After Dandong's victory

No one seems to mention ... Andrzej Wajda made a film like "Dantong" with its relevance, which is clearly alluding to the Polish Solidarity movement at the time. Due to severe economic pressure and sharp social contradictions, the Polish government's attempt to implement inflation in 1980 caused a large-scale strike. opposition. Jaruzelski, then prime minister, announced martial law in 1981, and Solidarity went underground. The filming date of "Dandong" was basically the period from the eve of the implementation of military control to the release of Walesa at the end of 1982. At that time, although the loosely organized Solidarity trade union also showed a trend of factional disputes, it was not very intense, so it is not difficult to see that the film "Robespierre-Danton" is implying "United Workers Party - Solidarity".

The debate about the shortage of bread at the beginning is symbolic. Some think it's a conspiracy, carried out by "those who want to slander the government and incite people to rebel"; while another thinks it's the government, "the corruption of power, it's a cliché." Poles' view of the economic and social crisis of the time. The cause of the crisis was the deliberate sabotage of some spies and reactionaries (the Maoist era China also held the same opinion about the Poznan incident), or whether the Polish bureaucracy imposed party-government dictatorship and interfered in corporate activities for its own interests, thus losing the status quo of reforms capacity (Programme of Activities of Solidarity)? The two points of view are tit for tat, but they are interrupted immediately by George Danton, Robespierre's spy and liberal hero.

Different from his historical image, Wajda chose to portray George Danton as a liberal hero: straightforward and humorous, enjoying life, advocating kindness and tolerance, avoiding bloodshed and killing, and finally dying heroically in the face of a brutal dictator. He projected Wawensa in his heart on Dandong, and his sympathy for Dandong's fate was his sympathy for the Solidarity movement (by the way, Waida also made a film "Wawensa: Hope of Hope" in 2013. people", even if Walesa had become the object of ridicule at that time, a real iron fan). The difference is that Walesa was released in November 1982, while Danton died by guillotine in April 1794.

The actor who played Robespierre, Vojesic Paszoniak, played a Prussian loyalist in black in Zulaski's 1972 film "The Devil," in which he was the devil The incarnation of madness and cruelty. This constitutes a peculiar tension with the slightly neurotic ascetic image in "Dandong". Dandong and Robespierre in "Dandong" are an interesting combination: Dandong is happy to enjoy, is casual and generous, loves food and beauty; while Robespierre is like an ascetic, neurotic in his words and deeds , Stereotyped private life (being ridiculed by Dandong as a virgin). It's hard to imagine that two people with very different personalities are both hopeless idealists, and they were very good friends not long ago.

Consistent with his support for Solidarity and his opposition to the Polish authorities, Vajda also praises Danton and disparages Robespierre in the film, which is already very obvious. Dandong, as a hero of liberalism, pursued democracy and freedom, and was eventually martyred, and the ascetic dictator was also judged on his conscience. He attempted to invert the history of the French Revolution into Polish politics at the time, finding a way of political expression in the death of Danton and the victory of Robespierre.

Different from "Dandong", the "Dandong" in reality - the Solidarity trade union led by Lech Walesa finally took over the power peacefully and won the victory. This seems to be a happy ending, with liberalism finally defeating the tyranny of all evil. But after the victory? If Danton defeated Robespierre in the end, would the Revolution have gone in a better direction?

The answer is rather ironic. After Solidarity came to power, it did not bring anything new, but came up with shock therapy: liberalization of price interventions, privatization of state-owned enterprises, fiscal austerity, cuts in wages and benefits for workers, nothing to do with Gomulka and Galek The difference (both socialist Polish leaders stepped down because of the inflation-induced labor movement). Just four years after the 1989 Polish parliamentary election, national income fell by a third, President Walesa rejected the prime minister's resignation and disbanded the parliament that impeached him, and Solidarity's support dropped sharply. Two years later, Walesa was defeated by the former communists in the general election. In the 2000 general election, the vote was only 1.01%. The Solidarity trade union also gradually declined, and its influence is now minimal.

Removing the irony of history, in the movie, even though Wajda deliberately shaped Dandong's heroic image, in fact Dandong became Robespierre's foil; An accusation is more like a tribute to Robespierre. Compared with the hero he wants to create, Dandong has too many weaknesses: arrogant and arrogant, seeing victory as his bag; making decisions that seem smart, but in fact useless; indecisive in doing things, even when Wittmann leads his soldiers to appear in the When he was about to attack the National Assembly in front of him, he still muttered that he didn't want to shed blood and avoided it. Compared to his idealistic zeal, Danton behaves like an idiot in politics.

The dialogue between Dandong and Filippo shows that Vajda is more loyal to historical facts. Danton confessed to Philippe, saying that unlike Robespierre, he was not greedy for power, and Philippe replied, "We all know that you are rich enough not to interfere in politics." Danton in history is not What a positive hero, he speculated in the revolution and made a lot of war money is an important reason why he was sent to the guillotine by Robespierre. This is obviously also Dandong's weakness. He immediately lost his temper and wanted to cut off his cooperation with Filippo. Libo sneered, your life will be peaceful, and ours will be humble. Danton shot back immediately: "If you see poverty as a revolutionary virtue, join Robespierre."

On the other hand, Robespierre, although his demeanor was nerve-wracking, showed the qualities a politician should have from beginning to end. His actions are decisive, his thinking is clear, and his eloquence is not inferior to Dandong. When meeting with Dandong, what Dandong could accuse him of, at best, was that his private life was rigid and inhumane; while Dandong, who accused others of a reign of terror, had a fatal flaw, that is, as Robespierre said, autocracy Just a last resort measure against those who made a fortune in the revolution. He was referring to Dandong.

There is no doubt that the Polish people in 1983 had good reason to blame the Polish authorities. Against the background of the 20th Congress of the CPSU's rejection of Stalin, which caused the split of the international communist camp, Gomulka of Poland came to power to carry out reforms. The content of the reforms was very capitalist: the rejection of cooperatives, the implementation of separate fields, the promotion of enterprise autonomy, and the market determining prices , reducing central planning mandates and strengthening material incentives. His successor, Galek, continued to implement some of the reforms favored by liberals (and to some extent the "market socialists" of the day), "high speed, high accumulation, high consumption", borrowing heavily to Promote national construction. The reforms carried out by the two leaders of socialist Poland did not differ greatly in content from those in Walesa.

Yet these reforms, the introduction of which are often seen as a sort of "democratization", led to the ouster of the three leaders in succession. Gomulka's reforms made Polish agricultural production too backward, causing food prices to soar. Gomulka's attempt to promote inflation triggered a wave of strikes and was dismissed as first secretary in 1970; his successor, Galek, achieved a short-lived superficial prosperity , but soon fell into a serious economic crisis due to high foreign debt, the Galek government had to freeze wages and increase the price of meat food to 40%~60%, which led to another general strike, followed by Yaruze Elsky's rise to power and the outbreak of the Solidarity movement.

In the history of socialist Poland, there has never been anything Danton to Robespierre (Kazimierz Mijaer, who insisted on an anti-revision stance, had little influence at the time and was imprisoned by the Polish authorities in 1984), Only Dandong to Dandong to Dandong. For the Polish people, neither Gomulka and Galek of the United Workers Party nor Walesa of Solidarity can afford Wajda's imagination in "Dandon". If it is said that Robespierre had to resort to a reign of terror for the sake of revolution, Dandong is rhetorically shouting about freedom and democracy, but in essence he will never allow others to touch his own vested interests. The restoration of capitalism is not for a better life for the people, but for its own class interests. Facts have proved that the restoration of capitalism has not brought any better life to the Polish people.

When Danton loudly talked about no republic without bread, Robespierre exposed the hypocrisy of this rhetoric: stop promoting the revolution, you are killing it. On the one hand, it is a hero of liberalism; on the other hand, it is robbery and speculation; on the one hand, it is the pursuit of liberal democracy and workers’ self-government, and on the other hand, it is constantly expanding the power of managers and gradually reducing workers’ councils to advisory bodies. If the shortage of bread is a serious problem, how much responsibility should the Dantons, who made a fortune from the revolution, be responsible for it? Starting from Gomulka and ending in Walesa, Poland has gradually become a vassal of the West from economy to politics. While the new rich and powerful enjoy "peace", the lives of the people are becoming more and more "humble". "What happens after Dandong's victory" itself is a false proposition, because historically, it has always been the Dandongs who like to talk nicely from one victory to another.

The boy at the end of the film comes to Robespierre's bed to recite the Declaration of Human Rights. Robespierre tried Danton, and the boy tried Robespierre, but these two "trials" only exist on the screen. The Polish people's dissatisfaction with the Polish United Workers' Party is justified, and their resistance is still justified, but in the process of resistance, they pinned their hopes on Dandong, and they were eventually represented by Dandong. The Eastern European bureaucracy was trapped in its own wrong line, striding toward capitalism economically, and politically rejecting political democracy. Eventually, economic reforms gave birth to a group of new establishments, and the new establishments came to power under the banner of "democratization" Continue to reject political democracy. Whether it is Walesa or Dubcek, they regard democratic slogans as a tool to suppress dissidents. Once democracy comes to their own heads, they will immediately turn to suppress the power of the masses.

Danton is a ruthless satire of Andrzej Wajda's ideals. When he was worried about how Dandong would be defeated by totalitarian rule, Dandong had already been on the way to victory, from the previous Dandong to the next Dandong, while the real "incorruptible" Robespierre never appeared. Although the left-wing members of the Solidarity trade union try to cut off with factions such as Walesa, in the hearts of the people, the Solidarity trade union has long been bound to Walesa, and no amount of efforts will help. In 1995, the All-Poland Agreement had 2.5 million members, more than double the membership of Solidarity. The Solidarity movement turned from the ideal to its own opposite, which just confirmed the adage of Saint-Just: "Those who give up halfway through the revolution will eventually dig their own graves." To represent yourself, someone else must represent them.” This sentence may also apply to people like Wajda.