I

By the early 1980s, the Communist Party economic policies had long been at a crossroads. It was clear to many that the supply-side, heavy-industrial, and top-down operation of the socialist economy had failed to meet consumer needs. Of the Twenty-One Demands issued at the Gdańsk Shipyard in August 1980, sixteen were socio-economic in character. Item 11 demanded the introduction of meat coupons ‘until the market situation has been dealt with’. Scarcity and poor quality of basic goods and benefits was the greatest grievance, tackled by fifteen demands. As was the case with previous Polish crises of 1956 and 1970, the 1980 strike compelled those in authority to relax economic policies that favoured accumulation and adopt a more consumer-oriented approach to economic policy. The Gdańsk Accords stipulated that the new labour unions would consult key governmental decisions determining the living conditions of working people, in order to remodel the ‘principles of the division of national income into consumption and accumulation’.Footnote ¹

In 1980–1 Poland, an unprecedented situation in the socialist bloc – the existence of an alternative to the Communist Party, armed with independent communication channels, structures, experts, and programmatic proposals – created new conditions for economic policy-making. Though the Communist Party continued to adhere to paternalistic consumption policies, representatives of the Solidarity trade union emerged as advocates for consumer needs. Since, in the public eye, the government bore full responsibility both for satisfying these needs and for the potential failure of the planned reform, this new political constellation – marked by the emergence of a powerful and independent trade union movement – placed the Communists in an unprecedented situation, producing indecision and disarray within the party ranks.

To analyse the period of the Solidarity revolution of 1980–1, the article draws on a salient feature of socialist socio-economic policy: paternalism. While the degree of autonomy in socialist enterprises was negotiable, as evidenced by the experiments in countries such as Hungary and Poland from the 1960s onward, socialist paternalism towards household consumption remained unchanged.Footnote ² In socialist economies, markets did not clear through price competition, as they did in capitalist systems; consumers refrained from acquiring goods not because of limited purchasing power but because of centrally administered allocation. Central planners therefore frequently questioned the urgency of consumer needs. As the scope of needs expanded to include additional goods and social groups, the socialist authorities, rather than accepting this as an unfettered phenomenon, deemed consumer claims ‘unjustified’ and ‘irrational’.Footnote ³

What has been presented above within the traditional interpretation based on the rigid, institutional János Kornai’s paradigm of socialist consumption is recast in this article by viewing state socialism as a regime characterized by the systemic durability and cyclicality of austerity policies.Footnote ⁴ Such a mode of governance based on temporary sacrifice in the name of a better future – strengthening the state and the nation through structural transformation, that is, austerity policies – proved particularly difficult to implement during the crisis of 1980–1. This was due to the emergence of a new factor, namely the Solidarity trade union, whose leadership combined national legitimacy with a populist claim that economic policy could satisfy the interests of all.Footnote ⁵ The government appealed to Solidarity to jointly acknowledge the necessity for austerity; the union, however, tended to sidestep the need for sacrifice, instead demanding an immediate improvement in consumption and a decisive easing of the burdens of everyday life for Poles.

Thus, the article argues that during the economic crisis and rise of Solidarity in Poland, the Communist Party’s systemic paternalism based on austerity policies and ‘rational consumption’ ultimately revealed its weakness. Solidarity systematically elevated the legitimacy of Polish consumer needs, rendering the hitherto rhetoric of a ‘demanding’ society and the necessity for ‘rational’ consumption untenable. The political crisis of the system therefore resulted from the interaction of both phenomena: the long-standing paternalistic policies became ineffective only once an actor capable of consistently delegitimizing its language and practice appeared, while simultaneously preventing their adaptation through the open implementation of austerity. This helps to explain the distinctiveness of the 1980s in Poland in terms of the reduced room for manoeuvre available to socialist policy-makers. At the same time, it reveals a systemic feature of socialist political economy – its tendency to gravitate towards austerity measures, a tendency that could be mitigated only through social upheaval.

The existing literature highlights selected aspects of socialist consumer policies in Poland and the Solidarity trade union’s stance towards consumption, particularly the cyclical character of tensions and the centrality of social justice. In 1970s Poland, the link between consumption and politics was stronger than ever, as evidenced by recurring waves of social unrest and successive attempts by the centre of power to prevent the further radicalization and politicization of consumption through ad hoc measures.Footnote ⁶ Polish policy-makers recognized consumption as one of the main goals of the modernizing socialist economy. They sought to improve living standards by increasing production of durable goods while emphasizing the need to maintain a ‘rational’ and egalitarian model of consumption distinct from that of the West.Footnote ⁷ Solidarity, in turn, invoked the language of social justice and, through its activism, sought to alleviate public discontent with shortages and party privileges.Footnote ⁸ Shortages intensified between 1980 and 1981, leading both to a tightening of top-down measures such as rationing and to expansion of bottom-up activity on the black market.Footnote ⁹ The newly established Federation of Consumers consciously adopted an apolitical consumer identity, and its inspiration from Western models of consumer organization placed it in an intermediate position between the party and Solidarity, oriented towards expert market monitoring and regulation rather than towards mass radical mobilization.Footnote ¹⁰

The article expands the scope of research on socialist consumption policies by situating consumer paternalism within the context of the political economy of socialism. Solidarity’s capacity to topple paternalistic consumer policies is crucial for understanding the limitations of both the Communist Party and the socialist political economy. In this view, such a framework is necessary to grasp the broader political dynamics of Poland in the 1980s, including the motives behind the introduction of martial law, power discourses, the ascendancy of market socialism, and the role of experts.

Taking the above-described tension between the two parties into account, it would nevertheless be erroneous to assume a fundamental moral opposition and institutional separation between the party and non-party milieus. Economic experts often served as de facto intermediaries, as their political affiliations did not necessarily correspond with specific economic viewpoints. This was evidenced by the ongoing debate surrounding the proposed reforms that formed the foundation for the theses developed by the Commission for Economic Reform (Komisja do spraw Reformy Gospodarczej, KRG), established in October 1980 and led by Władysław Baka. The final KRG draft drew on earlier proposals and, like them, remained within the supply-side paradigm.Footnote ¹¹

The article begins with a brief section presenting a political-economy analysis of socialist consumption in relation to accumulation, as well as the problem of dysfunctional allocation of goods, followed by a section analysing paternalistic discourses on consumer needs up to 1980. It then turns to the various manifestations of the regime’s approach to consumption during the 1980–1 crisis: the postponement of austerity measures and price reform, the troubling hunger protests, and fretting about Solidarity’s potentially dangerous consumer programme. The section on Solidarity further shows that bottom-up pressure to articulate a consumer-oriented agenda was exerted not only on the Communist Party but also on the union’s own leadership. The article concludes with an analysis of the role of consumer policy in the imposition of martial law.

Based on a close reading of documents produced by party and Solidarity economists, this article approaches the years 1980–1 from a more economic perspective than is typical in social and political history. Reconstructing the power struggles of the period and the dynamics of the crisis is made possible by extensive sources that have so far been underused in research on socialist consumption, both published and those still difficult to access: the detailed minutes and annexes of the plenary meetings of the Politburo of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR),Footnote ¹² documents produced by the KRG,Footnote ¹³ and, on the opposition side, those of the Solidarity union. These rich materials, featuring discussions by politicians and experts, make it possible to trace the evolution of consumer policy and structural economic change, as well as the reasoning and core beliefs of those in power and their opponents.

II

Crucial to understanding the socialist tendency to depreciate consumer needs was the conflation of accumulation and consumption, whereby the Stalinist developmental state used its comparative advantage of disciplined cheap labour to acquire scarce capital needed for modernization.Footnote ¹⁴ In the Polish case, the importance of industrial production for the process of accumulation was exacerbated by the relative failure of primitive accumulation.Footnote ¹⁵ Compared to other socialist countries, Stalinist collectivization and agricultural policies from the mid-1950s onward failed to extract sufficient surpluses from the rural population.Footnote ¹⁶ This resulted in a further pressure for the surplus extraction from cheap industrial labour.

Poland’s shortage of resources for accumulation had a tangible impact on consumption policies themselves, as socialist policy-makers usually viewed the latter as subaltern to accumulation; it was assumed that increased consumption would hamper the availability of scarce capital needed for new investment and modernization. Despite consumerist traits, the post-Stalinist period remained an accumulation regime, with a subordinate role of consumer needs evident in a popular expression for the Polish 1960s – ‘small stabilization’ (mała stabilizacja). By the end of the 1960s, the system was based entirely on accumulation-driven investment. Each year of the 1966–70 five-year plan approached the historic Stalinist peak of 1953, when accumulation accounted for 28 per cent of GDP.Footnote ¹⁷ Justifying the expansion of accumulation, the economists admitted that the increase in consumption had been marginal but promised that such belt-tightening would end in the future. The larger the labour force, the faster household incomes would grow, even if real wages remained sluggish, they added.Footnote ¹⁸

Yet the subordination of consumption to accumulation was not driven solely by capital scarcity; systemic inefficiency also stemmed from dysfunctional allocation. Byung-Yeon Kim has convincingly shown, using the example of the Soviet Union, that the socialist system was likewise characterized by allocative distortions leading to repressed inflation. The 1965 Kosygin reforms, rather than stabilizing the system, intensified consumption problems: by weakening central control over enterprise finances, they expanded firms’ purchasing autonomy and thereby increased pressure on the retail market – the so-called siphoning effect. In other words, individual state enterprises competed with households for goods, aggravating shortages while simultaneously reinforcing the workplace-based distribution of welfare.Footnote ¹⁹ Intensifying shortages and allocative dysfunctions were further reinforced by the prolonged subsidization of basic goods prices. Fearing unrest – an anxiety grounded in the experience of the 1962 meat price increases – the Soviet authorities maintained strict administrative price stabilization, which forced producers to adjust by reducing output quantities rather than by raising prices.Footnote ²⁰

The Polish case suggests a similar negative impact of the siphoning of goods by selected sectors, regions, and enterprises, as evidenced, for instance, by the privileged position of coal miners compared with the welfare offered to other sectors of the economy. This was reflected not only in relatively high incomes but also in an extensive and long-term expansion of workplace-based welfare. This included both institutional welfare and an exceptionally broad distribution of consumer goods through workplace retail channels and special shops.Footnote ²¹ Beyond this specific form of corporatism, within which the socialist state distributed additional goods to selected groups, by the mid-1970s a practice of directing desirable goods to workplaces and regions that engaged in protest had also emerged. Through such allocation, the government mistakenly assumed it could buy social peace, while unintentionally teaching workers that only the use of radical measures could secure relief from underconsumption.Footnote ²² As in the Soviet case, subsidies on retail prices imposed a heavy burden on the Polish economy: from the mid-1960s to 1981 total subsidy expenditure reached approximately PLN 250 billion. Government attempts to abandon food price subsidies were withdrawn in response to successive waves of social unrest in 1970, 1976, and 1980, resulting each time in the continuation of the policy.Footnote ²³ Thus, although the Polish government appeared more resolute than its Soviet counterpart, it failed – until the imposition of martial law – to eliminate the adverse effects of subsidization, which fuelled inflation and shortages.

From the early 1970s, the simultaneous expansion of consumption and accumulation was made feasible largely by extensive foreign borrowing. Yet the subordination of consumption persisted within a system of defective allocation. From the mid-1970s onward, the domestic structural crisis, combined with the post-Fordist global dislocation of capital and production, pushed the country into a deep and protracted crisis that hit the socialist consumer’s wobbly welfare. In the context of the accumulation–consumption tension, the 1980 August strike can be seen as an offspring of the demotivated Polish cheap labour, who no longer believed in promises of future prosperity according to which one only had to work hard to attain it. Not surprisingly, it was accumulation that worried the PZPR first secretary, Edward Gierek. Upon hearing about the strikes, he interrupted a vacation in Crimea and rushed back to Poland to threaten in a public address that the strikes would lead to the country’s insolvency and eventually halt modernization.Footnote ²⁴ It was another reminder of the priority of accumulation over consumption.

III

Against the backdrop of the post-Stalinist rise in consumer needs, consumption posed a threat to the primacy of accumulation. Throughout the 1960s, both capitalist and socialist economies broadened their definitions of basic goods, as Fordism increased the production of goods and services and accelerated the shift of selected luxury goods from ‘wants’ to ‘needs’ through trickle-down effects and generational change.Footnote ²⁵ In seminal Risk society, sociologist Ulrich Beck noted a characteristic evolution with regard to West German society: ‘In the 1950s and 1960s, when asked what aims they were striving for, people responded clearly:…A “happy” family life, with plans for a detached house, a new car, good education for children and an enhanced standard of living.’ Beck has added that the younger generation used a different language comprising terms of ‘self-actualization’, a ‘quest for identity’, or a need to ‘keep moving’.Footnote ²⁶ New generations, lacking any recollection of the war, were reluctant to acknowledge the sacrifices made by their parents during the post-war period, including the necessity for consumer self-restraint in exchange for the prospect of future improvement. The confluence of the generational shift and the global rise of consumerism left the socialist authorities helpless against the increasingly standardized needs generated by Western influence.Footnote ²⁷ Be it in socialist or capitalist systems, young blue-collar workers from large urban centres embraced through youth mass culture a new lifestyle of urban elites. For Polish youths of the 1960s, the influence of Western consumerism provided a conduit for political engagement from below, which ultimately gave rise to the protests of 1968 and 1970.Footnote ²⁸

Simultaneously, socialist secular ‘sumptuary codes’ continued policies of meeting needs rather than serving wants.Footnote ²⁹ Ina Merkel, using the example of the GDR, has illustrated the 1960s’ essentially anti-consumerist concept of culture and education, centralized distribution and the subsidization of consumer goods, and the utilization of consumption as a means of enforcing productivity.Footnote ³⁰ However, unlike in Poland during the crisis of 1980–1, the presence of paternalism in early post-Stalinist consumer culture stood as both a strength and a weakness. This was because a societal consensus on the importance of thrift lay at the core of the emerging post-Stalinist consumer culture and, consequently, of the economic principle of an accumulation-driven regime that worked in favour of those in power. In the 1960s, social values such as equality, modesty, and justice still dovetailed with the bedrock economic rule of thrift, a congruence that may have escaped historians: ‘what worked and ran normally was generally not recorded’, Merkel has insightfully noted.Footnote ³¹ Through top-down distribution and allocation of resources, the Communist Party was able to maintain its role in charge of everyone’s needs.

In the late 1970s, the influential analysis by Stefan Nowak, a Warsaw sociologist, showcased the problem of tension between evolving consumer expectations:

The urban society studied by Nowak’s team was found to be ‘relatively egalitarian’, which meant that it demanded equality and disapproved of the wealthy, while aspiring to their lifestyle.Footnote ³³ For Nowak, it was the conservatism of the younger generation that was telling. In the face of the late 1970s’ economic crisis, the younger generation, by other experts described as ‘demanding’, appeared to Nowak to display a restraint in their aspirations and a proclivity for values resonant with those of their parents, who had endured post-war austerity.Footnote ³⁴ Nowak’s non-judgemental analysis highlighted that consumption was a complex phenomenon and a source of significant social friction, providing a fertile ground for resentments in times of growing scarcity of both goods and trust.

In contrast to Nowak, party experts framed the issue in a manner that exemplified a textbook paternalistic attitude towards the complex problem of consumption, as illustrated by an analysis produced by the Institute for Basic Problems of Marxism and Leninism (Instytut Podstawowych Problemów Marksizmu i Leninizmu, IBPML) and drafted by Jan Szczepański, a sociologist and Gierek’s scientific adviser (reportedly one of the few he listened to). Frequently quoting Thorstein Veblen’s The theory of the leisure class, Szczepański posited that a society affected by post-war austerity and subsequently exposed to Western films and tourism would inevitably spend heavily on luxury goods. Policy-makers therefore should not just recognize consumer needs but also ‘direct their expansion’ and cut them down to ‘rational use of available goods and services’.Footnote ³⁵

Similar concern was raised in a 1974 draft paper by a team of experts led by Andrzej Karpiński, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of the Council of Ministers (Komisja Planowania przy Radzie Ministrów), as well as by the 1977 report ‘On constructing a socialist model of consumption’ issued by members of the First Secretary’s Team of Scientific Advisers.Footnote ³⁶ The line of argument assumed the rationality of socialism, grounded in an emphasis on consumer moderation and an anti-Western bias. It also presumed that consumer needs could be controlled and shaped both under capitalism – through sophisticated manipulation and the free market – and under socialism – through top-down, long-term planning of social development. This was a rather simplistic view of the evolution of twentieth-century consumerism, for it reduced social needs and wants to a mechanism that could be fully regulated.

A few months into the 1980 August strike, a party sociologist wrote about the young shipyard workers’ expectations, which were too ‘down-to-earth’, lacking cultural needs and ambitionless: ‘Their most frequently cited life goals are first and foremost an apartment…followed by things like owning a single-family house, buying a car, earning a lot,…and having a good education. The truth is such aspirations and hopes are the goals of a mediocre individual.’Footnote ³⁷ While the evolution of consumer needs proceeded in parallel on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the way experts categorized needs differed. Unlike Beck and Nowak, the socialist party experts tended to adjudicate which consumer needs were appropriate and rationally justified and morally righteous.Footnote ³⁸

No matter how doggedly experts adhered to their visions of demanding consumers and regulated needs, by the end of the 1970s Poles had neither enough money for luxury goods nor enough free time, much of which was spent in queues and work shifts. Although mass consumption was a fact, a fully fledged socialist consumer society was missing.Footnote ³⁹ In July 1980, the announced increase in prices of food in company canteens, a cheap source of sustenance for a worker’s entire family, caused ferment. Workers were particularly sensitive to recurrent attempts to remedy systemic deficiencies at the expense of making their families’ bellies full. Consequently, item 11 of the Twenty-One Demands called for the introduction of meat coupons to reduce the likelihood that those with savings would buy up the scarce goods. Items 12 and 13 aimed at the termination of sales at market prices, in hard currency, and in special stores for party elites, the security apparatus, and privileged industrial sectors. Finally, the free Saturdays stipulated in item 21 were to relieve those working around the clock and to provide time to search for basic goods in short supply. These were by no means the demands of ‘demanding consumers’, yet policy-makers tended to define the problem in precisely those terms.

IV

If one were to characterize the early 1980s’ economic policies in a single word, it would be indecision. The modernization efforts of the 1970s had entailed abandoning compulsory agricultural deliveries, thereby removing a previously crucial government instrument for addressing food shortages. Now, only inflation-inducing price increases could incentivize farmers to release their produce. At the same time, the failure to modernize state-owned industry blocked the possibility of a Stalinist-like industrialization drive that might have increased the supply of industrial goods for both the domestic market and exports. Consequently, during the crisis of 1980–1, output from inefficient socialist enterprises – together with crops withheld by individual farmers for profitable black-market sales – fell short of demand.

In the face of soaring shortages, welfarist and consumerist policies contributed to already high inflation, while record sovereign debt and a negative trade balance with the West exacerbated the shortage of hard currency. Consequently, the KRG experts were convinced that the key lay in enterprise reform (and to a lesser extent, agricultural reform) and traditionally leaned towards supply-side economics. They understood that even a slight shift in the balance between accumulation and consumption in such a complex system could have dire consequences.

On top of that, there was the trade union factor. Item 6 of the Twenty-One Demands called for measures to bring the country out of the crisis by ensuring that both parties would participate in discussions on the reform programme. The demand was subsequently incorporated in the Gdańsk Accords, which stipulated that trade unions would participate in drafting labour legislation. In the following months, the newly established trade union actively participated in consultations on the government’s economic programmes and labour legislation.Footnote ⁴⁰ However, beneath the surface of co-operation, an important battle was playing out. The government sought to hold the union responsible for the crisis, while Solidarity presented itself as a tribune of the people – sensitive to public sentiment and striving to satisfy the needs of society as a whole, while keeping a watchful eye on the authorities. To the utmost frustration of the Communists, the union was not going to assume responsibility for economic policy without claiming some of the power. Moreover, the government soon learned that even the slightest austerity measures would be risky without the union’s acquiescence.

This does not mean that there was no alternative. The government could have introduced austerity policies regardless of Solidarity, thereby seeking to legitimize itself through ideas of self-sufficiency and state-building. Such a path was later illustrated by the fate of Nicloae Ceauşescu’s Romania, where drastic austerity policies – triggered by the decision to pay off foreign debt – cut production of consumerist goods and supplies by nearly half.Footnote ⁴¹ As the Polish documents demonstrate, austerity measures were at stake, but there were too many sceptics pointing to Solidarity’s actions as the main factor undermining their potential benefits.

As early as September 1980, a policy document discussed at a Politburo meeting stated that social and wage programmes had limited funding and that the public should be prepared for years of austerity, whereas the government should counter ‘social demagogy and the escalation of wage demands’. Economic policy, it argued, should focus on exports and on repaying foreign debt through new loans.Footnote ⁴² Ahead of the winter of 1980/1, the supply situation was dire. Deliveries of bread, meat, and potatoes were lower than the year before, and coal supplies were tight due to the miners’ strike. The public was tired of prolonged queues and inflation.Footnote ⁴³ This very situation may have weakened the position of those who sought to immediately pursue austerity programmes. In the winter of 1980, the economic plan emphasized the maintenance of social welfare – increases in wages, benefits, and consumption – while postponing austerity measures.Footnote ⁴⁴ The KRG meetings reflected this shift. Early discussions included several suggestions for austerity measures, but as time passed it became clear that proponents of procrastination were gaining the upper hand. This occurred despite a broad consensus that, in the long term, effective reform was impossible without austerity policies, especially given the need to strengthen exports and service foreign debt. The question was not whether to introduce austerity, but how to do so.

V

The 1970s demonstrated the pitfalls into which socialist governments fell by denouncing retail price increases and continuing to subsidize. By the 1980s, the subsidies for retail prices of basic goods produced a powerful enemy – inflation. What kept dissuading those in power from abandoning subsidization was its compensatory function for the working class, which made the subsidies a kind of social policy.Footnote ⁴⁵ By 1980, experts agreed that the so-called ‘price rationalization’ (urealnienie cen), that is, ceasing subsidization, was a necessary step in economic reform. However, such a step would come at a price, causing further austerity and accompanying social unrest. Prolonged KRG debates on how and when to introduce price reform, how to inform the public and when to consult with the trade union proved inconclusive. The price increase announced in the spring of 1981 applied only to baked goods, and such gradual and selective increases in the prices of particular products continued until the imposition of martial law.

One major hindrance to the comprehensive rationalization of retail prices was Solidarity. At a KRG meeting in November 1980, the union’s representative Ryszard Bugaj warned that as long as there was no comprehensive programme addressing the problem how the government would compensate for further austerity, it would be impossible to curb wage demands and resistance to price increases.Footnote ⁴⁶ The union accepted only gradual, selective (for example, pertaining to luxury goods), and compensated price increases, preferably endorsed by a national referendum, and opposed even minor increases in retail prices such as that of bread.Footnote ⁴⁷ Until the imposition of martial law, policy-makers therefore relied on rationing basic goods rather than raising prices – an alternative also favoured by Solidarity – though the system was hampered by delays and complexity resulting from the intricate structure of social benefits.

The discussion on retail prices resurfaced in mid-1981 in an avidly debated draft paper issued by the State Commission on Prices (Państwowa Komisja Cen, PKC), which called on the public to ‘rationally’ accept price increases. A diagram in the draft depicted two taps: a narrow trickle flowing from the goods tap, while the revenue tap poured a wide stream. According to the document, market equilibrium could be achieved by increasing production and raising retail prices, that is, by turning up the goods tap. Turning down the revenue tap was considered a form of austerity and thus impossible for the time being. This had to be done gradually to give people time to adjust and to avoid social unrest (likened to the ‘boiling frog’ syndrome).Footnote ⁴⁸

The document exemplified the mindset of socialist experts, framed by a neoclassical view of economic policies as a finely tuned mechanism and of society as a programmable system.Footnote ⁴⁹ The PKC paper portrayed human behaviour as a simple response to a stimulus that policy-makers could engineer. For example, the rationale for abandoning subsidization read as follows:

Such mechanistic thinking ignored individual resourcefulness, as evidenced by the burgeoning black market of late socialism. Nor did the economists recognize the diversity of economic motivations hidden under the catch-all term ‘society’, which in fact comprised women, blue-collar workers, youth, pensioners, and other distinct consumer groups. They also failed to acknowledge a range of emotions involved, beyond the spectre of social discontent. Such a state of mind went along with the paternalistic advice directed at a homogenized society: citizens were encouraged to switch off refrigerators during the winter, adopt a plant-based diet (cheaper than meat-based), grow vegetables, and produce homemade preserves.Footnote ⁵¹

Solidarity experts were against the PKC draft as well as other proposals of price increases. Bugaj warned the minister of prices, Zdzisław Krasiński (who had come up with a plan of large increases in meat prices), that such a decision would lead to tragedy, referring to the December 1970 strikes, when workers took to the streets. According to Bugaj, the government’s planned price reform would not meet the expectations of Poles sensitive to income disparities. Meanwhile, the government gave up on a progressive tax. Without it, he argued, price increases would primarily hit the middle class.Footnote ⁵² In the same vein, the economist Jerzy Osiatyński, then a representative of the Polish Teachers’ Union and a Solidarity supporter, pointed to the shortcomings of the PKC document, arguing that it consisted of ‘exercises in economic arithmetic’ and ignored the social and political implications of price fluctuations. Price levels should have been monitored by a trusted social institution rather than by the government – here Osiatyński alluded to Solidarity’s proposal to establish a Social Council for the National Economy, an institution tasked with evaluating government policy and endowed with legislative initiative.Footnote ⁵³

VI

After the initial improvement in living standards in the first half of the 1970s, the second half proved disastrous. By the autumn of 1980, it was clear to the new Politburo led by Stanisław Kania that consumption statistics had been systematically inflated.Footnote ⁵⁴ The rationing system – an alternative to price increases – no longer guaranteed access to basic goods. There were shortages of sanitary pads, soap, cigarettes, and powdered milk. Matches had to be imported from East Germany.Footnote ⁵⁵

Inflationary pressures meant that austerity had become a reality, even though no official austerity programme had yet been implemented. Even more important were the crisis’s visible mobilizing effects, which demonstrated that the government still possessed the tools to prevent shortages of basic goods. A telling example was the government’s plan to secure meat deliveries to the market in the fourth quarter of 1981 at the required level of 430,000 tons. The authorities still possessed effective instruments to enforce supplies of basic goods, whether through imports or through carrot-and-stick policies towards domestic producers, encouraging them to increase deliveries to the official market while simultaneously restricting purchases by state enterprises and legal bazaars.Footnote ⁵⁶ Such fine-grained profiling of the flow of goods to the market confirms Kim’s conclusion that, alongside shortage, allocation itself lay at the core of the socialist consumer problem.

Before consumers could experience the effects of such policies of more efficient allocation, the restriction of meat rations triggered so-called hunger protests in major cities, with the most resounding women’s march held in Łódź on 30 July 1981. The summer protests infuriated the PZPR Politburo, which accused Solidarity of inconsistency in challenging the rationing system – either that or price increases, the party policy-makers argued. The Politburo viewed the strikes as the result of union instigation and dismissed the protesters’ slogans about hunger as exaggerated. The misinterpretation also had a gender dimension. By focusing on Solidarity’s role, policy-makers underestimated the mothers with prams and children, who were clearly visible among the marchers and prominent in media coverage. As Politburo member Jan Główczyk put it, the women were merely puppets brought to the streets, the product of ‘small but influential groups’.Footnote ⁵⁷

Unlike the authorities, the Solidarity leadership proved more perceptive, focusing on daily lives of female workers:

The union emphasized the executive power of the government and the concomitant lack of discernment of the people’s situation. After the hunger strikes, it decided to take the initiative and gain more control over the food distribution system.

During talks with the government on 6 August 1981, the union leadership demanded permission for its proxies to control the supply of basic commodities: ‘We want access to all stages of food production – from the producer to the consumer’, Patrycjusz Kosmowski demanded.Footnote ⁵⁹ Solidarity explained that it merely wished to send a clear message to society as to whether the shortage of basic goods resulted from their actual absence or from the government hiding them or exporting them beyond the established limits: ‘Only our commissions would say something that will be credible to this society’, Tadeusz Mazowiecki remarked.Footnote ⁶⁰ From the government’s perspective, the risk was that the union would validate the claim that allocation lay at the core of the problem, thereby deepening inequalities and aggravating shortages. The government responded firmly that it had nothing to hide and could, of course, show the ‘empty warehouses’, yet the union would not be granted inspection rights. After a break in the meeting, the irritated deputy prime minister Mieczysław Rakowski put the matter even more bluntly: ‘Whoever controls food production, warehouses and distribution is actually in power’, and therefore the suggestions put forward by Solidarity amounted to a ‘programme to seize power’. Lech Wałęsa replied sharply: ‘Mr Prime Minister, do we need a repeat of August?’Footnote ⁶¹ The meeting adjourned in a stalemate, illustrating the power struggle in the sphere of consumption. Rakowski demanded that the union appeal to the public to end protests, condemn speculation, and declare that price increases were a must.Footnote ⁶² The government thus sought to shift responsibility for the crisis and social implications of the reforms onto its opponent, while the latter used the momentum of the hunger protests to expand its influence over the food distribution.

VII

In July 1981, the PZPR convened the Ninth Extraordinary Congress, while in the autumn of 1981 the union organized the First Solidarity Congress. With nearly 900 delegates and 2,000 guests, the congress elected trade union authorities and passed key documents, including the programmatic ‘Self-Governing Republic’ (Samorządna Rzeczpospolita). However, as the congress demonstrated, Solidarity possessed neither a unified economic programme nor a coherent position on consumer policies.

From its creation, the Solidarity union faced pressure to maintain the unity of the movement, which was seen as the source of its strength vis-à-vis the Communist Party. The union leadership listened to the voice of its grassroots base, yet unity could not always be preserved – the congress itself offered clear evidence of this. The debate over cigarette price increases during the second round of the congress in late September and early October 1981 illustrated the pressure towards the radicalization of the leadership: delegates reproached the Solidarity leadership for its insufficiently firm response to the government’s announcement of planned increases, which government propaganda was eager to exploit by proclaiming Solidarity’s consent. As one indignant delegate declared: ‘It is outrageous that you gentlemen knew [about the increases] in June…while we at the workplace level were scrambling for cigarettes.’Footnote ⁶³ Naturally, the leadership sought to avoid accusations of an elite conspiracy imposing austerity policies against the interests and over the heads of the movement’s members. As members of the leadership argued in their defence, the issue of price increases was ambiguous since Solidarity was meant to negotiate economic policy rather than simply oppose it. Moreover, as later reports in the Polish and foreign press suggested, there were well-founded doubts as to whether the announcement of the price increases on cigarettes during the Solidarity congress was not a political provocation intended to convey an image of union indecision and spoilage – suggesting that, instead of addressing food prices, it was preoccupied with consumer indulgences.Footnote ⁶⁴

The leadership was spared greater agitation in the hall, as the government’s technocratic message, presented by the invited minister of finance, Marian Krzak, and minister Krasiński, provoked even greater dissatisfaction among the delegates than the leadership’s own explanation of its indecision. Krzak argued that tobacco prices should reflect market demand and serve as a source of budget revenue, and that cigarette prices in the West were considerably higher – the latter remark eliciting a particularly audible murmur of discontent.Footnote ⁶⁵ This indicated where the movement’s leadership needed to position itself. Referring to the mood in the hall, Wałęsa warned the ministers that a cigarette price increase would lead to strikes, but also acknowledged that both sides would have to confront each other directly:

This was, in fact, a rather surprisingly candid admission that, although both leaderships would have been inclined to reach some form of compromise, the political dynamics driven by bottom-up pressure, together with the deepening economic crisis, were pushing them towards radicalization through recurrent flare-ups. The government, however, did not yield and introduced the cigarette price increase the very next day, while workplace crews reacted with dissatisfaction but not with protest, despite the heated atmosphere of the congress and Wałęsa’s threats. The course of the congress nevertheless clearly demonstrated that pressure from the union’s grassroots on issues of consumption was a significant political radicalizing factor.

Pluralism and the diversity of positions within the movement were also evident in the congress debate on the shape of the economic reform, where advocates of Bugaj’s proposal clashed with those of Stefan Kurowski. As a result, the ‘Self-Governing Republic’ included an appendix containing three compact proposals for economic reform. Bugaj’s and Kurowski’s projects remained within the paradigm of top-down production enforcement – economic planning, organized labour, and the predominance of the state sector – though the former was more conservative in terms of dynamics and anticipated social risk, while the latter prioritized a strong initial economic stimulus. There was also Kiełczewski’s neoliberal-like proposal, which prioritized entrepreneurship, economic viability, profit, and efficient management, as well as layoffs across various sectors. Yet even this programme included protective elements, such as the government’s prerogative to set prices for energy, raw materials, and basic goods and to protect the most vulnerable.Footnote ⁶⁷ In sum, it is misleading to regard the Solidarity union as fundamentally anti-liberal. As Jacek Luszniewicz’s perceptive analysis shows, the leadership generally held back their more liberal views aware of the union’s social base.Footnote ⁶⁸

Despite such inconclusiveness, Solidarity’s economic proposals proved more appealing to the public for a number of reasons. Its experts stressed the fundamental problem of a structural disproportion between a part of the economy producing for people’s needs and one aimed at expanding the means of production: ‘For an excessive part of the country’s economic potential is biased towards the production of machinery and equipment for the production of new machinery and equipment, while the production of consumer goods is a marginal sector in such a structure’, the programme stated.Footnote ⁶⁹ All union experts were critical of the government’s proposals: ‘There was no dispute that the government programme was flawed…The majority thought it should be rejected altogether’, Bugaj reported from the congress economic panels.Footnote ⁷⁰ The experts made no secret of the fact that the planned reform required improving the supply and organization of enterprises, which would temporarily reduce consumer demand. This, however, Bugaj insisted, should be carried out with the minimum possible social cost. He rejected the PZPR’s reform proposals, arguing that both an elaborate rationing system and ideas for large one-off price increases would hit the most vulnerable hardest. Instead, Bugaj came up with progressive taxation and a tax on luxury goods, as well as raising prices first on expensive goods like cars and colour television sets.Footnote ⁷¹ Pointing to the wealthy owners of villas and cars as those who should bear the initial costs of reform, he reiterated the values of August 1980 – equality and social justice.

The project proposed by the union liberal Kurowski, reportedly well received by the delegates, promised Poles a shorter period of austerity. Kurowski viewed the government’s announcements that basic needs would be satisfied only by 1986 as leading to deep and prolonged decline in living standards, leaving the younger generation in particular without prospects and risking more social upheaval. Instead, he advocated a strong economic stimulus to raise national income, to be followed by an increase in the share of consumption.Footnote ⁷² Both proposals stood in sharp contrast to the government’s position, well-illustrated by a statement at the congress by minister Krzak, who openly admitted that economic reform ‘would not be a period of happiness’ and indeed – ‘as in Hungary and Yugoslavia’ – would be ‘a road of suffering’.Footnote ⁷³ By contrast, Solidarity’s experts promised that the hardships would be either mild (Bugaj) or brief (Kurowski) and generally refrained from publicly framing the situation in terms of ‘inevitable suffering’.

Those in power themselves recognized the appeal of the Solidarity programme. The IBPML carried out an analysis of competing proposals made at the PZPR congress and at the Solidarity congress, acknowledging that the trade union’s programme was more resourceful and detailed: ‘The Solidarity union has developed a far-reaching, comprehensive programme of economic and social policy, both short term and long term…This programme can certainly compete with the party and government documents.’Footnote ⁷⁴ The accompanying criticism concerned not so much measures such as state welfare or values like egalitarianism as the very bottom-up mode of action that the union advocated: ‘a call for social initiatives and grassroots action, and a ruthless attack on bureaucratism and centralization’.Footnote ⁷⁵ For example, when planning reforms Solidarity did not rule out price increases, but insisted on a public debate and a referendum, whereas the PZPR sought to introduce increases without consultation.Footnote ⁷⁶ Concerned that the union agenda might prove attractive, the Communists drafted a document recommending how government propaganda should present the outcomes of the Solidarity congress to a wider public. The intended message was that the congress neglected bread-and-butter issues and offered nothing but slogans.Footnote ⁷⁷

VIII

When analysing the preparations for martial law in Poland, source-based indications suggest that economic considerations formed an important backdrop for such a move, visible in the autumn of 1981 in terms such as ‘iron discipline’ and ‘war economy’.Footnote ⁷⁸ For Communist hardliners, martial law appeared a desirable scenario that would enable them to eliminate two fundamental impediments in one fell swoop: a havoc-wreaking powerful political opponent and the party’s own economic indecision, itself the result of pressure from that opponent. In the long run, such a move promised national consolidation and transformation along the lines of an austerity programme. In the specific Polish context, austerity would provide a window of opportunity for effective reform of socialist production and perhaps a return to the decade-old plan of leapfrogging development fuelled by Western loans.

The shift from half-measures towards comprehensive austerity policies became increasingly urgent as the economic situation in 1981 turned catastrophic: industrial production fell by 13 per cent compared to the previous year, while wages rose by 26 per cent, fuelling inflation. Limited price increases failed to curb inflationary overhang. While black-market prices were soaring, rural-to-urban supplies dwindled, and before the winter a severe coal shortage threatened households. The Soviets assuaged the situation with deliveries of raw materials.Footnote ⁷⁹ Even food rationing no longer alleviated the situation; on the contrary, it added to public frustration: ‘If we leave this queue state as it is for the winter, we can expect anything…One man can incite the whole nation’, economist Józef Popkiewicz warned at the KRG meeting in October.Footnote ⁸⁰ To reinforce the weight of the argument, experts shared their personal stories. Ignored back in 1980 as an advocate of soaring retail prices, professor Popkiewicz now spoke bitterly of how shortages affected his family – without the help of his wife, who did not work outside the home, his household’s meat coupons would not have sufficed.Footnote ⁸¹

For the government, the clock was ticking and the room for dialogue was diminishing, as hardliners gained the initiative on both sides. Even minor bills were delayed by consultations with Solidarity. Abandoning them would have removed responsibility for the crisis from the union, a scenario at odds with the Communists’ intentions. Many policy-makers, including the prime minister and a newly appointed PZPR first secretary Wojciech Jaruzelski, believed that the trade union strategically torpedoed the reforms.Footnote ⁸² On 12 December 1981, the Solidarity leadership issued a document declaring the government’s plans for 1982 – food rationing, price hikes, and job cuts – unacceptable; the union had not been consulted and, moreover, the people should be the final authority: ‘The public can accept the necessary sacrifices as long as they gain real influence and control over the implementation of government policies’, it concluded.Footnote ⁸³ Yet this radical veto mattered little, as the following morning Jaruzelski announced martial law.

Equally important were exogenous forces. By August 1980, Poland – while keeping the dire situation hidden from its citizens – had become the most indebted country in the socialist bloc.Footnote ⁸⁴ At the October 1981 KRG meeting, Jaruzelski stressed how narrow the government’s room for manoeuvre was amidst sovereign debt, domestic economic collapse, and popular discontent. This, he told the meeting, made it all the more necessary to maintain ‘iron discipline’, since ‘the impulse of resistance against the reform must be neutralized’.Footnote ⁸⁵ Earlier, in the spring of 1981, Poland had defaulted on its obligations and requested debt restructuring from its Western creditors. The restructuring of approximately $4.6 billion allowed a breather but at the same time cast Poland as an unreliable borrower, potentially cutting off further loans. Parallel talks with the IMF resulted in Poland’s request for membership. As the government calculated, a favourable decision would open up a $3 billion IMF loan, World Bank investment credits, and additional external financing, thereby restoring the country’s credibility.Footnote ⁸⁶

In all these actions, the government operated within two time horizons. In the long term, it sought to acquire hard currency and boost production, while in the short term it needed breathing space to stabilize the economy and keep contingent public outcry at bay. While martial law may have disrupted the long-term agenda (indeed, sanctions temporarily did so), eliminating Solidarity and disciplining society offered the immediate advantage of a radical measure possibly leading to domestic stabilization within a framework of national consolidation around austerity policies. Not coincidentally, in 1982 the authorities created a state-controlled platform uniting various social organizations and professional groups as a substitute for the conflict with the outlawed Solidarity, known as the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth (Patriotyczny Ruch Odrodzenia Narodowego). Moreover, in the view of Western banks, martial law was not an unfavourable development; on the contrary, it enhanced Poland’s credibility, enabling the ‘social discipline’ deemed necessary to repay its debt.Footnote ⁸⁷

The ultimate economic reform began, not coincidentally, with a drastic price increase that eased the supply–demand imbalance. Back in the autumn of 1981, arguing against Kurowski’s proposal at the Solidarity congress Bugaj fretted over a 200 per cent price increase in food – an unimaginable austerity resulting from market-like prices.Footnote ⁸⁸ The eventual increase in average retail prices in 1982, compared with the previous year, proved even more drastic: 241 per cent for food and 184 per cent for non-food items.Footnote ⁸⁹ This step allowed policy-makers to reduce what had functioned as an anaesthetic of the socialist economy – subsidized retail prices. At the end of 1981, food subsidies amounted to around 150 per cent of the value of sales (meaning that if production costs were, for example, PLN 25, the shop price was PLN 10 and the state subsidy PLN 15); after the increase they fell to roughly 30 per cent, while subsidies for non-food goods were virtually eliminated.Footnote ⁹⁰ This came at an enormous social cost: the share of food expenditure in household budgets rose sharply, while caloric intake declined. Martial law thus began with genuine austerity policies, even though social benefits mitigated the distress of the poorest and later decisions softened the overall measures.

IX

Paternalism lay at the core of socialist consumer policy, as policy-makers sought a lasting transformation of ‘irrational wants’ into ‘rational needs’. Those who questioned living standards were portrayed as ungrateful and seduced by Western consumerism. Yet, contrary to official rhetoric and the complaints of party sociologists, the socialist public regarded thrift as a virtue, and there was little disagreement over values such as equality and social justice. It was the long-standing paternalistic policies themselves that generated tensions, which the crisis of 1980–1 fully exposed.

This raises the question whether the weakness of the system in the early 1980s stemmed from such socialist paternalism alone or also from the policies and arguments of the trade union. An analysis of the documents suggests that these were mutually reinforcing factors. Systemic paternalism – based on the hierarchical definition of ‘rational needs’, the subordination of consumption to accumulation, and the postponement of sacrifice in the name of future improvement – was relatively stable as long as society lacked an autonomous channel for articulating its needs. The emergence of Solidarity revealed the structural nature of the crisis: by legitimizing everyday needs as politically justified, the union deprived the authorities of their monopoly over interpreting the meaning of socialist consumption. At the same time, the union – confronted with the sentiments of the mass movement it represented – was not prepared to assume responsibility for a policy of sacrifice, which deepened governmental decision-making paralysis. The long-standing paternalistic policies faced a powerful opponent capable of consistently delegitimizing their austerity aims.

A further issue concerns the specificity of socialist paternalism against the broader background of technocratic governance. In fact, Western welfare states likewise relied on expert design of economic behaviour and on a neoclassical belief in the possibility of steering society through price incentives. The distinctiveness of state socialism, however, lay in combining this technocratic vision with chronic shortage and ineffective top-down allocation of goods. Under conditions of market disequilibrium, paternalism was not merely a regulatory instrument but a foundation of governance: since the state was responsible for distributing goods, it also had to define needs. Hence, the chronic inclination towards austerity solutions – not as a one-off stabilization programme but as a cyclical mechanism of systemic reproduction, in which consumer sacrifice became a pillar of modernization efforts.

In 1980–1, the government was trapped between endogenous consumer pressure fuelled by Solidarity and exogenous economic constraints, including creditors’ pressure to implement austerity policies. It suddenly found itself in a canyon, with the domestic market and the balance of payments forming its walls: ‘The current is swift, with walls threatening collision on both sides, and the crew in a circumstance with an incomparably more limited choice than before’, as Solidarity economic expert Waldemar Kuczyński observed.Footnote ⁹¹ In such a situation, the logical course for the government was to pursue austerity – a path consistent with an accumulation-driven socialist system, one that addressed the problem of sovereign debt and, as the Communists believed, would consolidate society around the ruling camp and weaken the opposition by articulating a shared goal of national transformation.

Yet Solidarity stood in the way. It described the hunger marches simply as a cry for help from a desperate people on the brink of destitution. It passed a programme calling for a generous social package, which even party experts could not ignore. It promised that the necessary reform would be either short or much cushioned, and either way it would not exacerbate the already wrenching austerity. Even though the incoherence and sketchiness of Solidarity’s propositions was noted by many, the union promised Poles what they wanted to hear. As successive crises unfolded – social unrest, worsening shortages, and the union’s resistance to reform – the government responded with indecision, resorting to half-hearted measures. Ultimately, however, both the deepening economic crisis and the presence of a powerful opponent called for firm action. In the eyes of the hardliners, martial law could supress the union that had exposed the government’s inability to secure consumer needs and thereby enable the long-delayed austerity policies.

Solidarity’s stranglehold on the government was aptly portrayed at the August 1981 meeting by deputy prime minister Janusz Obodowski, who lamented before the union authorities that they demanded both top-down and rigid prices and store shelves brimming with goods ‘just like in Western countries’. Inspired by Solidarity, Poles wanted to work less as in ‘Arab oil countries’ while making a lot of money and enjoying ‘Scandinavian’ welfare benefits. In all, Obodowski continued, Poles wanted to merge a smallholder capitalist economy with a socialist one, though unfortunately no one knew how to make this happen.Footnote ⁹² This was, on the whole, a sound insight into political economy. For a socialist developmental state, it was difficult to reconcile directive price regulations with the free market and entrepreneurs, just as it was difficult to allocate many resources to welfare and consumption. But it was also another statement that revealed the socialist paternalistic way of addressing consumer needs as irrational and demanding. In practice, socialist authorities reverted to their usual repertoire: postponing reform under negotiation pressure while simultaneously preparing coercive stabilization and price correction once political control was restored. The period of Solidarity thus did not suspend the systemic logic of paternalist socialist governance but temporarily blocked its implementation, which re-emerged under martial law.