ARKA NOEGO / NOAH’S ARK: On Solidarity and Bitcoin

A Peaceful RevolutionDuring the 1980’s, a genuine popular movement arose in Poland that ended up toppling the communist regime in that country. Although there were many anticommunist intellectuals writing and being read in Poland at the time, the spark that ignited the peaceful revolution that ended Soviet rule was lit not by the educated elite but by the working class: workers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk launched a strike in 1980 that quickly spread to workers across industries and throughout the country.

These workers formed the Interfactory Strike Committee, which drew up a list of 21 demands. Then, in a move reminiscent of the apocryphal story of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Church in Wittenberg, they wrote their demands on wooden boards and hung them from the gates of the Lenin shipyard.

Workers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdańsk hang their 21 demands from the shipyard gates.

The Gdańsk strike was triggered, predictably, by the government raising prices in a price-controlled economy while also denying wage increases. To make matters worse, Lenin shipyard managers had just fired a popular forklift operator, Anna Walentynowicz. Her co-workers believed this was political punishment for her union organizing. “What?” You might ask. “A communist government opposed to labor unions?” Yes—throughout the Soviet Bloc, only government-authorized labor unions affiliated with the ruling communist parties were permitted. One of the key demands of the Interfactory Strike Committee was the ability to form independent trade unions.Of course, the image of workers striking against a communist government was terrible optics for the Polish government. In addition, as a Warsaw Pact country, Poland faced the continuous prospect of military intervention by the USSR. No one knew if or when Moscow would decide to “send in the tanks” like they had done in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Indeed, Brezhnev and the Politburo debated the idea in 1980. Eventually, they decided against it—in part because the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), Edward Gierek, feared a national bloodbath. The first round of strikes and protests in Gdańsk had attracted over 700,000 people, and, simply put, the Polish state feared Polish society. PZPR leadership opted to declare Martial Law instead. Thus began a decade of power struggles between the government and the people which culminated in the overthrow of the communist system in 1989.The remarkable thing about the Polish transition to a market economy was how peaceful it was. That was largely a result of the overwhelming social consensus among Poles of all political orientations that government control of the economy needed to be dramatically lessened. The movement that emerged from the Interfactory Strike Committee was called “Solidarność”, or “Solidarity”, drawing on the trade union tradition of workers standing in solidarity with one another to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. Solidarity’s demand for independent trade unions was met: it did indeed become the first non-communist, non-government trade union in the Soviet Bloc.When the strikes in Gdańsk first erupted, a marginally employed graphic designer, Jerzy Janiszewski, designed a logo for the union based on graffiti that he had seen scrawled on walls in the city. He shaped the letters of “Solidarity” to look like people standing together in a crowd, and he added a Polish flag to emphasize national unity. This logo “went viral”—it quickly began to be used nationwide as a symbol of victory over tyranny.

The solidarity logo, designed by Jerzy Janiszewski.

The success of the Solidarity trade union soon inspired non-working class Poles to “stand in solidarity with Solidarity”, and in this way it became a genuine mass movement. People from all corners of Polish society came together to oppose dictatorship and economic control: Whether left, right, or center, religious or non-religious, people—even many actual members of the PZPR—were so disillusioned and unhappy with “actually existing socialism” that, for a good decade, other social divisions started to matter far less than standing together in the fight for economic and political freedom. In 1989, the Solidarity trade union won the first partially free elections in the Soviet Bloc. This inaugurated the fall of communism in Poland and generated momentum for many similar movements in other Warsaw Pact countries.Bitcoin as SolidarityToday, I see many resonances between Solidarność and the growing social movement behind Bitcoin. Like Solidarity, Bitcoin crosscuts ideological and cultural divisions. Whether you are left, right, center, or unaligned; religious or not; a proponent of “tradition” or of rethinking traditional social roles; and regardless of the form of government you prefer (democracy, republicanism, monarchy, theocracy, party rule, etc.)—Bitcoin has appeal. This is because, regardless of what type of government or culture people prefer, they generally want to spend their own money whenever and however they choose. They also want that money to keep its value over time, so that they can save it profitably for themselves and for future generations. For decades, governments around the world have been chipping away at both of these human desires: they insist on controlling how people spend their money while devaluing it at the same time. This destruction of the savings and economic freedom of entire populations can only continue for so long before people come together to say, “enough.” That is why Bitcoin can be seen as a much-needed monetary reformation: the separation of money and state. Like Solidarity, Bitcoin is a grassroots movement emerging from below. It has a name, a logo, and open source code that are used worldwide but are not owned by anyone. While the mainstream media pays a lot of attention to “Bitcoin billionaires”, the vast majority of Bitcoin owners are ordinary people—mostly working class—who see in it hope for a better future: A future where the fruits of their labor, their life savings, are not frittered away by irresponsible governments engaged in schemes to devalue currency and control economic life. More symbolically, the 21 demands of the Interfactory Strike Committee mirror the absolute scarcity of the only 21 million bitcoin that will ever be in existence, a number hard coded into the Bitcoin protocol. Noah’s Ark: Surviving the Flood of MoneyDuring the rise of Solidarity, a group of poets and musicians were touring Poland, performing songs to remind people that a better life was possible. Their names were Jacek Kaczmarski, Przemysław Gintrowski, and Zbigniew Łapiński. They recorded many “protest songs” whose messages had to be carefully worded and concealed to avoid being censored. However, despite their use of poetic metaphors and allusions to history, literature, art, and the Bible, everyone understood what they were really talking about. Their songs enjoyed immense popularity throughout Poland. I grew up listening to the songs of these three troubadours. My parents, like many in their generation, were active in the Solidarity movement and brought that ethic with them when they immigrated to the United States, where I was born. Some of the trio’s songs have particular resonance for our own historical moment and for the Bitcoin movement. In that spirit, I wanted to share with you one of Kaczmarski, Gintrowski, and Łapinski’s great songs, “Noah’s Ark”. It references the Biblical story of Noah, who survived a massive, months-long flood by building an Ark. One way to interpret the “flood” the trio sings about in “Noah’s Ark” is as the “flood” of currency that accompanies periods of hyperinflation. Governments that are politically in trouble or collapsing always face severe economic problems, and they often print dramatic amounts of money in order to “boost economic activity” within their borders. This tends to backfire, however, as the value of the money plummets and people become increasingly reluctant to use it. This only compounds the political and economic woes of the regime, accelerating its demise. For this reason, periods of hyperinflation tend to accompany turnovers of political regimes. When I first visited Poland in 1990, for example, it was in the middle of a hyperinflation accompanying the transition between a communist and a capitalist mode of political economy. The national currency had to be entirely re-based and reissued in order to restore public confidence in it. Those who have survived “floods” of hyperinflation around the world know how devastating they can be. Millions of Polish people lost their entire life savings as a result of the collapse of a politically and economically non-viable system of government. But Kaczmarski, Gintrowski, and Łapiński’s song reminds us that the deluge is survivable—if we have planned ahead and if we believe in our own power, as individuals and as a community, to navigate the storms. Please enjoy their music and lyrics, which I have translated into English below.

The album cover for “Mury w Muzeum Raju,” which was filled with anticommunist protest songs, is a parody of communist propaganda images in which Marx, Lenin, and Stalin were depicted in the same pose, all looking in the same direction (to the viewer’s left), often against a red background.

Arka NoegoNoah’s ArkW pełnym słońcu w środku lata, wśród łagodnych fal zieleni,Wre zapamiętała praca, stawiam łódź na suchej ziemi.Owad w pąku drży kwitnącym; chłop po barki brodzi w życie.Ja pracując w dzień i w nocy, mam już burty i poszycie.Budujcie Arkę przed potopem! Dobądźcie na to swych wszystkich sił! Budujcie Arkę przed potopem,Choćby tłum z waszej pracy kpił!Ocalić trzeba co najdroższe,A przecież tyle już tego jest!Budujcie Arkę przed potopemOdrzućcie dziś każdy zbędny gest.Muszę taką łódź zbudować, by w niej całe życie zmieścić.Nikt nie wierzy w moje słowa; wszyscy mają ważne wieści.Ktoś się o majątek kłóci, albo łatwy węszy żer.Zanim się ze snu obudzi, będę miał już maszt i ster!Budujcie Arkę przed potopem!Niech was nie mami głupców chór!Budujcie Arkę przed potopem!Słychać już grzmot burzowych chmur!Zostawcie kłótnie swe na potem;Wiarę przeczuciom dajcie raz!Budujcie Arkę przed potopem,Zanim w końcu pochłonie was!Każdy z was jest łodzią w której może się z potopem mierzyćCało wyjść z burzowej chmury—musi tylko w to uwierzyć!Lecz w ulewie grzmot za grzmotem,i za późno krzyk na trwogę, I za późno usta z błotem, wypluwają mą przestrogę!“Budujcie Arkę przed potopem!”Słyszę sterując w serce fal! “Budujcie Arkę przed potopem!”Krzyczy ten co się przedtem śmiał!“Budujcie Arkę przed potopem”—Naszych nad własnym losem łez!“Budujcie Arkę przed potopem!”Na pierwszy i na ostatni chrzest!In the full sun in the middle of summer, amidst gentle waves of green,Verily, the enduring work: I raise a ship on dry ground.An insect buzzes in a blooming bud; a peasant wades through life up to his shoulders.I, working day and night, already have the starboard and the sheathing.Build an Ark before the flood!Give this all of your energy!Build an Ark before the flood,Though the crowd ridicule your work!What is most precious must be salvaged,And there is so much of it already!Build an Ark before the flood!Cast aside, today, every superfluous gesture.I must build a ship in which to fit my entire life.No one believes my words; everyone has “more important” affairs.Someone is arguing over a fortune; or he smells easy prey.Before he wakes from sleep, I will have a mast and helm!Build an Ark before the flood!Don’t be beguiled by the choir of fools!Build an Ark before the flood!You can already hear the rumble of storm clouds!Leave your arguments for later;For once, trust your instincts! Build an Ark before the flood,Before it finally overcomes you!Every one of you is a ship in which you can square off with the floodTo come out of the storm cloud whole—you just need to believe that!But, in the downpour, lightning strike after lighting strike, And the cries of danger come too late,Too late do lips spit out my warning with the mud!“Build an Ark before the flood!”I hear, steering into the heart of the waves! “Build an Ark before the flood!”Cries the one who previously laughed!“Build an Ark before the flood”—of our tears over our fate!“Build an Ark before the flood!”For the first and the last baptism!This is a guest post by Natalie Smolenski. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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