User Reviews

This film, which is based on the true events during the strikes in the shipyards of Dantzig, deserves praise because of its credibility. For although I am not really familiar with the founding of the Solidarinosc trade union, I do know the living conditions in the former Bolshevist countries, and I recognize them in the film. The narrative seems actually quite objective, and she can certainly not be interpreted as a vicious attack on another ideology. It might well be, that the film makers experience some sympathy with the former regime. The film portrays the arrogant behavior of the party officials, but on the other hand it does not deny their good intentions. In order to support my opinion, let us follow the event line of the film. At the start (the sixties, I guess) we are introduced to Agnieszka Kowalska, a straightforward and able worker in the Dantzig dockyard. In the first moments of the film her social background and character are deepened. Kowalska is an unmarried mother, with a boy from a short romance with an organizer of the official trade union. Surprinsingly, she is also a dedicated catholic. Eventually she really falls in love with another man, and marries him. However, their luck is not lasting, since the man dies of a heart attack (he had forgotten his pills!). Agnieszka advances professionally, and becomes a crane driver. Several times she is rewarded with the price of heroine of labor, and even gets a television set in return for her dedication. Basically her life appears to be a fulfilled, she is free of worries and stress. There are complaints about the pace of working, but I am pretty certain it yields to the western exploitation. For the workers in the Bolshevist countries actually enjoyed a generous autonomy. Nevertheless, an explosion occurs at work, leading to the demise of many workers. The workers put the blame on the safety conditions, and thus on the management policy. This I can understand, but was their accusation justified? Usually the state factories had installed workers committees in order to control the safety regulations. Perhaps it was simply the lack of sufficient investment capital? Anyway, the tensions among the workers keep on rising. This is exacerbated by the policy of the Gomulka regime, who guided all of their investment funds into the heavy industry (coal, steel) and forgot the consumer markets. The underlying idea is that you invest first and later pick the fruits. It is understandable, that the workers were averse to delayed consumption, and they revolt. This happens around 1970, and the Gomulka regime, paranoid as ever, used violent means to beat down the resistance. During the riots Kowalska has been arrested, and beaten up by the secret service (anyway, they do not use water-boarding). It is not surprising, that from now on Kowalska distances herself from the regime (and she had never been a party member). She joins a group of dissidents, who have regular meetings. Instances such as these always create great agony within the party, who justifies its existence through the contentment of the workers. Gomulka was deposed, and the more reasonable Jaruzelski came into power. Then, around 1980 once more the protests flare up. The new regime has learned its lesson, reacts in a moderate way, and eventually the free trade union Solidarinosc is founded, with sections on all the dockyards. This is the story, and there is nothing strange about it. It could actually have happened here in the Netherlands, or in the United States. What separates us from the Bolshevist state is a tiny flake of extra energy, and a little bit more freedom. For instance, it is dubious whether the present life in Poland is really that much better. However, now people are allowed to organize themselves, to distribute leaflets, or to leave the country (which they do, in large numbers). This takes just enough steam of the kettle to stabilize society. In conclusion, Straik breathes realism, which creates room for feelings of identification and empathy. A truly enlightening film, worthy of recommendation. If you appreciate this type of film, you can also consider the Polish films "Man of iron" of (slightly more difficult) "Man of marble". Or have a look at my other reviews.

Volker Schlondorff, primarily known for "The Tin Drum", directs "Strike", a Polish docudrama set in the Lenin Shipyards of Gdansk, Poland. The film follows the life of Agnieszak Kowalska, who once worked diligently for Poland's communist party. It traces her activities in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, covering a broad political period in which communist support crumbled, martial law was declared and "Solidarity" was formed, "Solidarity" being a Polish trade union (the first independent labour union in the Soviet bloc) which used non-violent methods to fight for worker rights. The union, which at its height had about ten million members, is believed to have played a part in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of so-called communism. With Poland's independence came the collapse of "Solidarity", which itself echoed a general "collapse" of trade unions all across the world.

The film takes the format of the "whistle-blower movie" ("Silkwood", "Norma Rae", "North Country", "Erin Brockovich" etc), which for some reason typically revolves around female leads. In this regard Agnieszka takes up the cause of workers, fights for denied pensions and struggles to shed light on injustice. For speaking up, Agnieszka is fired from her job, at which point she forms an underground movement and free press, which leads to a labour movement and finally evolves into Solidarity. The film ends with a corny, Spielberg-styled present-day coda.

The film's well meaning but conventional, its "workers fight back" plot been done elsewhere, better, countless times before (it's like a low-rent Fassbinder or Ken Loach). "Is your solution to let the West march in?" one character asks, hinting at some larger complexity, but these avenues aren't explored.

Poland implemented a stabilisation program in 1990 to help ease itself away from so-called communism. Over the next decade the country began removing administrative barriers that in a planned economy supposedly hindered the "best" deployment of resources, and began implementing various policies which bowed down to neoliberal economic "rationality". Rather than improvement, however, Poland saw unemployment increasing and real incomes plummeting by about 40 percent. Poverty also went up to 34 percent, which was more than double the poverty levels under Soviet rule. The amount of children in schools and higher education also fell dramatically, and the poverty gap rose from an estimated 1.4 percent of GDP to 4.8 percent. Bizarrely, personal consumption also decreased. Unsurprisingly, imports increased, national debts increased, which in turn led to public spending cuts and increases in taxes, which further hurt the working class. As the decade progressed, unemployment levels would reach the highest in the European Union. Over 45 percent of young Polish workers would be forced to emigrate in search of work. In this new, "democratic" and "free" Poland, the populace would be so disillusioned with politics that less than 50 percent turn up to general elections. Then, in 2005, Poland produced two right-wing parties determined to "westernise" the country, the nationalist Law and Justice party and the globalist Civic Platform. Law and Justice won the 2005 election and two years later, Civic Platform won the legislative election.

Poland's "narrative arc" is typical of countries which find themselves free from Empires. The Empire pulls out, left-wing parties fill the vacuum, these parties struggle, often because they're fought against by the combined power of the Catholic Church and interference from outside (who subvert efforts to build a cooperative and democratic economic order), at which point ultra right-wing governments step in, saving the day with a bevy of neoliberal policies. Meanwhile, slowly, foreign owners are buying up an increasingly privatised Poland.

Ironically, despite the collapse of state socialism, the role of the state has not diminished. Instead the nature of state intervention has changed, reconstituted in favour of a transnational capital to the detriment of labour. The nation state is being superseded, bowing to the organising principle of a larger global system. Agencies with direct links to the "national" economy have not been displaced, but are progressively subordinated to finance ministries, treasuries and central banks. The "national" has become the transmitter of policy through those agencies most closely linked to the global economy (and as such sets about creating a reserve army of labour, privatising state assets, relaxing taxes on capitalists, acting as the executive of the capitalist class, destroying savings, "enforcing" mass redundancies, brutally reducing real wage levels, welfare entitlements etc).

Things changed somewhat with the late 2000 recession. Poland, thanks largely to having its own central bank somewhat independent of the Euro Zone system, now seems to be fairing "better" than many countries in Europe. Since the mid 2000s the country has seen economic growth and has managed to keep its social security intact. It is the only country in the European Union to maintain positive GDP growth through the 2008-2009 economic downturn. According to the government, things are "looking up and will keep getting better". Statistical departments, some of them at the Warsaw school of economics, however, dispute the Polish governments tale of "progress". There are hidden, ignored, invisible counter costs. Real wages, they say, are going down and unemployment and poverty levels aren't falling, but are going up, or at best haven't changed drastically since the 90s (what's worse, up to one-third of the unemployed simply do not bother to register). High unemployment, high income inequalities, greater class divisions and growing insecurity also means that people are increasingly reluctant to risk changing jobs, thus labour mobility is falling. In a very real sense, the Solidarity initiative and the political transformation that it wrought was taken over by free-market enthusiasts who have condemned Poland to yet more problems.

7.9/10 - Too obvious. Worth one viewing.

When a director labels his/her film "inspired" by a true story, watch out! This usually means "I added enough spin to bounce this off the back wall." In this case, Lech Walesa is portrayed as not *really* being the leader of Solidarity (he hardly appears at all, and as nothing more than a prop), but is merely a token figure being given some backbone by the heroine, who in this case is a German, not a Polish actor! Note that the original title is also in German. Hmmm. Our heroine is implausibly super-heroine and played with such tenacious pluck that she achieves near-caricature status. And they changed her name from the original character--to avoid comments from the people who really knew her? If so, it didn't work, for her neighbors weighed in on this film and while she is greatly admired, she did not play the role given her here. Having said that, the film is remarkably even-toned and effective, history aside. Would that they had gone just that little bit further and given the Polish workers their due credit in bringing down the Soviet Union, revisionist historians of the Reagan Right notwithstanding.