ealed, and the reign of Gierek ensued.The movement was far from over, but the most important parts had already happened. The lack of the Polish intelligentsia was apparent in a face to face meeting with Gierek, and other party officials, that the workers at the shipyards in Sczecin and Gdansk had on the twenty-fourth of January, 1971. Gierek coerced the workers to stop the strike by appealing himself as a Polish patriot, and a man that wanted to keep Poland from collapse. These workers' neither had the thought nor the conceptualization that a collapse could very well be what Poland needed. The intellectuals could have done exactly what was done in 1980, the opportunity was just as ripe, but it passed, and another opportunity would not arise for another five years. The government could do nothing but appeal to the workers to help them out, otherwise more demands would have to have been met by them. In mid-February, with uneasiness in the country, Gierek restored the old prices. This was the first time a decision by a communist government was overturned by the working class, the class that theoretically was in power. Although a larger victory could have been had, the workers had no concept of overthrowing socialism, they merely wanted a better socialism. In 1976 another price increase went into affect, this time raising meat prices by sixty-nine percent, and sugar prices by one hundred percent. With memories of the successful 1970 campaign, on June twenty-fifth work stopped all over the country. Almost immediately Gierek repealed the increases. It was clear the working class had a lot of power, power that it had not yet maximized. Power that the intelligentsia was only beginning to see as a source for future social change.SolidaritySo far most of the work in revolutionizing Poland was done by the workers. So where was the Polish intelligentsia that seemed to disappear from the landscape after the 1950's? It was always there, but while it ...
