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Abandoning Marxism

RELATED STORIES

Prosperity under Gierek
Jacek Kuroń Social activist
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So, like I said, when we came out it was like a graveyard, for a while there was almost no activity, no friends as they had all left. This was what friends told me, I didn't have that experience because by the time I came out, December had put all of that right. The period before December, when I was in prison, I didn't realise it was the time when the hatred descended on the commandos who had remained, saying that they had provoked this uproar, they had damaged Polish culture, and so on. That whole wave of repression which later swamped people of Jewish origin, those friends who were leaving, who couldn't stand it here any longer, it only became really bad later on. By the time I came out everything had calmed down. It was the start of a very interesting time because the fact that there was no activity going on was nothing to do with us and that this group had lost its dynamism. The issue at that moment was that it was as if... as if those conditions had arisen. The prosperity of the Gierek-era had begun. It was founded on borrowing, on neglect of the infrastructure, on wasteful exploitation of the economy. Yet, obvious prosperity had started. The activists split in two directions. One, the most general, was culture. On the one hand, it was artistic activity - theatres were formed and that's where our friends expressed themselves, and the younger generation expressed itself in the student theatres. That's when Teatr Ósmego Dnia and another very interesting theatre from Łódź but I don't remember what it was called. There were a few interesting theatres in which debates were organised.

A więc, jak mówię, wyszliśmy i wyszliśmy tak trochę na cmentarz. Był taki moment, kiedy tej aktywności prawie nie było, kiedy nie było przyjaciół, którzy wyjechali. Choć to już było jak mi opowiadają przyjaciele, to już było, nie to ja nie znałem w ogóle, ja wyszedłem już – grudzień nas zrehabilitował. Ten okres przed grudniem, kiedy ja siedziałem w więzieniu, nie zdawałem sobie z tego sprawy, był okresem kiedy odium spadło na tych tam komandosów, którzy pozostawali, że oni wywołali tę awanturę, tak zaszkodzili kulturze polskiej i tak dalej, i tak dalej. No ta cała fala takiej już represji, której się przeciwko ludziom pochodzenia żydowskiego potem rozlała, to ci wyjeżdżający przyjaciele, którzy nie mogli tu wytrzymać, to wszystko to było straszne wtedy dopiero. Ja wyszedłem już właściwie... kiedy ja wyszedłem, to już było właściwie pogodnie. Zaczął się bardzo ciekawy czas, bo to, że nie było aktywności, to nie jest sprawa nasza, że to środowisko zatraciło dynamizm. To była sprawa wtedy w tym momencie już, że jakby... jakby warunki się zrobiły takie. Zaczęło się prosperity gierkowskie. Oparte na kredytach, na zaniedbaniu infrastruktury, na rabunkowej gospodarce. Ale zaczęło się ewidentne prosperity. Jakby aktywność poszła w dwóch kierunkach. W jednej najogólniej – w kulturę. Z tym że z jednej strony była to działalność artystyczna – teatry powstawały i nasi przyjaciele jakoś tak realizowali się i to młode pokolenie realizowało się w teatrze studenckim. To wtedy "Teatr Ósmego Dnia" i taki łódzki bardzo interesujący teatr – zapomniałem jak się nazywał. Parę ciekawych teatrów było, w których... przy których się dyskutowało.

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: Łódź, Teatr Ósmego Dnia, Edward Gierek

Duration: 2 minutes, 21 seconds

Date story recorded: 1987

Date story went live: 12 June 2008