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The demise of the Polish October

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Five days in October
Jacek Kuroń Social activist
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So, like I said, when those rallies began and all that bedlam, and the approaching Soviet troops, and the information that we're ready to defend ourselves and that they don't want to give us weapons even though they've promised them to us. We had a host of contacts in various factories, and workers who weren't in the Party flocked to us because other parties were very closed, very isolated. And that day and night, day and night, unbelievable tension with everything seeming to be getting worse. The Soviet delegation was there so they were talking. I remember Ziman and Wolicki arrived in the night, they both came on Wolicki's motor-bike. They arrived in the night saying the others have given in, there's nothing more to talk about, they've surrendered everything. But the following day, they told us that the results of the plenary session regarding the composition were what we had wanted, or what Staszewski, the First Secretary of the Committee of the Warsaw Party had wished for us, because he'd been the one who'd sent us this letter which we'd distributed around town, a letter listing who would be in the future KC and the politbureau and the secretariate. So...

Oh yes, there were the weapons. They were supposed to have arrived but they didn't. The KBW was meant to have fought to defend the city. We wanted to be given weapons, we'd been promised we'd get them. I saw later in various photographs how the workers in Żerań had machine guns; maybe they were distributed among them although I don't remember that happening. Modzelewski was our liaison man in Żeranie, he went there regularly and gave regular reports, I don't remember anything of that kind, I was very aware of things like that because it was a very basic problem throughout those five days. Soldiers, I mean officers, started coming to us and we talked with them with Krzyś Pomian. We had a language clash at this point. They were coming to us motivated by patriotism. I remember Krzyś saying to them, 'Comrades, is the army prepared to come to the defence of the working class and of socialism?' To which they replied, 'We'd put it differently: in defence of the nation!' Yes, I remember a conversation like that. Those were words which they were at least able to understand in their language, they knew what we were talking about. Generally, we didn't have the same kind of understanding with the working populations of the towns and villages, so we were doomed to failure from the start with Gomułka against us, and what we called the right wing.

Więc jak mówię, jak się zaczęły wiece i to całe piekło, i to nadciąganie wojsk radzieckich i ta informacja, że tu gotowi jesteśmy się bronić, i to że nie chcą dać tej broni, choć ją obiecują. Myśmy mieli mnóstwo kontaktów w różnych zakładach i bezpartyjni robotnicy do nas się garnęli, bo tam partie były bardzo zamknięte, wyizolowane. I ta noc i dzień, noc i dzień, czyli niesamowitego napięcia i wszystko jakby coraz gorzej. Ponieważ tak, delegacja radziecka jest, to oni rozmawiają. Pamiętam, w nocy przyjechał Ziman z Wolickim, oni na motorze Wolickiego przyjeżdżali obaj. I przyjechali w nocy i mówią, że tamci poddali, nie ma co gadać, poddali wszystko. Ale następnego dnia nam mówią, że wynik plenum będzie taki właśnie co do składu, jak żeśmy sobie życzyli, czy jak nam pożyczył Staszewski, I sekretarz Komitetu Warszawskiego Partii, bo to on do nas przysłał przecież tę kartkę, którą myśmy rozpropagowali na całe miasto, tę kartkę ze składem przyszłego KC i biura politycznego i sekretariatu – ściśle. No i... a z tą bronią, no miała być i jej wciąż nie było. KBW podobno miało walczyć w obronie miasta. Myśmy chcieli dostać broń, obiecywano nam, ja później na różnych zdjęciach widziałem robotników z Żerania z pistoletami maszynowymi, może im wydano, choć jakoś ja sobie tego faktu nie przypominam. Łącznikiem naszym z Żeraniem był Modzelewski, on tam regularnie jeździł, regularnie sprawozdawał, nic takiego sobie nie przypominam, ja byłem na to wyczulony, bo był to bardzo zasadniczy problem tamtych pięciu dni. Żołnierze, znaczy oficerowie zaczęli do nas przychodzić i rozmawialiśmy z nimi z Krzysiem Pomianem. I tu też takie zderzenie języka. Oni przychodzili z motywów patriotycznych. Pamiętam, jak Krzyś mówi do nich: "No dobrze, towarzysze, a czy w obronie klasy robotniczej i socjalizmu wojsko jest gotowe stanąć?", a oni mówią: "Nie tak byśmy to ujęli, w obronie ojczyzny". Tak, pamiętam taką rozmowę. Słowa, które po prostu byli w stanie przynajmniej zrozumieć w jakim języku, o czym mówimy, na ogół takśmy się nie rozumieli z ludem pracującym miast i wsi, więc byliśmy jakby z góry skazani na klęskę, mając przeciwko sobie Gomułkę i to, co myśmy nazywali prawicą.

The late Polish activist, Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004), had an influential but turbulent political career, helping transform the political landscape of Poland. He was expelled from the communist party, arrested and incarcerated. He was also instrumental in setting up the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) and later became a Minister of Labour and Social Policy.

Listeners: Marcel Łoziński Jacek Petrycki

Film director Marcel Łoziński was born in Paris in 1940. He graduated from the Film Directing Department of the National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź in 1971. In 1994, he was nominated for an American Academy Award and a European Film Academy Award for the documentary, 89 mm from Europe. Since 1995, he has been a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Art and Science awarding Oscars. He lectured at the FEMIS film school and the School of Polish Culture of Warsaw University. He ran documentary film workshops in Marseilles. Marcel Łoziński currently lectures at Andrzej Wajda’s Master School for Film Directors. He also runs the Dragon Forum, a European documentary film workshop.

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.

Tags: Party, Warsaw Party, KC, KBW, Żerań, Krzysztof Wolicki, Stefan Staszewski, Władysław Gomułka

Duration: 2 minutes, 36 seconds

Date story recorded: 1987

Date story went live: 12 June 2008