Tom Stoppard Plays 3

by Tom Stoppard

  82. INT. POLITBURO. DAY

  OLSZOWSKI is reading Brezhnev’s letter to the chastened Politburo.

  OLSZOWSKI: This letter is an invitation to the Central Committee to change the leadership. Brezhnev has lost faith in the Polish Party. And who can blame him when even Soviet war memorials in Warsaw are being defaced?

  83. EXT. SOVIET WAR MEMORIAL. NIGHT

  The memorial has been daubed with white paint. Sitting on top of the memorial, busy, with scrubbing brush and bucket of water, is WALESA. Standing on the plinth, watching him, is KURON.

  WALESA: The memorials are being defaced by provocateurs. I’ve offered to scrub them with my own hands, on TV if they like. As a union we take no position on Russia.

  KURON: You take every position including that one up there. You started something which you can’t stop. You want a self-limiting revolution but it’s like trying to limit influenza.

  WALESA: Yes, it’s those bloody workers. You give us freedom of choice, and we choose freedom. What I want to know is, how did you get to be called the intellectuals?

  84. INT. BREZHNEV’S OFFICE (KREMLIN). DAY

  BREZHNEV is having a medical examination. He is stripped to the waist and is attended by a DOCTOR.

  BREZHNEV’S SECRETARY is standing to one side holding a file.

  BREZHNEV: What’s the latest?

  DOCTOR: No change.

  BREZHNEV: I mean him.

  (The SECRETARY steps forward.)

  SECRETARY: Which first sir?

  BREZHNEV: Afghanistan.

  (The SECRETARY shuffles his files.)

  No, Poland. The Central Committee. Reaction to my letter.

  SECRETARY: A strong attack on Kania’s leadership in the Central Committee, and calls for his resignation.

  BREZHNEV: (Pleased) And they think I’m losing my touch.

  SECRETARY: However …

  BREZHNEV: However what?

  SECRETARY: A counter-attack arguing that if the hard-liners take over, the country will be polarized, with civil disobedience and strikes, and if we invade, Soviet Communism will be finished in Poland and détente with the Americans will be dead.

  BREZHNEV: (As the DOCTOR takes his blood pressure) Now he takes my blood pressure.

  SECRETARY: The entire Politburo offered themselves for a vote of confidence. The Central Committee declined the offer and proposed no changes in the leadership.

  BREZHNEV: I see. And the Emergency Party Congress is still to come. I look forward to meeting the Polish leader when I go to the seaside next month. I wonder if he will be a Communist.

  85. EXT. SEA SHORE. DAY

  This is the same shot as scene I. The beach and the sea. Everything is the same except that KANIA has replaced GIEREK.

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) In August 1981 Stanislaw Kania, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party, left Warsaw for his annual holiday in the Soviet Union by the Black Sea. There he met Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

  (The two men, in hats, coats and lace-up shoes, come together and embrace.)

  In an atmosphere of cordiality and complete mutual understanding the two leaders had a frank exchange of views.

  86. EXT. SEASIDE. DAY

  KANIA and BREZHNEV are now in beach clothes, wearing sunglasses, straw hats and so on. A nervous WAITER is hovering with a tray of brightly coloured drinks.

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) The July Congress of the Polish United Workers’ Party was over. It had been the first ever Communist Party Congress to be composed of freely elected delegates – 2,000 of them, mostly there for the first time. They started by voting in a Central Committee which swept aside seven-eighths of the old guard, including four Politburo members. Kania, the great reformer, was re-elected First Secretary. Even so, the Congress knew that Poland was on the horns of a dilemma, and both horns made a showing in the Politburo. The hard-liner, Olszowski, made it to the top again.

  BREZHNEV: Why did they keep Olszowski?

  KANIA: He is respected for his economic ideas.

  BREZHNEV: Why?

  KANIA: Because Gierek sacked him.

  BREZHNEV: And Jaruzelski?

  KANIA: The Prime Minister is respected by all sides.

  (Suddenly irritated by the WAITER, BREZHNEV knocks the tray of drinks out of his hand.)

  BREZHNEV: (Shouts) Respect! (Jabs a finger at KANIA.) Do you know how you got into this mess?

  KANIA: Comrade First Secretary, we must have strayed from the Leninist path …

  BREZHNEV: You got into this mess by getting into debt to capitalist bankers!

  87. INT. THE BANKERS’ MEETING. DAY

  The set-up is much the same as the first bankers’ meeting (scene 19).

  FINANSKY is in the chair.

  FINANSKY: This is very harsh.

  AMERICAN BANKER: I’m sorry but last March you had the unhappy distinction of being the first Communist country to request a rescheduling of its debts.

  FINANSKY: We know what to do. Prices must increase two or three times over. A loaf of bread should perhaps quadruple. We know that. But you understand, we have problems.

  88. EXT. STEELWORKS. DAY

  Top shot. Meeting of fifty workers being addressed by a PARTY MAN.

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) The Government announced food price increases of 123 per cent. There were daily disturbances, At workers’ meetings when Party officials used the word –

  (Close up on PARTY MAN addressing the meeting.)

  PARTY MAN: Comrades!

  (He is greeted by sustained whistles of derision from the meeting.)

  89. INT. SOLIDARITY MEETING HALL. DAY

  RAKOWSKI is present with WALESA and a SOLIDARITY TEAM, including the KATOWICE MAN and a MINER.

  RAKOWSKI: The attitude of Solidarity is arrogant and offensive You won’t get eggs if you don’t feed the chickens. Production this year is down 18 per cent. Coal is down 14 per cent. Wages are up 20 per cent.

  MINER: I’m a coal miner, Comrade Rakowski. Miners are going to work hungry – how can you expect hungry men to raise production?

  KATOWICE MAN: We’re pouring steel to 40 per cent of capacity The whole place is run inefficiently. We could double output if we had workers’ self-management.

  RAKOWSKI: For God’s sake – one thing at a time.

  WALESA: We don’t have time. You’ve had time. It’s almost exactly a year since we signed the arrangement in Gdansk. We are cheated, lied to, misrepresented in the press and on TV. We’ve given you time. Next week we’ll call a printers’ strike. We’ll close down TV and radio if we don’t get the access we were promised.

  RAKOWSKI: Are we here to talk about bread or TV?

  MINER: Bread?

  RAKOWSKI: I have to tell you from September 1st a loaf costing seven zlotys will cost seventeen zlotys. Flour will increase somewhat less. It will double.

  (The SOLIDARITY MEN look at each other silently and then get up.)

  WALESA: We are not a poor country. We are badly managed. The question of workers’ councils to take charge of production is now urgent.

  MINER: (To WALESA) Gierek gave us those in ’71. They soon got sucked under by the Party machine.

  WALESA: In ’71 there was no Solidarity.

  (WALESA and his COLLEAGUES turn and walk out of the meeting hall.)

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) On September 4th, the Soviet Union put 100‚000 men into military manoeuvres around Poland. The following day the First National Congress of the Free Independent Union Solidarity opened in a sports stadium in Gdansk.

  90. INT. SOLIDARITY CONGRESS. DAY

  The cut is to a big close-up of WALESA addressing a large gathering.

  WALESA: … This Congress is the heritage of the blood of 1956, of 1970, of 1976 and of all the struggles of the Polish workers. The fight has only just begun but we shall win!

  (WALESA acknowledges sustained applause.)

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) The Congress called for free elections to parliament,
for union supervision of food production and distribution, for public control of the mass media, for workers’ self-management. Jan Rulewski called for …

  (Mix to close-up on RULEWSKI.)

  RULEWSKI: … deletion of the clause recognizing the leading role of the Polish United Workers’ Party …

  (There is a cut to WALESA listening. He shakes his head.)

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) There was worse to come.

  91. INT. KANIA’S OFFICE. DAY

  KANIA and JARUZELSKI are present. The intercom on the desk starts to announce, His Excellency the Soviet Ambassador, but the furious AMBASSADOR is in the room waving a piece of paper before the intercom has finished.

  AMBASSADOR: I quote. ‘The delegates assembled in Gdansk send greetings and expressions of support to workers of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Romania, Hungary and all nations of the Soviet Union … we share the same destiny … despite the lies disseminated in your countries … we support those of you who embark on the struggle for a free union movement …’ I am ordered to make the strongest possible protest, on behalf of the Government of the Soviet Union.

  KANIA: Of course. Thank you. I agree it is most regrettable.

  (The AMBASSADOR waits for more but there is a pause. In the end the AMBASSADOR nods a farewell and leaves the room. KANIA and JARUZELSKI look at each other. JARUZELSKI begins to laugh quietly.)

  JARUZELSKI: Albania …! (He finds this very funny.) … Albania …!

  92. INT. CAFE. NIGHJT

  WITNESS and NARRATOR.

  WITNESS: It’s not really funny. It’s probably the end.

  NARRATOR: No, they’re still talking.

  (To camera) During all this, the Government offered Solidarity a formula for workers’ self-management. Evidently, they were still Poles talking to Poles.

  WITNESS: Jaruzelski did his officer training in the Soviet Union.

  NARRATOR: (To camera) During all this, the Government offered Solidarity a formula for workers’ management. Evidently, the Party was playing cat and mouse with the union.

  93. INT. MOVING FIAT CAR. NIGHT

  WALESA is driving. RULEWSKI is next to him. Two SOLIDARITY MEMBERS sit in the back.

  WALESA: (To RULEWSKI) Jan, stick to Poland. Let the Albanians and the Hungarians and the Bulgarians look after themselves. I’m surprised Rakowski is still talking to us. How are the others getting there?

  RULEWSKI: It’s just us four.

  WALESA: That’s just how I like it. A praesidium that can fit into a Fiat.

  94. INT. SOLIDARITY CONGRESS. DAY

  JURCZYK is addressing a large audience.

  JURCZYK: I move that we reprimand Lech Walesa and his Praesidium colleagues for the undemocratic way in which they reached this decision on workers’ self-management. Four men voted three to one, and they presumed to overturn a resolution made by 900 of us in this hall!

  WALESA: (In close-up – shouting) We could have come back empty-handed! But we didn’t, we made a decision. It takes no guts at all to stand up here and complain about the world.

  95. INT. OFFICE (SOLIDARITY CONGRESS). DAY

  WALESA lies exhausted across three chairs. RULEWSKI walks across and looks down at him.

  RULEWSKI: I’m standing against you for the leadership.

  WALESA: You’re making a mistake, Jan.

  RULEWSKI: Why? Do you think you’re indispensable?

  WALESA: No. But Marian Jurczyk is already standing against me. You’ll split the vote.

  RULEWSKI: Gwiazda is standing, too.

  WALESA: The three of you. All or nothing. Now or never. I’ve been trying to tell you for a year. That’s how to lose.

  (WALESA puts his head back and closes his eyes. RULEWSKI watches him for a moment and then turns and leaves. The office furniture, television sets etc. are being cleared away around WALESA. Bulletin boards are being taken off the walls. Files are being stacked. WALESA sleeps on.)

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) Walesa won with 55 per cent of the vote. Marian Jurczyk polled 24 per cent, Andrzej Gwiazda 9 per cent, and Jan Rulewski 6 per cent. The delegates left the floor of the rented sports hall, which was then flooded and frozen over for a hockey game.

  96. INT. A DRESSING ROOM. DAY

  In fact we could be anywhere because the scene is of crisp separate close-ups on a man (JARUZELSKI) pulling on a military uniform, the belt, the hat, etc.

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) Talks began again between Solidarity and the Government. The union gave the Government ten days to produce results or face a national strike. Within a week there was a result of sorts.

  (The last article to be donned is the pair of tinted glasses worn by JARUZELSKI.)

  97. INT. FIRST SECRETARY’S OFFICE. DAY

  A SECRETARY (a man) is arranging files on the otherwise empty desk. JARUZELSKI walks into the room.

  SECRETARY: Good morning, Comrade First Secretary.

  Everything is ready for you.

  JARUZELSKI: Thank you.

  (JARUZELSKI goes to sit behind the desk.)

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) For the first time in a Communist country one man was head of the Party, the government and the army. It was the first Communist Party anywhere to be led by a general.

  (JARUZELSKI sits down, looks around, pleased, and gives his uniform a little flick.)

  JARUZELSKI: You don’t think the effect is … a bit South American?

  4

  The General

  98. EXT. PARADE GROUND. DAY

  The cut is to a close-up of GENERAL JARUZELSKI.

  NARRATOR: (Voice over) Back in August, the General said …

  JARUZELSKI: (Declaiming) How long can the patience, moderation and good will of the republic be put to the test? Polish soldiers have the right to say: enough of this indulgence!

  (We cut to the GENERAL reviewing a line of YOUNG OFFICERS.)

  NARRATOR: The fact that he was speaking to a passing-out parade of young officers at the time made it less startling than it might have been … but nowadays there were generals in more and more government posts – education, money, transport, even a general in charge of the Polish airline. The only thing missing was the appointment of the Chief of the General Staff to the Politburo, and that came at the end of October.

  99. INT. WALESA FLAT. EVENING

  WALESA and his wife DANUTA and six CHILDREN are eating at a table big enough for them and two guests, KURON and GWIAZDA. DANUTA is pregnant.

  KURON: I think political rule in Poland is already a sort of fiction. The army is starting to run things. Political power is lying in the gutter for somebody to pick up. Maybe the people nearest the gutter have the best chance – the Stalinists who call it socialism, the anti-Semites who call it nationalism … You have no chance at all. If you were handed power on a plate you’d be left fighting over the plate. I thought a workers’ protest movement could lead to a truly socialist Poland. It required discipline and stability. It required solidarity. The union executive is being pulled around like a tin can tied to a dog’s tail.

  GWIAZDA: We deserve it. The workers are activists, we’re a bureaucracy.

  WALESA: How else are we supposed to negotiate for them?

  GWIAZDA: We negotiate, they fight.

  WALESA: That’s surrender. Not to the Government, to chaos. I’m going to propose a national warning strike so that at least for an hour we look like an organization again.

  GWIAZDA: (Exploding) Jesus Christ! In Katowice there were 5,000 fighting the police with stones! Students took over the radio station! And you want to stop work for lunch!

  (It has become a loud row.)

  I don’t want 5,000 people throwing stones somewhere at the other end of the country. It produces nothing except an opportunity for the generals, who can’t wait to save the nation. (To KURON) I’m right, aren’t I?

  (KURON gets up.)

  KURON: I’m going back to Warsaw. We have to start again.

  WALESA: A new party?

  KURON: No.
A reappraisal.

  GWIAZDA: A discussion group. Maybe you can write another open letter.

  KURON: (Losing his temper, too) The Communist Manifesto was an open letter! The written word – I believe in it. When this tower of Babel collapses upon itself you’ll need to be reminded what the noise was all about.

  (This takes him to the door.)

  (More quietly) You failed because you had no reliable framework for your actions. If you want freedom of action in a Communist state the strategy will have to be thought out better than this. Maybe it will have to be the intellectuals after all. Next time, eh?

  (KURON leaves. After a pause WALESA also gets up from the table and leaves, into another room, closing the door.)

  GWIAZDA: (To DANUTA) I’m going.

  (DANUTA nods.)

  Thank you. (GWIAZDA leaves the flat.)

  100. EXT. PLAYGROUND. DAY

  The NARRATOR is there watching several of the WALESA CHILDREN playing with a ball.

  FIRST CHILD: Poor Mr Kuron …

  SECOND CHILD: He thinks if he leaves the Party alone …

  THIRD CHILD: … the Party will leave him alone.

  FIRST CHILD: Poor Mr Kuron.

  WITNESS: (Voice over) A cheap trick, in my opinion … Out of the mouths of children …

  101. INT. CAFE

  The NARRATOR and the WITNESS are drinking together. The WITNESS is still speaking.

  WITNESS: … Why didn’t you give them a puppy to make sure?

  NARRATOR: Do the Walesas have a dog?