Article Type: Fiction
Article Date: July 23, 2001
Back To Chapter 1: "A Tale of Two Cities"
Chapter Two: Poland and Iran
The long series of skirmishes that directly led to the start of the Third World War began in late 1979, with both the United States and the Soviet Union becoming embroiled in foreign crisis in which both believed that their vital interests were threatened. It was perhaps the combination of both major superpower confrontations at the same time that set into motion the butterflies that would bring war to the world.
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The events leading the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland began in September 1979. Angered by their poor wages and working conditions workers at the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk began a walkout. Though the Polish authorities, being moderate by the standards of the Eastern Bloc, were willing to attempt to reach some sort of compromise with the workers, the demands made by some workers for political reform proved to be simply too much, and the police were sent to arrest the striking workers.
After an initial search for the workers failed to turn up any of the leaders, several unskilled labourers were detained. After another fruitless attempt to arrest the strike leaders, the government dithered for two days before the workers, emboldened by the inaction of the government, decided to up the stakes.
Leaving their posts, striking workers erected barricades around the entrances to the shipyard. Police sent to the gates of the shipyard encountered human chains preventing them from dismantling the obstructions. A few bloody scuffles ensued with several people being injured on both sides. At the end of the day, however, the police retired from the field.
On September 17th the Polish Government sent out its elite Anti-Riot Police with orders to shoot their way past the barricades. A firefight erupted at the entrance to the yards. In the first few moments four Police officers were killed and five wounded, with seven strikers killed and six wounded. A standoff ensued and regular police officers were ordered to proceed to the yards and open fire. Nearly a dozen of the officers refused the orders and were arrested.
Finally, six days after the strike had begun, the Government gathered nearly two hundred Special Forces troops and used them to storm the Lenin shipyards. The workers had spent several days erecting improvised defences, making a frontal assault somewhat prohibitive in terms of casualties. So, Lt. Col Jacob Wocolzski, commander of the unit devised a unique plan.
An officer of the Polish Intelligence Service who had been inserted into the yards several years before to keep an eye on potentially subversive elements within the workforce. He met privately with the leaders of the strike and told them that he was an American spy. He further explained to them how he had covert contacts within the West who would give them arms and support. Together with them he arranged to bring in a barge with supplies from Sweden, who, he claimed, was secretly an American puppet.
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Lt. Colonel Wocolzki, who survived the war, tells the rest;
On the 20th myself and the roughly one hundred and fifty other men under my command boarded a barge at Gdynia, which is slightly to the north of Danzig (Gdansk) for a voyage that would last about six hours. We brought along light equipment only. The seas were rough that day. As had been prearranged, our contact in the yards had told his comrades that we would arrive several hours earlier than we actually did. In the interim he sent away most of the workers who were to have unloaded the ship, promising to call them back later. The dock area our contact had selected for offloading cargo was not a good one, were we to be offloading cargo; it was, however, perfect to beach the barge and unload the men . . . just in case we were discovered.
Our orders were to not worry about casualties, so we opened the doors and come out firing. I was carrying an AK-47 rifle, and each man had five or six clips of ammunition each. On full automatic that isn't all that much so we had to practice strong fire discipline.
I can still remember the first man I saw; he must have been a dockyard worker of oh, about fifty years. He was smoking and not really paying attention to what was going on, but who knew if he had a pistol under his coat or something so I levelled my rifle and shot him, one shot, one kill, the bullet sailed right though his chest and he collapsed to the ground in a splash of red.
I ordered my men out and we hit the ground running. A few of their men had rifles, but they weren't very well trained. We did, however, have to hurry because the government was worried that they would dynamite the docks or some such, so we charged right on into the buildings. We were lucky that most of the effort that the men had put into building defences had been put into building those barricades up front, because if not I would have lost more men.
Once we entered the buildings it was clear that we had mostly won the battle, many of the workers had already surrendered to us, claiming that they were the unwitting victims of capitalist counterrevolutionaries who had forced them to join the strike against their will. Only a few of the leaders, those who knew that if they were caught their fate would be a labour camp or worse, held out. So we had to go room by room and clear them out. It took several hours, but eventually the yards were again securely in our hands. |
However, despite the efforts of the government, the initial success of the strike and the government’s slow response had already caused new strikes that spread across the country; particularly worrisome was the walk-out by support-industry workers in Warsaw itself. There were numerous cases reported of Polish Solders refusing to fire on striking workers. The panicked Polish Government began to ask the Soviet Government for help.
The Soviet Government seriously considered these requests but they declined to help, largely because the plans for the invasion of Afghanistan in late December were already far advanced and they did not want to precipitate a major crisis with the increasingly belligerent West by causing two major incidents in close succession. This was not, however, a unanimous decision; many in Moscow felt that the United States, deeply involved in a showdown with Iran, would not be able to respond effectively to Soviet imperialist ventures.
Relations between Washington and Tehran had been strained since the beginning of the year when the Shah of Iran, a long time friend of the United States, had been overthrown and his Monarchy replaced by a new Theocratic Government. The stridently anti-American rhetoric coming out of Iran had worked effectively to destroy the Alliance that had once existed between the two nations.
The simmering hostility boiled over when a crowd of militant students stormed the US Embassy and took all sixty-six people there as hostages. President Carter initially responded with unusual vigour, dispatching the USS Nimitz to the region and demanding that Iran release their captives immediately.
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Responding to American demands the Iranians released thirteen of the hostages; they continued to hold the other fifty-three, however, demanding various concessions from the Americans in exchange for their return.
To Carter this was unacceptable, he would not negotiate. Carter was also extremely reluctant to use force, as he was fond of bragging no American solider had been killed in action to date through his entire Presidency. Nevertheless the Pentagon went ahead and began to plan a number of military options which included the following:
- A precision raid using American Speciall Forces to grab the hostages
- A larger scale attack to free all hostages, but with a greater chance for success than the first
- A punitive air campaign against Iran
All of these options were extensively examined; it soon became clear, however, that the President was uncomfortable with so quick a resort to arms.
As the Iranian Hostage Crisis continued through November and even entered December the crisis in Poland continued to intensify. Strikes had now spread across the country, with marches through the streets of Warsaw and Gdansk becoming daily occurrences. With the strikes beginning to look like a revolution the Soviet government pointedly told the Polish Government to consult their Socialist conscience and take whatever action was necessary to suppress the counter-revolution.
As the middle of December approached the situation in Poland became a hot story in the Western media. Nightly stories about the situation appeared. Most important Dan Rather, who had previously covered Vietnam, was sent to Poland by CBS to cover the situation. Managing to make his way to Gdansk with a cameraman and an uplink, he was soon filing nightly reports detailing the plight of the strikers, who had suffered for quite some time. The reports were favourably received in the United States.
The final trigger came on December 15th at the Lenin Shipyards where the strikes had begun. After the damage that was done by the Commando's in retaking the yards was mostly repaired the yards had been hastily re-opened to show that "Poland was getting back to business." Naturally the Yards were now being managed under the guidance of the Armed Forces.
The increasingly antagonistic working atmosphere of the yards spilled over when a dispute between a common solider and a welder led to a scuffle. The solider then opened fire, killing the welder, Leah Welcha, instantly. In the aftermath of the death a riot erupted, initially in the yards, but by the evening it had spread to the entire city. The Government concluded that no option was left but to send in troops to restore order.
The Marine Division, judged to be the most loyal unit in the Army was sent into Gdansk to suppress the strikes. However, while the apparaticks in command of the Marine Division were more than loyal both to the Polish authorities and to the Socialist brotherhood with the Soviet Union, many of the troopers held loyalties to more dubious things like their families and their friends.
Initially it was just individual men who disappeared, some simply deserting, others defecting and entering the yards to join the strikers. On hearing reports of this the Polish Government ordered the commander of the Division to have anyone who might be expressing ‘seditious’ sentiments arrested and shot. The Division Commander acknowledged the order but claimed that “restoring order” in his unit would take several days. Despite some calls to remove the commander, he was allowed to keep his post and ordered to attack on December 20th.
The nearly open defiance of orders by the commander of the Marine Division brought much dissension within the higher ranks of the Polish military and the Communist Party. Already the strikes by these—labourers—were causing a severe disruption to the economy, now the Army was getting away with not following orders to the letter? Surely if this went on much longer the Soviet Union would invade.
Dan Rather had stayed in the Shipyards even after the violent confrontation that had seen the authorities ejected. Now his stories were getting increasing play with each night as the situation in the yards grew increasingly desperate. Without power and water, and with only what food could be smuggled in, the strikers were determined to continue, and it was all brought to the American public in living color. All courtesy of Dan Rather. He could feel the accolades coming his way already.
Within the Polish military there were plans made for the attack that would occur on the 20th. The Fifth Motor Rifle Division was also ordered up to Gdansk. They would enter the shipyards and place the entire city under Martial Law, regardless of casualties. To ensure the loyalty of men a number of extra political commissars were ordered to join Army units. Men were told in no uncertain terms that if they displayed disloyal behaviour then they would be shot.
The combination of the lack of will on the part of the government and the violence of the earlier strikes had pushed many of those on strike into radicalism. Less and less the strike was about working conditions and increasingly it was about political and economic reform.
According to their leaders, ordinary workers like themselves in Western Europe made three or four times what they did. There was very little reason why they could not have that if they threw out the lot that ruled them now.
On the night of the 19th a number of the Generals and Party Officials who had met earlier met once again. If the attack the next day failed then the government would have to go.
