by Tom Stoppard
GIRL PARTY MAN
CARDINAL WYSZYNSKI MINER
STEFAN OLSZOWSKI KATOWICE MAN
LECH WALESA JARUZELSKI’S SECRETARY
PRISONER ARCHBISHOP JOSEPH GLEMP
WITNESSES, AIDES, SECRETARIES, POLICEMEN, GUARDS, MILITARY OFFICERS, JOURNALISTS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, WORKERS, PRIESTS, etc.
Squaring the Circle was first transmitted in May 1984 by TVS. The cast included:
NARRATOR Richard Crenna
LEONID BREZHNEV Frank Middlemass
EDWARD GIEREK John Woodvine
BABIUCH John Bluthal
KANIA Roy Kinnear
WOJCIECH JARUZELSKI Richard Kane
JACEK KURON Don Henderson
LECH WALESA Bernard Hill
MARIAN JURCZYK John Rogan
ANDRZEJ GWIAZDA Jonathan Adams
JAN RULEWSKI Tom Wilkinson
MIECZYSLAW RAKOWSKI Alec McCowen
DIRECTOR Mike Hodges
PRODUCTION DESIGNER Voytek
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Michael Garfath
1
The First Secretary
1. EXT. SEA SHORE. SUMMER DAY
Empty beach. Sea. Sky.
With the mention of his name we find EDWARD GIEREK, a middle-aged man in a suit, overcoat, hat and lace-up shoes, walking along by the sea.
NARRATOR: (Voice over) Towards the end of July 1980 Edward Gierek, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party, which is to say the boss of Communist Poland, left Warsaw for his annual holiday in the Soviet Union by the Black Sea There he met …
(BREZHNEV, similarly dressed, is walking towards GIEREK.) … Leonid Brezhnev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR.
(The two men meet and grasp each other’s shoulders and kiss each other on both cheeks.)
In an atmosphere of cordiality and complete mutual understanding the two leaders had a frank exchange of views.
BREZHNEV: Comrade! As your friends and allies in the progress towards the inevitable triumph of Marxist-Leninism, we are concerned, deeply concerned, by recent departures from Leninist norms by Polish workers manipulated by a revisionist element of the Polish intelligentsia!
GIEREK: Comrade First Secretary! As your friends and allies in the proletariat’s struggle against international capitalism …
(GIEREK evidently continues in the same vein.)
NARRATOR: (Voice over) That isn’t them, of course –
(Close up on the NARRATOR, in the same location.)
(To camera) – and this isn’t the Black Sea. Everything is true except the words and the pictures. If there was a beach, Brezhnev and Gierek probably didn’t talk on it, and if they did, they probably wouldn’t have been wearing, on a beach in July, those hats and coats and lace-up shoes which you get for being a Communist leader. They were after all …
2. EXT. SEASIDE. SUMMER DAY
NARRATOR: (Voice over) … supposed to be on holiday.
(There are gay umbrellas and cool, brightly coloured drinks to hand. Everything in fact is highly coloured. BREZHNEV and GIEREK are now wearing brightly coloured Hawaiian shirts and slacks. They wear sunglasses. They drink from pink drinks with little purple paper umbrellas sticking out of them. BREZHNEV, however, is attended by two or three AIDES, who are dressed in dark suits. The one who is going to speak wears a suit and is carrying a file of papers ostentatiously marked ‘Poland’.)
And even if you got the look of it right, they probably didn’t talk like a Pravda editorial, because if you’re the boss of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and if you’ve got twenty armoured divisions in East Germany and your supply lines have to go across Poland and the Polish railway workers are on strike, you don’t say that you are deeply concerned about departures from Leninist norms, you probably say …
BREZHNEV: (Shouting like a gangster) What the hell is going on with you guys? Who’s running the country? You or the engine drivers? Your workforce has got you by the short hairs because you’re up to your neck in hock to German bankers, American bankers, Swiss bankers – you’re in hock to us to the tune of … (Glances at the AIDE for aid) … is it millions or billions …?
(The AIDE panics for a second, shuffling and dropping his papers, but rises to the occasion.)
AIDE: Zillions.
BREZHNEV: (Triumphantly shouts) Zillions of roubles!
AIDE: Zlotys.
BREZHNEV: (Rounding on him) You shut up!
3. EXT. SEASIDE. SUMMER DAY
NARRATOR: (To camera) Who knows?
All the same, there was something going on which remains true even when the words and the pictures are mostly made up. Between August 1980 and December 1981 an attempt was made in Poland to put together two ideas which wouldn’t fit, the idea of freedom as it is understood in the West, and the idea of socialism as it is understood in the Soviet empire. The attempt failed because it was impossible, in the same sense as it is impossible in geometry to turn a circle into a square with the same area – not because no one has found out how to do it, but because there is no way in which it can be done. What happened in Poland was that a number of people tried for sixteen months to change the shape of the system without changing the area covered by the original shape. They failed.
4. EXT. AIRFIELD. NIGHT
So EDWARD GIEREK is met by Prime Minister BABIUCH. They grasp each other’s shoulders and kiss each other on the cheek.
NARRATOR: (Voice over) Edward Gierek came home from the Black Sea on August 15th.
BABIUCH: Welcome home, Comrade. I’m sorry you had to cut short your holiday.
(But GIEREK is immediately concerned with part of his holiday luggage, which is being taken off the plane by a uniformed MINION. The item is a large beach bag, out of which protrudes a snorkel and a ridiculous straw hat. The MINION jostles the bag, which clinks dangerously.)
GIFREK: Careful with that …
(GIEREK takes the bag from the MINION. GIEREK and BABIUCH wait for the car which is to take them away.)
BABIUCH: Comrade Kania has been to Gdansk.
GIEREK: Why?
BABIUCH: Why? Because the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk is at a complete standstill. The Party Secretary up there telephoned yesterday in a panic.
GIEREK: I know all that. Do we have to have a member of the Politburo rushing to the scene whenever there’s a disruption of working norms?
BABIUCH: You sent Jagielski to settle the railway strike.
GIEREK: The railway disruption of working norms was different.
BABIUCH: Kania says this one is different.
GIEREK: How much are they asking for?
BABIUCH: Two thousand a month, but it’s not the money that worries us.
GIEREK: It should. It’s the money we haven’t got.
(Car pulls in front. The car door is being held open for them.)
BABIUCH: After you, Comrade First Secretary.
GIEREK: Thank you, Comrade Prime Minister.
(BABIUCH takes Gierek’s bag for him.)
BABIUCH: Allow me …
(GIEREK gets into the car followed by BABIUCH and the beach bag.)
5. INT. THE CAR. NIGHT
GIEREK and BABIUCH in the back seat. GIEREK takes the bag from
BABIUCH and searches about in it during the narration.
NARRATOR: (Voice over) The Prime Minister is, of course, the head of the government. Today, and for several days to come, his name is Mr Babiuch. Apart from having a prime minister, Poland has elections, a parliament and a head of state, much like Britain or France or America.
(GIEREK finds what he has been looking for in the bag – which he hands to BABIUCH, who is suitably grateful.)
GIEREK: I’ve brought you some caviar.
6. EXT. PARTY HEADQUARTERS. NIGHT
The car draws up. GIEREK and BABIUCH get out of the car and enter the building. The door is opened by a doorman. This person is going to pop up again in various guises throughout the film, so for simplicity’s sake he will henceforth be referred to as the W
ITNESS.
The NARRATOR enters the frame.
NARRATOR: (To camera) This is where it all gets different from bourgeois Western democracy. In the East, they have the window-dressing but the shop is run by the Party. Through nominees and controlled elections the Party dominates parliament and manages the machinery of the state, and thus is in a position to fulfil its sacred trust of defending the interests of the working people …
7. INT. PARTY HEADQUARTERS. NIGHT
BABIUCH is carrying Gierek’s bag. GIEREK sees KANIA coming up behind and pauses to fish about in the bag, so that he is able to greet KANIA with another jar of caviar.
NARRATOR: (Voice over) … with caviar and limousines.
8. EXT. PARTY HEADQUARTERS. NIGHT
The NARRATOR has just finished addressing the camera and is interrupted by the WITNESS.
WITNESS: A cheap shot, in my opinion. These people are not doormen. These are people with big responsibilities.
NARRATOR: Just making an observation.
WITNESS: It’s not a factor. I never saw the President of France arrive anywhere on a bicycle eating a salami sandwich.
NARRATOR: Excuse me.
(To camera) It works like this. The Party Congress, about 2,000 delegates who meet every five years, not counting emergencies, elects a Central Committee of about 200 members who meet as and when to supervise Party policy. To implement that policy the Central Committee elects …
9. INT. POLITBURO MEETING. NIGHT
NARRATOR: (Voice over) … the Political Bureau.
(There are about a dozen members of the Politburo, now seen placing themselves at a large table. They include GIEREK, BABIUCH, KANIA, SZYDLAK, JARUZELSKI, BARCIKOWSKI, JAGIELSKI and FINANSKY. [‘FINANSKY’ is an invented name to allow two different finance ministers to be represented in one character.]
This is not a meeting of the Government. This is the Politburo.
(GIEREK is the chairman. He invites KANIA to begin.)
GIEREK: Comrade Kania …?
KANIA: At Gdansk in the Lenin shipyard they demand … number one, a wage increase of 2,000 zlotys a month. Number two, reinstatement of sacked troublemakers. Number three, family allowances increased to the same level enjoyed by police and security forces. Number four, earlier retirement. Number five, a monument outside the main gate …
GIEREK: A monument?
KANIA: Yes. To the dead of 1970. The strike spokesman is obsessed with putting up a monument. He was in the shipyard in Gdansk in 1970. He’s been arrested more than once for holding demonstrations outside the gate on the anniversary … Actually, he’s been arrested about a hundred times for one thing or another. The shipyard director tried to settle for a plaque in the dining hall but he insists on a monument, forty metres high.
GIEREK: Is he mad?
SZYDLAK: That’s an idea …
KANIA: (To SZYDLAK) No.
GIEREK: Who is he?
KANIA: Walesa. You’ve met him.
GIEREK: When?
KANIA: Ten years ago. After the 1970 riots. You went to talk to the workers in the Baltic ports –
GIEREK: Yes.
KANIA: In Gdansk there was a three-man delegation. Walesa was one of them. Moustache. He didn’t speak. You remember him?
GIEREK: No.
KANIA: Well, I think they’d settle for the money and the reinstatements. Enough of them would, anyway.
(GIEREK looks towards FINANSKY.)
FINANSKY: There is already more money than there are goods to spend it on. The situation is inflationary, and would be more so if we did not keep food cheap artificially. The farmer buys bread to feed the pigs because it is cheaper than the wheat he sells to us. Then we buy the pigs for 130 zlotys per kilo and we sell the butcher’s pork for 70 zlotys. Such subsidies are costing us 3 billion zlotys a year. As a matter of fact the same money would pay our interest to Western bankers this year.
GIEREK: (To KANIA) We cannot give way on the money. It buys nothing.
KANIA: It buys time.
GIEREK: Are you an economist?
KANIA: I have been to Gdansk.
GIEREK: If we give way on the money in Gdansk, Gdynia will demand the same. Then Szczecin. It’ll spread everywhere.
KANIA: So will the strike if we don’t stop it.
SZYDLAK: Send in the police, the state security …
KANIA: There’s no public disorder.
SZYDLAK: A strike is a public disorder. In fact it’s illegal. If the police can’t handle it send in the army.
(The members turn generally towards JARUZELSKI, who is in general’s uniform.)
JARUZELSKI: To do what? I said in 1970 that I wouldn’t order Polish soldiers to shoot Polish workers.
SZYDLAK: But they did shoot. The army and the police. And the strikers went back to work.
JARUZELSKI: Not all of them.
SZYDLAK: All of them.
JARUZELSKI: Not the ones who were dead.
GIEREK: The Minister of Defence is quite right. We must not repeat December 1970. And if you remember, the men in the shipyards did not go back to work until I went to talk to them. January ’71. The bloodstains were still on the street. I had been First Secretary for one month. The pickets at the gate didn’t recognize me. I had to tell them who I was. It’s not so surprising. When did the Party leader ever come to debate with the workers face to face on their own ground? And we talked. I told them how I had worked in the mines in Belgium and France. With these hands. I said to them, help us, help me, I’m a worker too. We can start again. I told them there was going to be a new spirit. A new Poland. A rich Poland. But the poison got back into the system.
(Helplessly) What does one do …?
KANIA: We’ve cut the phone lines from Gdansk.
GIEREK: No – it’s time to be frank. We have to tell the country what’s going on.
JARUZELSKI: Everybody listens to the foreign radio stations – they know what’s going on.
GIEREK: If they know, we can afford to be frank. We must explain the shortages … the danger of inflation … we must appeal to patriotism and common sense.
BABIUCH: (Dubiously) Do you really think …?
GIEREK: We must, of course, accept some of the blame On the radio and television, tonight.
BABIUCH: Will you do it?
GIEREK: Me? No, you’re the Prime Minister.
10. THE SAME. HIGHT
In other words, the Politburo meeting continues into the night, now without BABIUCH … who is, however, present and talking, on a television set which the rest of the Politburo are watching. The formality of the meeting has disintegrated. Ties are loosened, cups and glasses are littered about. The cut is to BABIUCH on the television but his speech is mostly audible wallpaper for the camera’s travel.
BABIUCH: It has to be admitted that in the past we have not always managed to deal efficiently with economic difficulties. The public has not been given sufficient information about our troubles, about the state of the economy and the growing problems as and when they occurred. We have not prepared ourselves sufficiently for the difficult times which we should have seen as inevitable. Even today, not everyone realizes what our country’s economic situation is like. To put it bluntly, our country’s indebtedness has reached a point which must not on any account be overstepped. We have been living and developing on credit. Stopping work not only harms the national economy, it also turns against the working class and working people in general, damaging their vital interests. The opponents of People’s Poland are trying to use the atmosphere of tension and emotion for their own political ends, putting forward slogans and suggestions which have nothing in common with the aspirations of the working class.
(During this:)
KANIA: (To GIEREK) What do we do if it doesn’t work?
GIEREK: We could try another prime minister.
KANIA: Seriously, we’ll have to make them an offer.
GIEREK: How much?
KANIA: Fifteen hundred, and the reinstatement of troublema
kers, and the monument.
GIEREK: Will they settle?
KANIA: Yes.
GIEREK: All right. I’m going home. I don’t want to be called except in an emergency. (Points at BABIUCH on the television.) This is for Comrade Brezhnev.
BABIUCH: (On television) The world is watching us, wondering how we can manage in these difficult moments …
11. INT. CAFE. NIGHT
A café in Poland. There is a television set. BABIUCH is continuing to speak.
BABIUCH: (On television) We have reliable allies who also worry about our troubles and believe that we will be able to overcome them ourselves. They wish us success from the bottom of their hearts.
(Among the people in the café are the NARRATOR and the WITNESS.)
NARRATOR: (To camera) Poland’s reliable ally, her neighbour to the east, had been a watchful and threatening presence since 1945.
WITNESS: 1700.
(The NARRATOR is about to protest.)
All right, 1720 but no later. You won’t understand Poland’s attitude to Russia until you understand some Polish history. This won’t take long.
NARRATOR: I hope not.
(The WITNESS reaches over to an adjacent table for a basket of bread rolls, which he tips over on to his own table. He pushes the bread rolls together in the middle of the table.)
WITNESS: Nobody except the Poles remembers that for 300 years this was the biggest and freest country in Middle Europe, spanning the continent from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea and reaching hundreds of miles east into modern Russia. Russia’s greatness came after Poland’s and was achieved at Poland’s expense. During the eighteenth century, Poland came under Russian domination. This alarmed the other great powers, Austria and Prussia, so in 1772 Catherine the Great gave a bit of Poland to each of them to keep them quiet.
(He detaches a couple of bread rolls, pushing them ‘west’, and a couple more ‘south’.)
