Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I SOLIDARITY AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
- PART II SOLIDARITY AND THE THEORY OF SOVIET-TYPE SOCIETY
- PART III PROFESSIONALS AND SOLIDARITY
- 7 Professionals, power and prestige
- 8 Engineers in Solidarity
- 9 Physicians in Solidarity
- PART IV CONCLUSION
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Soviet and East European Studies
9 - Physicians in Solidarity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I SOLIDARITY AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION
- PART II SOLIDARITY AND THE THEORY OF SOVIET-TYPE SOCIETY
- PART III PROFESSIONALS AND SOLIDARITY
- 7 Professionals, power and prestige
- 8 Engineers in Solidarity
- 9 Physicians in Solidarity
- PART IV CONCLUSION
- Notes
- References
- Index
- Soviet and East European Studies
Summary
Critics of the class analysis of Soviet-type society emphasize the internal heterogeneities of the working class and the intelligentsia. They argue that there are more significant lines of division within each class than there are between them. There are considerably different conditions of life and work even within professions, as the analysis of engineers suggests. Engineers are nevertheless commonly dependent on the authorities for both delegated power and privilege. Physicians occupy a different niche in Polish power relations. They are also professionals, and might be considered part of Konrád and Szelényi's ruling class in statu nascendi. But if we are to consider their place in a power relations defined in terms of autonomy and dependency, physicians are different from either skilled workers in large factories or engineers. Their extensive participation in Solidarity also has different structural roots, derived from their continued dependence on the authorities for power of broader scope despite a capacity for a relatively autonomous individual power.
Physicians and other medical personnel were very active in this independent trade union and social movement for democracy and independence. For the August 31, 1980, agreement which led to Solidarity, physicians and other medical personnel compiled an extraordinary list of thirty points delineating the demands of the health sector. A separate medical section of Solidarity was subsequently established, which continued and broadened the activism of the original health-sector activists.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Professionals, Power and Solidarity in PolandA Critical Sociology of Soviet-Type Society, pp. 290 - 340Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991