A Peaceable Revolution
Throughout the 1980’s, a real fashionable motion arose in Poland that ended up toppling the communist regime in that nation. Though there have been many anticommunist intellectuals writing and being learn in Poland on the time, the spark that ignited the peaceable revolution that ended Soviet rule was lit not by the educated elite however by the working class: employees on the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk launched a strike in 1980 that shortly unfold to employees throughout industries and all through the nation. These employees shaped the Interfactory Strike Committee, which drew up a listing of 21 calls for. Then, in a transfer harking back to the apocryphal story of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Church in Wittenberg, they wrote their calls for on wood boards and hung them from the gates of the Lenin shipyard.
The Gdańsk strike was triggered, predictably, by the federal government elevating costs in a price-controlled financial system whereas additionally denying wage will increase. To make issues worse, Lenin shipyard managers had simply fired a preferred forklift operator, Anna Walentynowicz. Her co-workers believed this was political punishment for her union organizing. “What?” You may ask. “A communist authorities against labor unions?” Sure—all through the Soviet Bloc, solely government-authorized labor unions affiliated with the ruling communist events have been permitted. One of many key calls for of the Interfactory Strike Committee was the power to type unbiased commerce unions.
In fact, the picture of employees putting in opposition to a communist authorities was horrible optics for the Polish authorities. As well as, as a Warsaw Pact nation, Poland confronted the continual prospect of army intervention by the USSR. Nobody knew if or when Moscow would determine to “ship within the tanks” like they’d carried out in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Certainly, Brezhnev and the Politburo debated the concept in 1980. Ultimately, they determined in opposition to it—partly as a result of the First Secretary of the Polish United Staff’ Social gathering (PZPR), Edward Gierek, feared a nationwide massacre. The primary spherical of strikes and protests in Gdańsk had attracted over 700,000 individuals, and, merely put, the Polish state feared Polish society. PZPR management opted to declare Martial Regulation as an alternative. Thus started a decade of energy struggles between the federal government and the individuals which culminated within the overthrow of the communist system in 1989.
The exceptional factor concerning the Polish transition to a market financial system was how peaceable it was. That was largely a results of the overwhelming social consensus amongst Poles of all political orientations that authorities management of the financial system wanted to be dramatically lessened. The motion that emerged from the Interfactory Strike Committee was known as “Solidarność”, or “Solidarity”, drawing on the commerce union custom of employees standing in solidarity with each other to collectively discount for higher wages and dealing situations. Solidarity’s demand for unbiased commerce unions was met: it did certainly develop into the primary non-communist, non-government commerce union within the Soviet Bloc.
When the strikes in Gdańsk first erupted, a slightly employed graphic designer, Jerzy Janiszewski, designed a emblem for the union primarily based on graffiti that he had seen scrawled on partitions within the metropolis. He formed the letters of “Solidarity” to seem like individuals standing collectively in a crowd, and he added a Polish flag to emphasise nationwide unity. This emblem “went viral”—it shortly started for use nationwide as a logo of victory over tyranny.
The success of the Solidarity commerce union quickly impressed non-working class Poles to “stand in solidarity with Solidarity”, and on this method it turned a real mass motion. Folks from all corners of Polish society got here collectively to oppose dictatorship and financial management: Whether or not left, proper, or middle, non secular or non-religious, individuals—even many precise members of the PZPR—have been so disillusioned and sad with “really present socialism” that, for a great decade, different social divisions began to matter far lower than standing collectively within the struggle for financial and political freedom. In 1989, the Solidarity commerce union gained the primary partially free elections within the Soviet Bloc. This inaugurated the autumn of communism in Poland and generated momentum for a lot of related actions in different Warsaw Pact nations.
Bitcoin as Solidarity
Right now, I see many resonances between Solidarność and the rising social motion behind Bitcoin. Like Solidarity, Bitcoin crosscuts ideological and cultural divisions. Whether or not you’re left, proper, middle, or unaligned; non secular or not; a proponent of “custom” or of rethinking conventional social roles; and whatever the type of authorities you like (democracy, republicanism, monarchy, theocracy, get together rule, and so on.)—Bitcoin has attraction. It’s because, no matter what sort of presidency or tradition individuals favor, they typically wish to spend their very own cash each time and nonetheless they select. In addition they need that cash to maintain its worth over time, in order that they will reserve it profitably for themselves and for future generations.
For many years, governments world wide have been chipping away at each of those human needs: they insist on controlling how individuals spend their cash whereas devaluing it on the identical time. This destruction of the financial savings and financial freedom of whole populations can solely proceed for therefore lengthy earlier than individuals come collectively to say, “sufficient.” That’s the reason Bitcoin might be seen as a much-needed financial reformation: the separation of cash and state.
Like Solidarity, Bitcoin is a grassroots motion rising from beneath. It has a reputation, a emblem, and open supply code which are used worldwide however are usually not owned by anybody. Whereas the mainstream media pays a variety of consideration to “Bitcoin billionaires”, the overwhelming majority of Bitcoin homeowners are abnormal individuals—principally working class—who see in it hope for a greater future: A future the place the fruits of their labor, their life financial savings, are usually not frittered away by irresponsible governments engaged in schemes to devalue forex and management financial life. Extra symbolically, the 21 calls for of the Interfactory Strike Committee mirror absolutely the shortage of the one 21 million bitcoin that may ever be in existence, a quantity onerous coded into the Bitcoin protocol.
Noah’s Ark: Surviving the Flood of Cash
Throughout the rise of Solidarity, a bunch of poets and musicians have been touring Poland, performing songs to remind those that a greater life was attainable. Their names have been Jacek Kaczmarski, Przemysław Gintrowski, and Zbigniew Łapiński. They recorded many “protest songs” whose messages needed to be fastidiously worded and hid to keep away from being censored. Nevertheless, regardless of their use of poetic metaphors and allusions to historical past, literature, artwork, and the Bible, everybody understood what they have been actually speaking about. Their songs loved immense recognition all through Poland.
I grew up listening to the songs of those three troubadours. My dad and mom, like many of their era, have been lively within the Solidarity motion and introduced that ethic with them after they immigrated to the US, the place I used to be born. Among the trio’s songs have explicit resonance for our personal historic second and for the Bitcoin motion. In that spirit, I wished to share with you one in all Kaczmarski, Gintrowski, and Łapinski’s nice songs, “Noah’s Ark”. It references the Biblical story of Noah, who survived an enormous, months-long flood by constructing an Ark.
One approach to interpret the “flood” the trio sings about in “Noah’s Ark” is because the “flood” of forex that accompanies durations of hyperinflation. Governments which are politically in hassle or collapsing at all times face extreme financial issues, and so they typically print dramatic quantities of cash to be able to “increase financial exercise” inside their borders. This tends to backfire, nonetheless, as the worth of the cash plummets and other people develop into more and more reluctant to make use of it. This solely compounds the political and financial woes of the regime, accelerating its demise. Because of this, durations of hyperinflation are inclined to accompany turnovers of political regimes. After I first visited Poland in 1990, for instance, it was in the course of a hyperinflation accompanying the transition between a communist and a capitalist mode of political financial system. The nationwide forex needed to be totally re-based and reissued to be able to restore public confidence in it.
Those that have survived “floods” of hyperinflation world wide know the way devastating they are often. Tens of millions of Polish individuals misplaced their whole life financial savings on account of the collapse of a politically and economically non-viable system of presidency. However Kaczmarski, Gintrowski, and Łapiński’s music reminds us that the deluge is survivable—if we now have deliberate forward and if we imagine in our personal energy, as people and as a neighborhood, to navigate the storms.
Please get pleasure from their music and lyrics, which I’ve translated into English beneath.
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Arka Noego |
Noah’s Ark |
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W pełnym słońcu w środku lata, wśród łagodnych fal zieleni, Wre zapamiętała praca, stawiam łódź na suchej ziemi. Owad w pąku drży kwitnącym; chłop po barki brodzi w życie. Ja pracując w dzień i w nocy, mam już burty i poszycie. Budujcie Arkę przed potopem! Dobądźcie na to swych wszystkich sił! Budujcie Arkę przed potopem, Choćby tłum z waszej pracy kpił! Ocalić trzeba co najdroższe, A przecież tyle już tego jest! Budujcie Arkę przed potopem Odrzućcie dziś każdy zbędny gest. Muszę taką łódź zbudować, by w niej całe życie zmieścić. Nikt nie wierzy w moje słowa; wszyscy mają ważne wieści. Ktoś się o majątek kłóci, albo łatwy węszy żer. Zanim się ze snu obudzi, będę miał już maszt i ster! Budujcie Arkę przed potopem! Niech was nie mami głupców chór! Budujcie Arkę przed potopem! Słychać już grzmot burzowych chmur! Zostawcie kłótnie swe na potem; Wiarę przeczuciom dajcie raz! Budujcie Arkę przed potopem, Zanim w końcu pochłonie was! Każdy z was jest łodzią w której może się z potopem mierzyć Cało wyjść z burzowej chmury—musi tylko w to uwierzyć! Lecz w ulewie grzmot za grzmotem, i za późno krzyk na trwogę, I za późno usta z błotem, wypluwają mą przestrogę! “Budujcie Arkę przed potopem!” Słyszę sterując w serce fal! “Budujcie Arkę przed potopem!” Krzyczy ten co się przedtem śmiał! “Budujcie Arkę przed potopem”— Naszych nad własnym losem łez! “Budujcie Arkę przed potopem!” Na pierwszy i na ostatni chrzest! |
Within the full solar in the course of summer time, amidst mild waves of inexperienced, Verily, the enduring work: I elevate a ship on dry floor. An insect buzzes in a blooming bud; a peasant wades via life as much as his shoulders. I, working day and night time, have already got the starboard and the sheathing. Construct an Ark earlier than the flood! Give this your entire vitality! Construct an Ark earlier than the flood, Although the group ridicule your work! What’s most valuable should be salvaged, And there’s a lot of it already! Construct an Ark earlier than the flood! Solid apart, immediately, each superfluous gesture. I need to construct a ship through which to suit my whole life. Nobody believes my phrases; everybody has “extra necessary” affairs. Somebody is arguing over a fortune; or he smells simple prey. Earlier than he wakes from sleep, I’ll have a mast and helm! Construct an Ark earlier than the flood! Do not be beguiled by the choir of fools! Construct an Ark earlier than the flood! You may already hear the rumble of storm clouds! Depart your arguments for later; For as soon as, belief your instincts! Construct an Ark earlier than the flood, Earlier than it lastly overcomes you! Each one in all you is a ship in which you’ll be able to sq. off with the flood To come back out of the storm cloud complete—you simply have to imagine that! However, within the downpour, lightning strike after lighting strike, And the cries of hazard come too late, Too late do lips spit out my warning with the mud! “Construct an Ark earlier than the flood!” I hear, steering into the guts of the waves! “Construct an Ark earlier than the flood!” Cries the one who beforehand laughed! “Construct an Ark earlier than the flood”— of our tears over our destiny! “Construct an Ark earlier than the flood!” For the primary and the final baptism! |
It is a visitor put up by Natalie Smolenski. Opinions expressed are totally their very own and don’t essentially mirror these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.