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The events of December '70 seen from the perspective of prison

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The biggest triumphs of March '68
Jacek Kuroń Social activist
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Later, when I was reading the material in preparation for the trial and I read about the strike committee, the strike committee in Gliwice, in Opole, in Siedlce, I was dumb-struck. Well, because Kraków, Wrocław, these you would expect but even so we didn't anticipate that it would be so huge. This movement undeniably stopped Moczar's demonstration which puts an end to the idea that he had provoked it. It stopped Moczar's movement because he... he and his people took such a long time and put so much effort into getting dressed up in those robes and uhlan hats and partisan gear when in fact underneath all that they were wearing the uniform of a tsarist servant, because they cancelled performances of Dziady at the National Theatre and presented it on the national stage throughout the land, everywhere, one great performance of Dziady. If they had held all the trials at that time, we'd have all been given 15 years they way everyone predicted, but it would still have been the Dziady trial so they postponed it and then gave us the shortest sentences possible so the longest one was three and a half years. So firstly, this movement prevented Moczar's march from taking place and compromised him in the eyes of the people. Irrespective of whether that stuff about the Jews hit home or not the thought it was unthinkable for a bully and a policeman who beat up policemen and students to be a national hero, and in this case, a tsarist policeman. Because Dziady was practically a frame of reference, a Russian policeman. And by the same token, that whole ideology, along with anti-Semitism, was compromised in Polish society. When you talk about anti-Semitism today, people immediately recall March and the events of March which have entered into the vast tapestry of national events, that list of great months which map out the history of the Polish People's Republic. And that, in my opinion, was the greatest triumph of March. The next one I saw in a peculiar way. An evening of young poetry was being held a few years later in which Bierezin was taking part, Rysiek Krynicki and others, I don't think Stasiek Barańczak was there, I'm not sure. But it was that line-up, that generation of poets. And in the first row there was Załuski sitting with his Party colleagues, and they could see how before their very eyes, March was coming back to life whereas they thought they had stifled it, smashed it, sent it into the army, beaten it down with truncheons. But here, suddenly, one poem after another was recalling March. That entire generation had been presented with the experience of a generation which later, since this was the national intelligentsia, was revived with an unbelievable force, and the legend of March grew the more time went by. This is very important because it is going to crop up in national culture for many years to come. Because it gives national culture an antitotalitarian sign, that's what it gave before Solidarność. Society was aware that isolation from the workers, the isolation of the intelligentsia from the workers was disastrous, and then after December it was the other way around, and they, the intelligentsia, had to lose as did the workers. Actually, they won't lose outright but their action leads to the same thing. It was this that gave birth to Solidarność in the social consciousness. Last, but not least, I think this was a common preparation for battle. It was massive because it was all happening publicly, everyone could see it. It was obvious that you organise a rally, the rally elects a committee, the committee puts forward a resolution, the resolution is passed, then there's a sit-in strike which demands - this was all later repeated in December, specifically in January '71 in the Szczecin shipyard. I think those were the lessons learned from March because one movement learns from another, it's very important for a movement, it's fundamental for one movement to experience another. The fact that in '70 the workers were calling out, 'Students' - they wrote - 'Students, we apologise for March', is a sign of this sort of education.

Kiedy ja potem, czytając materiały do sprawy, czytałem komitet strajkowy, komitet strajkowy w Gliwicach, w Opolu, w Siedlcach, no zupełnie mnie oszołomiło. No bo Kraków, Wrocław no jeszcze można by się można, chociaż też – nie spodziewaliśmy się, że to przybierze takie olbrzymie rozmiary. I ten ruch niewątpliwie po prostu zastopował pochód Moczara, co wyklucza pomysł, że on go prowokował. Zastopował ruch Moczara, ponieważ przecież on z... on i jego ludzie tak długo z wysiłkiem stroili się w te wszystkie kontusze szlacheckie, czapki ułańskie, pałatki partyzanckie i tu nagle okazało się, że pod tym wszystkim jest mundur carskiego stupajki, bo zdjęli Dziady z desek Teatru Narodowego i wystawili na scenie całego, narodowej i w całym kraju, wszędzie, wielka olbrzymia inscenizacja Dziadów. I gdyby te procesy zrobili w tym samym rzucie, to my byśmy dostali po te swoje piętnaście lat, jak nam prorokowali, ale byłyby to procesy w dalszym ciągu tych Dziadów i oni dlatego wstrzymali i potem dali jak najmniejsze wyroki, czyli najwyższy był trzy i pół. A więc po pierwsze ten ruch zablokował pochód Moczara, skompromitował go w oczach społeczeństwa. Bez względu na to, czy to o tych Żydach trafiło czy nie trafiło, to dla społeczeństwa polskiego, myślę, że w ogóle dla każdego społeczeństwa, nie może być bohaterem narodowym stupajka. Policjant, który tłucze policjantów, studentów. A jeszcze w naszym przypadku carski policjant. Bo te Dziady to się wprost prawie ten układ odniesienia, ruski policjant. I tym samym w rezultacie skompromitowana została w społeczeństwie polskim cała ta ideologia łącznie z antysemityzmem. Dziś, jak się mówi o antysemityzmie, to natychmiast następuje odwołanie do Marca, do wydarzeń marcowych, które już weszły w ten panteon narodowy, w ten ciąg wielkich miesięcy, które wyznaczają historię Polski Ludowej. I to był moim zdaniem ten największy sukces Marca. Następny sukces Marca zobaczyłem w taki przewrotny sposób. Jakiś był taki wieczór młodej poezji w parę lat potem. Tam Bieriezin występował, tam występował Krynicki Rysiek i inni, chyba Staszka Barańczaka nie było, nie jestem pewny. Ale ten rząd, ta generacja poetów. No i w pierwszym rzędzie siedział Załuski i koledzy partyjni i oni widzieli, jak im w oczach zmartwychwstaje Marzec, którym zdawało się, że oni go stłamsili, rozbili, wysłali do wojska, spałowali. A tu nagle wiersz, po wierszu, wiersz po wierszu odwoływał się do Marca. I po prostu całemu temu pokoleniu dano w prezencie przeżycie pokoleniowe, które potem – ponieważ to była jednak inteligencja narodowa – odżyło w twórczości z niesłychaną siłą, nic z taką... ta legenda Marca rośnie w miarę, jak on się oddala. To bardzo ważne, bo to będzie owocować w kulturze narodowej jeszcze bardzo długo. Bo to taki daje, tej kulturze narodowej, taki znak antytotalitarny, dało przed "Solidarnością". No, oczywiście w świadomości społecznej to, że izolacja od robotników, inteligencji od robotników jest zgubna i potem po grudniu... i odwrotnie, że sami, tak samo jak sama inteligencja musi przegrać, tak sami robotnicy też. Wprawdzie nie wprost przegrają, ale manewrem mi na to samo wychodzi. To jest to, co zaowocowało potem "Solidarnością" w świadomości społecznej. No i wreszcie, co nie najmniej ważne, to myślę, że to była zbiorowa edukacja walki. Olbrzymia, bo to się działo publicznie, wszyscy widzieli. To proste sprawy, że się robi wiec, że wiec wybiera komitet, że komitet wysuwa rezolucje, że wiec rezolucje uchwala, że potem jest strajk okupacyjny, który żąda – zostało to przecież wszystko później powtórzone w grudniu, właściwie najdokładniej w styczniu 1971 roku w Stoczni Szczecińskiej. Myślę sobie, że to jest nauka Marca, bo ruch uczy się od ruchu, niesłychanie ważne to jest dla ruchu, zasadnicze dla ruchu jest doświadczenia innego ruchu. To, że robotnicy w 1970 roku wołali, studenci, pisali: "Studenci, przepraszamy Was za marzec", to jest właśnie znak tej... tej edukacji.

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: Jacek Petrycki Marcel Łoziński

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.

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.

Tags: Gliwice, Opole, Kraków, Wrocław, Siedlce, Dziady, National Theatre, Polish People`s Republik, Party, Solidarność, Szczecin shipyard, Mieczysław Moczar, Jacek Berezin, Ryszard Krynicki, Stanisław Barańczak, Wojciech Załuski

Duration: 4 minutes, 35 seconds

Date story recorded: 1987

Date story went live: 12 June 2008