press by “a senior US intelligence official”, appeared to blame the Russians, but even so most initial reports in the mainstream media were cautious, making it clear that the incident...

Haunted by Andrey Vyshinsky’s ghost

Last week I sent out a message to tens of thousands of trade unionists alerting them to two bits of news. The good news, I reported, was that some workers in Poland had won a big victory in court. The bad news was that in Ukraine, President Zelenskyy had failed to veto anti-union legislation, as we had been demanding. Most people reacted with thanks, or said nothing, but two of the emails I got within a minute of each other were, I think, interesting. The first said: “You’re talking about a fucking union at a time of war. Where’s your head at you dirty lefty”. The second said: “Of course...

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