Massey Ferguson tractors, manufactured under British license in Ursus, could become, like the Bizon harvesters, a showcase of Polish-British industrial cooperation. In the Harvesting Machinery Factory in Plosk (Płock), a group of brilliant managers came into being who was able to explain to the workmen that there are many more interesting things than unjustified walkouts and robbing goods from shops and vans. A similar group was absent in Ursus Mechanical Works, but perhaps there is also some so-called conspiracy theory which should be involved into the explanation of the events.
Gierek visited the Ursus Mechanical Works to explain what the Massey Ferguson 200 series are about. He promised good leadership and happy conditions for the men of the crew who would be ready and able to work at the new tractors assembly line, the most advanced in Eastern Europe. The Banner Lane machinery production scheme was the finest in the United Kingdom. On other hand the conceived by the autonomous British part of the huge Canadian-American corporation chains of outside suppliers and their high quality demands were not easy to be copied elsewhere. Also the work at the assembly line in the main production plant needed much attention and advanced technical skills from every workman along the line.
The Polish leader was, however, unaware that this is an entirely new generation of workmen to whom he speaks. Their training, supervised by some of the best Polish engineers of the time, was more than sufficient. They were also carefully chosen from the young men enjoying the best health, but at the same time they were at a much lower level of political consciousness as well as feeling for responsibility than they older fellows. They took the full employment, high wages and other good things for granted. They were long-haired and rebellious just like the same generation in the Wester countries. They have led at the end their own country to much more rapid and disastrous deindustrialisation than in the case of US or UK.
Despite of that a prolonged learning process for all workforce engaged in the Ferguson' tractors production was launched and expected to produce proper results within two years ...
as it was earlier in Germany and Spain. To make sure that the highest quality standards will be maintained overseas the British engineers oversaw the whole license agreement introducing process. The Massey Ferguson material control department preferred to have the first Polish made Ferguson farm tractors to be assembled from the parts shipped from England.
You should remember that the plan for production of licensed British tractors had a strategic importance under the huge efforts of Gierek’s governing team to remove the worst osbtacles on the way of further development of the country
The best British and Canadian-American technology influx, provided by Massey Ferguson, was included in the central national economy plan for 1976-80. Therefore Gierek visited the Gdansk shipyard once again on October 13, 1975 and urged the workmen throughout the country to intensify their efforts to meet the targets assigned to them. He asked; would you please help me to make Poland a powerful country and its people living much better?
We must admit that, unfortunately, his prime minister and many ministers sabotaged the efforts of the industrial plants crews and the Chief of State. That was visible on the example of primitive and cruel action against the Polish-British cooperation in the field of ultramodern portable computers (1972-74). The cooperation was made impossible, the protests of engineers and journalists silented. Now the grim story was about to repeat itself. This time somebody simply neglected his responsibilities to control the malcontents and limit their activities.
A certain Eugeniusz Korzeb became one of the most eloquent opponents of the implementation of this licensed production who appeared in Ursus Mechanical Works. He was an educated man; at the age of 30 he graduated from the basic vocational school
Propaganda grown in Ursus against cooperation with the Britons was more or less like this: We knew the whole world is moving to metric measures, while this tractor was fitted in inches — that simply wasn't the case in regard to entire world. Another false information was spread. Namely, the Britishers found a way to remove the outdated machinery from the Banner Lane factory and Poland is the foolish buyer of all that clunker. The enemies of the new technology assured they dove into technical details — what was hardly possible as only a handful of people had English language skills in Poland at the time.
Mister Korzeb, as he was seen about the year 1985.
(a screenshot from the YouTube video: The Struggles for Poland (1986). A history of Poland in the Twentieth Century. Episode 9 1970-80)
Influenced by demagoguery the workmen of the Ursus Mechanical Works sabotaged the best licence agreement that Polish government ever signed. They hold meetings on the subject, there were many such meetings, also the meetings of the whole works and they protested almost on daily basis.
Prices in Poland were at that time fixed, and controlled by the government, as it took place elsewhere in planned national economies throughout the Eeastern block. There was an economic necessity to raise the food prices because of lack of proper amounts of agricultural production in the country, high food prices in the world market and to create an incentive to the workforce to cease its practices of absenteeism, organising meetings, drinking alcoholic beverage and stealing at the workplace. Under the Gierek’s cautious economic reform additional founds for wages increases for the employees of plants which would be able to increase the productivity were established.
That was like waging a war, an allegedly spontaneous "automatic" strike
The part of the events was the blockade of the railway, the cutting of the line which linked the Soviet Union with Poland, Germany and France as well as of another line, linking Warsaw with other big cities. The workers from the strike-bound Ursus tractor factory believed they demanded their rights. In fact, people who protested in such an extreme way against planed by the Government of the People’s Republic of Poland prices increase, combined with additional social welfare for the poorest in the country, were doing a monstrous thing.
While there were widespread riots in Radom in June 1976, in Ursus workers' protest against the planned increase in food prices took weird forms
As one of the participants of those events recalls, the strikers left their workplaces and went to the streets of the Ursus district, where they stopped and robbed several trucks delivering supplies to the shops. Other groups of workers out of the huge 19,000 men workforce (plus 4,000 construction workers building new plant buildings to manufacture Massey Ferguson tractors) were shopping at grocery stores at the same time. They behaved normally and paid for everything.
The workers of Ursus Mechanical Works were among the highest-earning groups of the population. It was the result of selling a large number of tractors abroad and overseas, for the so-called hard (exchangeable) currency
On that day they bought bread, cold cuts and alcohol. Then they went to the blocked railway lines, where they arranged a picnic. When they heard from the radio broadcast that the government had canceled the price hike, they slowly began to go home or go back to the factories. At this point, the assault police came in, started beating them and making arrests to clear the area, unblock railroads and mechanical plant.
By the way, the problem of a limited labor efficiency of the Polish industrial workforce and changing the prices on food was solved anyway a few years later, on a slow and finally worst, terrible way.
As a result of the so-called shock therapy in the national economies of the former Soviet bloc countries (including Russia itself) most Polish industrial plants were totally or at least in a huge part destroyed, including for the former Ursus main plants in Warsaw. All malcontents there were left with no work and no money, doomed to buy food on really high prices, to migrate (mainly to Britain) seeking an enmployment or to starve or to commit suicide in the process. In the year 1976 they were warned by their chief executive officer, Bronislau Prugar-Ketling.
The message of the factory director (Boguslaw Prugar-Ketling) can be summarized as follows: Only hard work and diligence can guarantee our welfare state that we have achieved thanks to our after-war reconstruction. Do you not understand?
Gierek's great plans for Poland were already in trouble because of the attitude of his ministers, now an unnecessary and really stupid management-labour dispute followed
With difficulties of Polish export goods because of declined demand for all, including for Polish goods in the West after the first oil crisis, except for the coal, added ... It would require an iron fist to secure the successful development of Polish national economy. Unfortunately for Poland, Gierek wasn't another Peter the Great.
Only after removing of the most anarchist workers from the ranks of Ursus' employees it was possible to complete the new plant, destined for the production of Massey Ferguson tractors. The first of them were assembled entirely from the parts manufactured in Britain. It happened in November of the year 1978, on the 60th anniversary of the Polish independence, regained after 123 years of domination of three partitioning powers over the nation.
Another batch of Massey Ferguson Ursus tractors, assembled during the reign of Gierek. Early spring of 1980.
(A screenshot from the YouTube video: Ursus to jest firma 1980r URSUSa a NASZA POLSKA w czasach PRL)
The long, although almost entirely only political enslaving of the once very wise, courageous and invincible nation was result of demoralisation and stupidity of the Polish-Eastbaltic-Ruthenian ruling class of landlords. The former uncrowned red king of Poland, Veslau the Rude (Ladislau Gomulka) was able to foresee how the unwise demands of the working class and the negligence of the red gentry of the People's Republic of Poland will shape events; the state will fail and will be robbed and partitioned once again in another form by the enemies of the Polish people.
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