Page 434 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Tanya went outside to her car and turned on the radio. Programs were normal all across the dial. The Soviets had not invaded yet.

The rest of Saturday passed without major drama. It was not until Tuesday that Tanya began to feel scared again.

The government had published a draft bill on workers' self-government that gave employees the right to be consulted about management appointments. Tanya reflected wryly that President Reagan would never for one minute consider giving such rights to Americans. Even so, the bill was not radical enough for Solidarity, for it stopped short of giving the workforce the power to hire and fire; so they proposed a national referendum on the issue.

Lenin must have turned in his mausoleum.

Worse, they added a clause saying that if the government refused a referendum, the union would organize one itself.

Tanya again felt the needle of fear. The union was beginning to play the leadership role normally reserved for the Communist Party. The atheists were taking over the church. The Soviet Union would never accept this.

The resolution was passed with only one vote against, and the delegates stood and applauded themselves.

But that was not all.

Someone proposed sending a message to workers in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, and "all the nations of the Soviet Union." Among other things, it said: "We support those among you who have decided on the difficult road of struggle for free trade unions." It was passed by a show of hands.

They had gone too far, Tanya felt sure.

The Soviets' worst fear was that the Polish crusade for freedom would spread to other Iron Curtain countries--and the delegates were rashly encouraging just that! The invasion now seemed inevitable.

Next day the

press was full of Soviet outrage. Solidarity was interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states, they screeched.

But still they did not invade.

*

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev did not want to invade Poland. He could not afford to lose credit with Western banks. He had a different plan. Cam Dewar found out from Staz what it was.

It always took a few days to process the raw material that Staz produced. Picking up his rolls of film in a dangerous clandestine brush pass was only the beginning. The film had to be developed in the darkroom at the American embassy, and the documents printed and photocopied. Then a translator with a high-level security clearance sat down and converted the material from Polish and Russian to English. If there were a hundred or more pages--as was frequent--it took days. The result had to be typed up and photocopied, again. Then at last Cam could see what kind of fish he had netted.

As the Warsaw winter freeze set in, Cam pored over the latest batch and found a well-worked-out and detailed scheme for a clampdown by the Polish government. Martial law would be declared, all freedoms would be suspended, and all agreements made with Solidarity would be reversed.

It was only a contingency plan. But Cam was astonished to learn that Jaruzelski had war-gamed it within a week of taking office. Clearly he had had this in mind right from the start.

And Brezhnev was relentlessly pressing him to go ahead.

Jaruzelski had resisted the pressure earlier in the year. Then, Solidarity had been well positioned to fight back, with workers occupying factories all over the country and preparations well advanced for a general strike.

At that time, Solidarity had prevailed, and the Communists had appeared to yield. But now the workers were off guard.

They were also hungry, tired, and cold. Everything was scarce, inflation was rampant, and food distribution was sabotaged by Communist bureaucrats who wanted the old days back. Jaruzelski calculated that the people would take only so much hardship before they began to feel that the return of authoritarian government might be a blessing.

Jaruzelski wanted a Soviet invasion. He had sent a message to the Kremlin asking bluntly: "Can we count on military assistance from Moscow?"

The reply he received had been equally blunt: "No troops will be sent."

This was good news for Poland, Cam reflected. The Soviets might bully and bluster, but they were not willing to take the ultimate step. Whatever happened, it would be done by Polish people.

However, Jaruzelski might yet clamp down, even without the backup of Soviet tanks. His plan was right there on Staz's film. Staz himself clearly feared that the plan would be carried out, for he had included a handwritten note. This was unusual enough for Cam to pay it serious attention. Staz had written: "Reagan can prevent this happening if he threatens to cut off financial aid."

Cam thought that was shrewd. Loans from Western governments and Western banks were keeping Poland afloat. The one thing worse than democracy would be bankruptcy.

Cam had voted for Reagan because he promised to be more aggressive in foreign policy. Now was his chance. If he acted quickly, Reagan could stop Poland taking a giant step backward.

*

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