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Views | Duration | ||
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101. Questioning the social order | 1 | 01:21 | |
102. Resisting my father’s career plans for me | 2 | 02:16 | |
103. The most important compliment my father ever gave me | 3 | 00:49 | |
104. Honouring my father’s antipathy towards religion | 3 | 03:11 | |
105. Joining Jewish youth clubs | 3 | 01:50 | |
106. My Polish and Jewish identities | 3 | 01:27 | |
107. Intellectual and political freedom of expression | 2 | 02:38 | |
108. The seekers of contradiction | 4 | 03:53 | |
109. Jacek Kuroń and the Trotskyists | 8 | 03:00 | |
110. Divorced from the Communist Party | 4 | 02:36 |
[Q] W latach 50. zaczynały się te wszystkie zmiany...
No, tak.
[Q] Zaczyna się jakaś aktywność polityczna, poza udziałem w ZMP czy...
Tak, dla mnie to jest poprzez ZMP i tam są, można powiedzieć, dyskusje. One są takie coraz bardziej otwarte, kwestionujące ład społeczny. Ja nawet pamiętam – to paradoksalne – nawet nie wiem, jak się tam znalazłem... była taka debata kierownictwa ZMP – czy to... a może... nie, to już nie było ZMP, nie, skądże, to było ZMS. I było to spotkanie z człowiekiem, który był już właściwie na indeksie, Bieńkowski, Władysław Bieńkowski, który był wybitnym członkiem PPR-u, w czasie wojny. No, ale miał niewyparzoną gębę i... był inteligentnym człowiekiem, kwestionował właśnie ten brak demokratyzmu i został zmarginalizowany kompletnie. Ale on był tam... na dyskusji on swobodnie mówił, krytykował władze Gomułki, to co się działo. To były czasy, które trudno sobie dzisiaj wyobrazić i nie wiem, jak ja się znalazłem. Ktoś mnie musiał zaprosić na to zebranie.
[Q] All of these changes began in the '50s…
Well, yes.
[Q] It was the start of some kind of political activity apart from your participation in ZMP or…
Yes. For me this activity was through the ZMP and there it took the form of discussions. They were ever more open, questioning the social order. I even remember paradoxically – I don't even know how I found myself there – there was a debate by the ZMP leaders – maybe not, no it wasn't the ZMP, it was the ZMS by then. It was a meeting with someone who was already blacklisted, it was Bińkowski, Władysław Bińkowski, who was once an acclaimed member of the PPR – this was during the war. He was really gobby and he was intelligent and he questioned this absence of democracy and was completely marginalised. But there at these discussions, he spoke freely criticising Gomułka's government and everything that was happening. Those times are hard to imagine now and I've no idea how I found myself there. Someone must have invited me to that meeting.
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.
Title: Questioning the social order
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: Władysław Bińkowski
Duration: 1 minute, 21 seconds
Date story recorded: September 2017
Date story went live: 20 December 2018