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Becoming an unofficial press office for Poland's democratic opposition

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Being part of the French academic world
Aleksander Smolar Political scientist
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After that, we did more and more things and thanks to us being in an academic environment we had a great number of contacts. Our contacts were the leading intellectuals and in my case, I had easy access to everyone in politics. What I mean is that I had open access to the highest levels of French politics and was involved with all kinds of French initiatives. I was very involved with life in France then, more so than I am today. I was on the editorial boards of two journals, the deuxième gauche, the second left, which formed around Michel Rocard so it was an anti-communist left wing. And then there was the pro-market, you could say, the liberal left. I was in l’Alternative, a publication about the countries in our bloc published by [François] Maspero. I was also on the editorial board for 20 years, having only just left, of a Catholic intellectual publication called Esprit. It was an exceptional group of people and to be honest, apart from the Trotskyists, only they were interested in our countries at that time. I was also very involved in intellectual affairs and, like I said, in issues on a  global scale, meaning I went to many conferences, met and got to know many people – I’ll tell you shortly about once such event.

Potem robiliśmy coraz więcej rzeczy i dzięki temu, że byliśmy w środowisku akademickim, mieliśmy masę kontaktów. No, mieliśmy kontakty, w czołówce intelektualnej, w każdym razie, jeżeli chodzi o mnie, miałem bardzo szybko dostęp do wszystkich w polityce. To znaczy byłem przyjmowany na szczytach polityki francuskiej. Byłem zaangażowany w różne inicjatywy francuskie. Byłem też bardzo silnie zintegrowany w życie francuskie, bardziej niż dzisiaj. Byłem wówczas w redakcjach dwóch pism, tak zwanej deuxième gauche, drugiej lewicy wokół Michela Rocarda, to taka antykomunistyczna lewica. I pro-rynkowa, liberalna, można powiedzieć – liberalna lewica. Byłem w Alternative, pismo, które [François] Maspero wydawał o krajach naszego bloku. Byłem w redakcji i przez dwadzieścia lat – do niedawna – katolickiego pisma intelektualnego Esprit. Bardzo to było wybitne środowisko i, mówiąc prawdę, poza trockistami tylko oni się interesowali naszymi krajami wówczas. Byłem bardzo wintegrowany w życie intelektualne i, jak mówiłem, w życie takie również globalne, to znaczy ilość konferencji, ludzi, których poznałem – za chwilę opowiem przynajmniej o jednym takim wydarzeniu.

Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation.

Listeners: Vitek Tracz

Vitek Tracz is a London-based entrepreneur who has been involved in science publishing, pharmaceutical information and mobile phone-based navigation.

Tags: Esprit, l’Alternative, Michel Rocard

Duration: 1 minute, 25 seconds

Date story recorded: September 2017

Date story went live: 09 November 2018