English is still a problem in Eastern European countries. Only few of us speak this language, that's why we are not able to translate all news and also we don't have archive in English.

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News from Workers Initiative Poland

*in english*

www.workers-initiative.poland.prv.pl

 

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Interview with Rozbrat activist

This interview was published in 31st issue of "Abolishing the Borders from Below" (2008), anarchist journal from Eastern Europe.

1. ABB: What do you think Rozbrat means for the anarchist movement from Poland and from Poznan?

D.: Actually, when you think about anarchist movement in Poznan, you think exactly about Rozbrat, as a place that gathers free-thinking and anarchist milieus. For now it is quite difficult to imagine the anarchist movement without Rozbrat. Most of the activists from - what you call today - the anarchist movement in Poland became active when Rozbrat already existed. It means that they somehow had to refer to this active centre in Poznan. During those years hundreds of anarchist meetings, discussions and congresses took place here. There are not many anarchists in Poland who haven't had any relation to this place. I think it wouldn't be an exaggeration if I said that the anarchist milieu that is active around Rozbrat is today the oldest continuously active and the most diverse milieu in Poland. For the anarchist movement in Poland, relatively young and undermined by plagues of evanescence, such experience is a value itself.

R.: Rozbrat is a great starting point for people who haven't had any possibility to meet with the anarchist ideas before. A lot of people come here and first they are inspired by the place itself (the library, community living or just d.i.y. parties) and then they start to ask about idealogical reasons why people live that way or are politically active.

What is more, I think that thanks to Rozbrat the members of Anarchist Federation are rooted in this existing place that somehow constitutes us as a group and gives a feeling of support from the community. Thanks to that we feel stronger while dealing with different campaigns outside Rozbrat. As a part of the community we take care of the place, renovate it, keep it clean, prepare it for all the events, eat together or just have fun - thanks to that we don't become "apparatchiks"* of the anarchist movement.

And finally, thanks to Rozbrat and the activity of Anarchist Federation anarchist ideas have had a chance to be spread and we can say that for some people living in Poznan anarchism is not only associated with bombs and chaos or utopia anymore, but with real alternatives that can be realized in real life (e.g. idea of self-organization, direct democracy, collectivism).

S.: But also Rozbrat is still somehow a so-called safety-valve and the space has taken up our energy and a lot of activities which we could have been spent with people outside in the streets. Instead of going outside, we focus on our autonomist oasis, on our own "village". The movement was strong when Rozbrat was founded, but today, taking into consideration more mature forms of our activity, self-organization, deeper analysis and constructive criticism of reality that surrounds us, we can be sure that the loss of this place is going to be like a catalyst for our activities on different levels. Something like pulling out a safety pin from a grenade of our city.

2. Without a doubt, the end of Rozbrat would be a huge loss. But can you describe more precisiely what, apart from some activists losing their home, would be the impact of that loss on social, political or moral grounds if Rozbrat would really disappear?

D.: First we would have to decide what Rozbrat really is. If you think of the few houses and the space itself, they are for sure really important tools, but still just tools. Rozbrat is a base for dozens of initiatives and it would be a big problem for them if Rozbrat one day would disapear. Here you can find the Anarchist Library and archive, the biggest anarchist distribution and publishing house, it is a place for congresses, meetings and conferences of syndicalist and anarchist organizations. In Poland it is not common for local anarchist groups to have their own space (legal or not, even small). And what more, thanks to Rozbrat we are sometimes able to collect funds to support the movement, not only in Poznan.

K.: If you think of Poznan, Rozbrat is one of the few places where a real political debate is continuously ongoing which goes beyond the mainstream: through discussions, lectures, film screenings and so on.

At Rozbrat there is quite a big community living and managing the place using rules of direct democracy. This is an important experience in Polish reality, it doesn't have a lot of equivalents in other Polish cities.

D.: Going back to the question of Rozbrat as a living place, we should mention that although Rozbrat is quite a nice place to live for 20 people, some of those people have no other choice. When Poland have joined the EU the prices of real estate have risen by a few hundred percent. Today a small flat (40m2) costs around 55-70 thousand euros, to rent such a flat you would have to spend 250-300 euro monthly, when an average monthly salary is 270-400 euro. So for many people such costs are beyond their possibilities.

K.: I hope that if it wouldn't be possible for us to stay at Rozbrat, we will be able to keep the dynamics of the activities we run here at the moment. But for sure it would require more effort.

R.: Well, if Rozbrat disappears, first of all some anarchists from Poland would lose the place that they visit to 'charge their batteries'. But to be serious, although there is a lot of things that Rozbrat Collective has difficulties with, we still learn how to live and act together and this attempt to build a non-hierarchical community is really exceptional in our reality. You still have to remember that we talk about Poland, in Poznan for example, with 700 000 inhabitants, there are no other groups that are based on the idea of horizontal organisation, trying to create collectives, or economical co-operations that print books, run a pub or something else.

3. ABB: We know that the discussion about the strategy of defence of Rozbrat is still going on and that you are not ready to speak out in the name of all the community. But maybe you are able to tell us what options are discussed in Poznan now. What kind of strategy of defence of Rozbrat can you imagine?

D.: Discussions always bring a wide spectrum of different ideas. We could point out two different attitudes towards Rozbrat - one of them suggests that Rozbrat is a value and a goal in itself, the second one claims to perceive Rozbrat as an instrument. And of course there are many positions in-between. The second point of view understands Rozbrat as one of the tools for a social change we strive for. On the contrary, first attitude leads to a declaration that there is no other alternative to Rozbrat, the struggle must go on regardless of any circumstances. The second option takes into consideration a withdrawal from Rozbrat if only alternatives appear. But for now there is no alternative, so we are decided to fight for Rozbrat as it is now. At the moment we consider all ways of defence - including legal and not legal ones. We also analyse campaigns that were organized in defence of squats in other countries, which helps us a lot.

R.: Exactly, especially for example the legal situation of Köpi in Berlin was/is similar. But when you analyse ups and downs of the squatting movement in the last few years you can draw some conclusions - first of all that it is easier to overcome problems when a ground belongs to the city. A lot of squats have survived thanks to different kinds of agreements with the city administration (Christiania in Denmark, Hausmania in Norway, a lot of "house projects" in Berlin or CRK in Wroclaw, Poland). What the movement doesn't have are weapons to save a squat or land when they belong to capital (also violence and direct actions, which were used for example in defence of Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen, don't bring positive results). And Rozbrat is considered to be a private property, although now in fact there is no owner. The court is legally obliged to organize the auction and sell the ground in order to give back the money to the bank for the mortgage, we still don't know who is the potential investor. The struggle against capital is particularly difficult in such semi-periphery country like Poland, where private property is a holy thing, where semi-wild capitalism makes it possible to use for example private security guards against legal workers' strike or to build shopping malls in city parks.
Localization of Rozbrat is very attractive, its almost centre of Poznan and is quite a big land (around 2 hectares). It may cost 5,5M euro. Although one of the economists has said that because of the existence of Rozbrat on this land it may cost five times less, it is very difficult for us to imagine that we would be able to collect such an amount of money. The Polish squat movement is too weak and too poor to create funds that would help to buy empty buildings or give unrepayable credits (or even credits without profits), there are no such possibilities that exist for example in Switzerland or in Germany.

The struggle for Rozbrat has also a symbolic meaning (of course not first and foremost). It creates a good opportunity to speak out about already mentioned problems of the lack of houses in Poland, about evictions, catastrophical policy of developers in the centres of Polish cities, lack of cheap available rooms/offices for groups running social activity and lack of space for alternative artists to show their art etc. That's also why we are decided to fight for Rozbrat, although the situation of the squat seems to be difficult.

4. Let's say there is a need for mass acions in defence of Rozbrat like demos, blockades etc. How many people from Poland would actively take part in such actions?

R.: Some of us took part in the demonstartion in defence of Kopi in Berlin last May. We were impressed by number of people who participated (5,000). We still have to remember that we talk about the Polish reality. The biggest protest organized by anarchist movement (but not only) was able to gather 5,000 - it was the anti-summit against European Economic Forum in Warsaw in 2004 - and it was after many months of preparation and with international support.

We believe we could count on squatters from other Polish cities (we have almost always organized solidarity demos when some of them were threatened with eviction, we have also tried to suppport them financially). Probably also a lot of anarchist activists would come, or people from the so-called scene. I think if we would gather 800 - 1,000 people it would be a big success but also a very important event in Poznan (two years ago our trade union co-organized one demonstartion that gathered 1,000 people and it was one of the biggest demonstartions in Poznan since 1989).

D.: This is kind of a difficult question, because at the moment the anarchist movement doesn't exist anymore in the form it used to be in the 90's. That movement was closer related to sub- and countercultural motions, it resembled much of what is called the "autonomous scene" in Western Europe. It was less ideologically grounded and more closed in its own environment, but also much bigger, quantitatively. Rozbrat is one of the offsprings of this movement. But the people who would have been the base of it in the past, now have left their political attitude and the so called "alternative scene" is not as powerful as before and reduces itself mainly to having fun. And the anarchist movement itself is now in a process of change, yet the shift of tactics and of the scope of activity creates a situation in which the new forms are still in their immaturity and the old ones don't work anymore. Mobilisation capabilities of most of the groups in Poland are quite low now, though we still hope, that during all these years Rozbrat has become an important place to such extent, that this situation will activate the recently inactive groups. Such support is very important for us, it would be very difficult for us to defend this place without it. It's quite impossible for us now to estimate the extent of this support and - referring to the previous question - it is one of the reasons why it is difficult to talk now about the tactics of the defence.

5. To what extent does Rozbrat exist in the consciousness of the common inhabitians of Poznan and what importance can this fact have for the campaign? Which other milieus apart from the anarchist movement and subcultural groups sympathise presently with Rozbrat?

K.: In Poznan there are practically no cultural, political or social events of alternative or underground character that are not really related to Rozbrat. Things that happen here are often commented in the local media and activists from Rozbrat are asked to comment on different issues in Poznan. I think that Rozbrat has been accepted as a place with a clear political and social profile.

D.: After the announcement of threatening information and the first visit of the bailiff, there were many voices of support. All friendly groups offered help: ecologists, feminists, local neighbourhood organizations, with whom we organized protests together, the activists of the Workers' Union (IP) syndicate from factories in which we are active, the music scene, independent theaters and friendly bars.

R.: You forgot to mention the hip-hop and graffiti painters' groups, which have also offered their support. I think, we can also expect support from some of the people around the university, who sometimes refer to our publications or are interested in Rozbrat as a sociological phenomenon. Rozbrat is situated in a green area, there are not many houses or tenement houses around, so, although we have good relations with the closest neighbours, we can't count on mass support in the district.

S.: It's true that during all these years there have been lots of people who somehow went through Rozbrat and then partially left the movement. Today, in a critical moment, there are people supporting Rozbrat who nobody would have of expected to have any relations with this place before. If the struggle would be kept long enough, then the fire will burn with much more power. I'm sure of that.

D.: An interesting situation has emerged in relation to the local media. The journalists themselves began to put pressure on the city council to help Rozbrat. Although we, as the collective, haven't led any talks with the city governors. During some time there has been a weird situation in which the city council, pressed to the wall by the journalists, had to explain why it isn't trying to help us.

Still, as in the answer to the previous question, it is difficult to estimate, to what extent all these signs of sympathy and friendly attitude would change to any kind of activity. Stagnation and lack of belief in the possibility of any kind of change in Poland creates a kind of a particular situation where people don't want to be involved politically. As an example I could mention the protests against the American attack on Iraq. The polls show that the disagreement with the war in Polish society was one of the highest in Europe (75-80% of the people were against it), though the anti-war protests were only able to gather from a few hundred up to 3,000 participants.

6. How is the present attitude (atmosphere) in the movement in Poznan? Have the "dark clouds" over Rozbrat already somehow influenced the activities of the Poznan section of Anarchist Federation and other anarchist, syndicalist and free-thinking groups inside Rozbrat?

K.: Direct activities related to the threats are the organisation of benefit events under the slogan "Rozbrat stays!" in order to gather some money which we need for defence activities - legal support and technical protection of the space.

S.: Usually there are many things happening here and many impulses are sent out from this place. It seems that this situation helps to activate the whole movement and to unite it. We are trying to gather our full power and to get the best ideas.

D.: We are trying to reduce the impact of the present situation of Rozbrat on our usual activities. Presently we are engaged in struggles in a few factories, soon there will be some actions inside the factory H.Cegielski lead by the Workers' Union. We spread the flyers in other workplaces, we cooperate all the time with local protest committees demanding participation in political decisions in the city, we publish books and magazines, there is a library, we make lectures and concerts, we are preparing the autumn anarchist conference... As you see there is a lot of work and the defence of Rozbrat is only one of the issues we deal with and as far as it's possible we will try not to let it dominate the other ones.

7. Support from abroad - do you think it is important in your situation? If yes, what forms of direct or indirect actions would you suggest?

D.: Of course it's important for us. We count on support from other countries. As well as support in the media, demonstrations or petitions, the financial support would be appreciated. When it gets hot here every visit and support here locally will be of great value for us. Mass protests are the biggest chance to win. We are already thankful for all the voices of solidarity, support and help.

S.: For now one of the most important elements of support is the active collaboration, to keep Rozbrat always full of culture and free thought. So, just pack your stuff and come here with your performances, exhibitions, lectures, movies or other projects. While the opportunity is still there...

R.: We swear that in the critical moment we will send a clear message that we need you here in Poznan. Solidarity is our weapon!

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Interview with Rozbrat activist from Boston Indymedia (2004)

During a workshop on solidarity economics at the WoGan Decriminalizing Resistance conference last weekend (November 12th-13th) I met Krzysztof Krol, a member of the Anarchist Federation of Poland who resides at the Rozbrat Collective in the Polish city of Poznan. Of the many participators in that particular workshop only the two non-U.S. presenters seemed to have practical solutions for working class people. While Americans talked of seed exchanges, alternative currencies, and green investment schemes Krol told of his groups foray into radical labor organizing and a presenter from Argentina's MST talked about a community center built by the community itself geared around food production and education.

As the debate over the validity of alternative currencies roared on past the workshop's scheduled time I pulled the labor-minded Krzysztof aside to get a one-on-one interview.

Boston Indymedia: Could you describe what you are accomplishing with labor organizing in Poland?

Krzysztof Krol: I am from the Anarchist Federation of Poland (AF), this group started in 1989. In every big city we have sections, ours is in Poznan. It is a net of independent groups, autonomous, that exchange info and also coordinate actions together. Most of the time we have two all-Poland meetings a year and discuss our plans for the future. We started the Workers Initiative (WI) with friends from my section; this is a group of people from AF who are interested in workers topics and Anarcho-Syndicalism. One month ago WI started an official workers union in Poznan it is 150 workers in this union from three factories in two places. There are also members in other cities. I am not sure how many. These unions are made up of disabled people.

BI: In how many cities is the AF involved in Labor organization?

KK: 5 sections, but AF has sections in 20 towns and cities.

BI: How much of the anarchist ideology is coming through in the organizing itself? How is the Union structured?

KK: This idea of making a union started four years ago but at the start we hadn't any base, and no contact with any workers. Our idea was to first get some connections with workers and then after this maybe organize the union. Now, in May, these workers proposed the idea of making a union to us. They told us 'we don't want to be in any other union because they are not democratic and that is not enough for us. We don't want to have a hierarchy in our union. They asked us to organize an anarcho-syndicalist union.

Our first quick step was to legalize the union. We did this using documents from other unions with only a few changes. This made us an official union. In a few weeks we will be meeting to really organize the structure, to do this more downstairs without hierarchy. We will be basing this on Anarcho-Syndicalist ideas on the examples of CNT of Spain and other examples in labor history. We also see sometimes there are some bad things in old ideas, some that are 100 years old. So we will not be strict in adhering to these old models.

BI: One major part, following the historical goal of the CNT, would be having the final goal of the union organizing be the creation of a worker owned collective. Is that also the goal of your new organization?

KK: For us also, our longer vision is to use the union as a tool to organize a free community. For sure our vision is taking the factory under control of the workers. A second priority is organizing other things, other activities around the union. Cultural activity. In Poland workers culture doesn't exist. We had some worker culture after WWII but after this came communism and everything became official. After the end of communism in 1989 no one cared about the culture of workers. They proposed, just like the rest of the world, television and consumption.

So we organize some cultural activities with workers, an exhibition of photos, Football cups, some movie evenings with socially conscious movies, sometimes we go to theatres because our friends own theatres and they like to invite the workers for premieres.

BI: You were talking about workshops that you are doing in the workshop we were in, do these involve more workers than just those in your union? And did those come before the formation of the union?

KK: We have organized four conferences. The most recent was one week ago. People come from all over Poland, there are workers, delegations from other unions, members of anarchist groups and socialist groups and we also invite Anarcho-Syndicalist unions from other parts of Europe. Last conference we invited SAC from Sweden, CGT from Spain, and FAU from Germany. The conferences make new connections and give new points of view to the people who come. People also present the problems they have. We hold workshops on practical things, like how to organize a good protest, how to write some text to media, and other things.

BI: What was your first step in reaching out to the workers?

KK: First we had this group of people from AF. A few people were working, some people were unemployed, some were students. We needed to make some contact with workers. One friend proposed that we reach out to some workers from a big factory that were in this more radical union called solidarity 80's, a big union in Poland. It is made up of people from the Solidarity Union who were fed up and split off to form Solidarity 80's.

We proposed to them some workshops. Our first proposal was "What you should do after they kick you out from work, after unemployment." They told us they didn't need this. So we took other steps, we printed flyers and gave these flyers to workers at the factory gates, 6am when they go to work in the morning.

When people from the solidarity 80's saw this flyer they thought this is some good group, but it was us, the same people from before! Really they didn't believe that we could do this thing.

BI: What were the flyers about?

KK: The flyers were about the economical situation and they layoffs that were going on.

BI: Layoffs?

KK: Yeah, there was something about the local situation in the factory and something about the global situation and how it was affecting Poland. "We must react, you must react, we must react together." It worked very well.

After this it was very fast. We started organizing a few demonstrations and thinking about strategy inside the factories. We started a paper inside the factory. The title of this was "Initiative 80's" to connect Solidarity 80's with Worker's Initiative. After this we started going to some factory strikes. There were a lot of strikes in this time. For instance, one group occupied the gates of one factory for 240 days. At another one at a shipyard in the North of Poland a few thousand people would take to the streets every day.

We went on the strikes during 2002 and 2003 and made some connections. These people come to our conferences. One fabric factory on strike kicked out the private management and started organizing a cooperative. We have very good relations with this factory in Central Poland. Our last conference was in this factory.

We also support people when they have cases in court. We give information on how to do their defense. We have an open phone for workers. People can call to us and ask about rules to workers law. There are very practical situations that come up in a place of work, you must now how to play with the boss because play with you he will. He won't explain to you how much is possible. If you are stronger he stops scaring you.

BI: What are the other unions there in Poland?

KK: The biggest union is Solidarity with 750,000 workers. The second biggest is the OPZZ with 720,000, a Communistic Union, more left wing than solidarity, there is the All-Polish Federation of workers unions with 300,000, and then there are other little unions including specialized worker unions, solidarity 80's and now WI. In Poland 14% of people who work are in unions.

BI: Are all those authoritarian unions?

KK: Yes, this is the first Anarcho-Syndicalist union after WWII in Poland. Five or six years ago a group of people in Warsaw started up a section of the IWW but really it was a group of their friends and after a year or two it was still just a group of their friends.

Other unions are very corrupt and hierarchical. A lot of high-ranking members of Solidarity are in parliament, most of them also have connections with big business. Sometimes they are the owners of smaller businesses, for example if you are the boss of a big factory union, you may also own the little sister of the factory that fixes all the electricity or cleans the factory. This is normal in Poland.

Unions have a big influence on politics in our country but only tops of the unions, not unions in the meaning of a social movement.

BI: You said that you live in a squat in Poznan called Rozbrat. Can you describe it for people?

KK: It is a social center, people live in this place but also we have our office, we have a library, we have anarchist archive, a place to publish things, and this our place for the AF. I know the situation in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland. I haven't seen anything as big. This is the biggest and the oldest squat in Poland. It is ten years old. It is illegal, we pay for water and electricity but we don't pay rent.

BI: What do you think is the best way for American Anarchists to connect with what you are doing over there?

KK: Contact is good but this is normal and this is easy. It is not enough. My idea is to have some practical cooperation. For example in San Francisco I talked with AK press about publishing some stuff. Another example might be to translate Indymedia movies into Polish and show them there. In Western Europe other Anarcho-Syndicalist unions help Polish workers who come there to understand their rights. There are thousands of possibilities to cooperate. We must think about the future, to develop something, because now what we are doing is not enough.

BI: Some of the Anarchist groups in America often have a sort of 'security mentality'and seem to be scared of prosecution. They act as if the activism they are doing is illegal. What do you make of the difference between groups here and over there?

KK: Yes, I saw this a lot of times. It's because of the way our societies are scared, so are anarchists scared because they are part of the society. For sure there is some bigger influence of secret service in [the American] movement than in Poland. For me, our power is that we are open and everyone knows everything. I don't believe that radical people here [in America] really do anything illegal. They aren't killing people. But at Anarchist Black Cross from Jacksonville [Oregon] in every flier there are people with guns, and I don't know for what. For me my view of Anarchism is a social movement. Fights on the streets are OK, they are important for sure, but you must build some structure, not only fight on the streets all the time.

People here they often talk to me only about fights. I have been in a lot of fights here and there, big and little demonstrations. I know how it is and most of the time it is the same.

If you are in black and you destroy some windows, for me, this is not radicalism. The most radical thing is change of the people. Then hit the streets, and then break some windows if you need to.

BI: Yeah, there,,s some confusion about the means to an end I think, people might have the same vision of the end, but they can,t envision the same path. And then maybe they just get mad. And the press doesn,t help us either.

KK: In Poland we don't have really a big past of the movement. Really, most of the people don't know what is this Anarchism. They see some information on us and maybe it is some good information and they don't object that much. Maybe they don't like this name Anarchism. They know that Anarchists from Poznan help people from Chechen. We did a lot of protests against the war in Chechnya, and they liked this. Most of the people in Poland don't like Russia after the past. For example, occasionally driving down the street some drunk will yell "ahhh 'free kafkas!' Anarchistas! I must go next time on the demonstration!" Because they hate Russians you know? And they feel that anarchism is good work.

Action is spectacular. But the work with unions is not spectacular. You must go every day, sometimes very, very, very early in the morning. You must wake up and you must go and you must talk with these people all the time and they talk so many bullshits because they don't know everything. But you cannot talk bad you must try and talk to them, try to explain something. I also learn a lot from those people. But it's not easy and no one sees you doing this.

When you see these people in the morning and you try to collect some money because the next people might be fired with no work for two months and three kids at home, no one sees this. Because this is not action, and this is not spectacle. For me demonstrations are just like spectacle with the situationalists. This is spectacle, this is play, this is only play. It's a good symbol but if this is our target, to do spectacles, then I am out.

KK: Thank you.

| Original article |

Utopia behind Peguot car showroom (a newspaper article from Polish Express - 2004)
by Monika Wojnowska