Poland, the environment, communism. etc

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I am currently working on a film by David Bradbury, the Australian Left wing
(?) doco maker.  Not many people in the world never mind the list would have
seen the movie.  It is called Polska (Poland) and was made in 1991. It is
based round the trip back to  Poland of a Polish expatriate journalist.
the film basically  gives us a nationalistic critique of "communist" Poland.

Bradbury began his doco career in 1979 making films on Vietnam, Australian
communists and latin America.  His films on Nicaragua and Chile both won
Oscar nominations.   (Both are very good)

His later films however reveal that like many New Leftists he has abandoned
any connection with Marxist politics  however  tenuous.  In Polska he
repeatedly talks of the uprising against communism and does not point out
the contradicitions of the anti-Stalinist Solidarity movement.

However what does interest  me in particular, and I would love some feed
back on this, is the use of the environment as a critique of Communism.
Much is made for example of the pollution caused by the Lenin Steel Works.

I am always suspicous when the bourgeoisie and their lackeys take up the
cause of the environemnt.  It usually means that a lot of workers are going
to get the sack and the environment is just being used as an excuse.  Is
there anything written on this?

A classic instance of a not so innocent environmental critique, that
American comrades may  know about, is Pare Lorentz's "The Plow That Broke
the Plains" (1936)  In the midst of a crisis of over production the
Roosevelt administration suddenly discovered the environmental  effects of
plowing the plains.  The film is famous  for a row between Lorentz and some
communists he hired (Strand & Hurwitz).  They wanted to make a film about
the "capitalist system".  But Lorentz could not see what that had to do with
"dust storms". So we have a classic doco  which reads an economic crisis as
a natural one and thereby lets the "system" off the hook.

So if anyone has any thoughts about environmentally based critiques of
"already existing socialism"  I would be very poleased to hear them.  And if
anyone knows how to spell the name of the Prime Minister (Mas??)  who was
sacked by Walesa I'd be doubly grateful.

regards


Gary



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