Jacek was back in Poland because he was afraid of the progressive slot machine gig. He had only been rousted once, and that was just by the casino security guards. He said he didn’t understand why it freaked him out because he was pretty much FEARLESS, he thought.
He told me about the time he was washed out to sea by a strong rip tide and he was so far out he couldn’t see shore anymore. And he thought to himself, “Well, I can either give up or I can keep swimming.” He kept swimming and made it back to shore. I’m not sure that proves you’re fearless entirely, but it does show you have… persistence and guts.
Will the Soviet Union ...
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Maybe, because Jacek was raised in the authoritarian communist system, he was just afraid of confronting the man.
With the Polish Zloty about 500 to the dollar, however, he’d tasted the honey, and the money he’d made made him almost a rich man in Poland. So he was looking for another gambling gig. He later told me that’s why he was courting my favor.
I’d gotten an undeserved reputation as being a sort of political Svengali because a few years before the Berlin Wall came down, I had asked every one of my Polish friends, “How long till The Soviet Union collapses?” That was a result of reading, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984 by Andrei Amalrik, who, writing from the Gulag, argued that things were so bad and the land was so fractured among different language speakers that It wouldn’t survive until 1984.
They all told me that was a silly conspiracy theory, that The Soviet Union was too strong and entrenched and it would last forever.
Political Svengali at your service.
So, Jacek figured I’d be interested in the Gdansk Shipyards where the Polish Revolution to break away from the Soviet Union started with Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the Polish trade union, and led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. And so he hired that socialist economist, the one mentioned in the title, to take me on a tour.
Gdansk is about 180 miles and several hours train ride NNW of Warsaw. I was staying with Marek and Mariola. They advised me not to carry too much cash on the train.
The economist met me at the Gdansk station. He explained that he’d been a fully tenured economics professor but was moonlighting as a tour guide because there wasn’t much work for him any more as a socialist economist.
At a small cafe, we had a nice brunch of kielbasa sandwichs, borscht and potato pancakes with a couple steins of Polish beer to wash it all down. The total came to about 375 Zloties. That’s 75 cents American. I picked up the tab with a $1.00 bill and left the change, a princely 33% tip of 125 Zloties.
We were the only customers, and the proprietor, who was apparently — and as was typical — the one-man band running the place, was only too happy to host this free-spending American, so we settled in for a couple more beers and some heavy economic and political talk.
I was curious just what a socialist economist would know, so I asked him about the debates between Mises, Hayek and Lange vs. Yevgeny Prioberszenski. He knew about the debates and freely admitted that Mises et. al. won. Two feathers in his cap.
It was Priobrazhensky’s Theory of Socialist Primitive Accumulation that led to Stalin’s starving of about five million (5,000,000) Ukrainian Kulaks by ripping off their “surpluses” to fund the development of heavy industry — and Mao Zedongs’s Great Leap Forward Famine-instigated deaths of approximately forty-five million (45,000,000) Chinese citizens with the same industrialization goal.
The winning counter-argument was the standard Austrian School observation that nothing, especially central planning, could even begin to replace voluntary market processes in determining what needed to be produced. The horrendous results of following Priobrazhensky’s prescriptions should be enough to convince anyone, don’t you think?
The Polish Trade Union Solidarity, originating in the Gdansk shipyards, was a long-term result of forsaking those voluntary market processes and the foundation of the anti-communist Polish revolution. Its leader, Lech Walesa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as a result. He also served as Poland’s first post-communist president between 1990 and 1995.
Solidarity is widely recognized as having played the central role in the end of communist rule in Poland and the crystal that, dropped into the super-saturated communist brew, led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately, the end of the Soviet Union.
Most Polish folks speak fluent English, and always speak it in my presence. Monica tells me it’s so we Americans won’t think they’re plotting against us. Unfortunately I don’t have a facility for languages and always apologize for that shortcoming — which serves me well a bit later.
Meanwhile, I ask my PhD tour guide my two standard questions:
1. Why did you-all revolt against communism?
He answered that there were many reasons but one of the main ones was — and this is pretty much the answer I always got with everyone, nearly word-for-word — “They promised us workers’ paradise but gave us the other place instead.”
2. What about all the propaganda — Pravda, Izvestia, etc.? Didn’t you believe it?
Again a variation of what seemed to be the boilerplate answer – – –
“~Well, maybe someone isolated out in the countryside somewhere believed it, but I don’t know anyone who did.”
So we take a long walk through part of the shipyards but the interesting part is mostly over, and it’s time for me to hop a night-train back to Warsaw.
Jacek made sure I had a private compartment — looking for another gambling gig remember. The conductors, and there were several, visited regularly and made sure I was comfortable and had sandwichs and beer (or water.) I tipped exhorbantly by Zloty standards, so I was well taken care of. Not surprisingly BTW, harking back to the honest money days, Zloty translates as “golden.”
About half way to Warsaw, the train stopped, maybe to take on coal and water, and to pick up passengers.
Shortly thereafter, the conductors, several of them, motioned for me to join them in one of the empty compartments. I declined. I didn’t quite get it but apparently all of them had gotten together for some reason and closed their compartment door.
Before I could get back to my compartment, a rather large Polish dude, decorated with multiple piercings and tattoos, accosted me.
He asked for something, in Polish of course. I gave my usual apologetic shrug, saying “Sorry, I don’t speak Polish.” He may have understood, most of the Polish schools taught English.
So, he made a sign — holding an imaginary cigarette to his lips. He was asking for a smoke. I did the shrug and turned both hands, empty palms up, shaking my head. “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”
He made a sign, asking for a match.
I patted my pockets and shrugged again. My body language and facial expression said, “I’d like to help you but I can’t.”
He made what was clearly a “throw you off the train” motion, but he was smiling.
Thinking and Destiny
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He shook his head, said “American!,” clapped me on the shoulder, turned, and made his way down the corridor.
One of the conductors peered cautiously out of their chosen compartment, and when he saw I was OK, they all came out and dispersed to what I assume were their normal duties.
I got a free sandwich and a beer.
The rest of the trip back to Warsaw was, thankfully, uneventful.
So, thanks to Jacek’s job search, I’d trod one of the interesting paths of history – – – and found out what a PhD socialist economist knew.
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