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Striking workers face arrest

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Strike in Ursus
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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When it turned out that I'd avoided internment, I had to decide straight away what I was going to do. It was obvious that the governing regional committee wouldn't meet or at least not under the prevailing conditions and so I decided to go to one of the factories as that was the place for a member of the governing committee when the workers were on strike, and I chose Ursus because I had enough friends there who were Solidarity activists to know that I would be smuggled into the factory unless, of course, they were being watched very closely and then I wouldn't be able to get in. Well, I did get in but my first impression was shocking because I arrived between the first and the second shift, and a huge surge of people was heading for the exit and this went on for such a long time that after a while I thought to myself, the strike is clearly over. But it turned out that the strike wasn't over only that the number of people on strike had reduced hugely and very few people joined from the next shift. Soon after that, Ursus became much more carefully and tightly surrounded. My duty was to instruct people on how to behave meaning, I explained to those people who were all fired up that a crowbar and nuts and bolts weren't weapons but only a form of demonstration which at best could cost a couple of lives or worse, more than a couple or in the worst case there would be a large number of fatalities. I believed this was too high a price to pay. A monument would later be erected to those who'd died but that wouldn't make any difference to the general direction events were taking. Usually I managed to get through to these people, those who were the most fired up, and I convinced them that this wasn't the way but at the same time, I had to battle against those who were saying that the strike has to end, that it's time to announce the dissolution of the strike. I had no doubt that in view of the effect this would have on the rest of the country, the surrender of Ursus would have a terrible effect on people – it would crush their morale. The strike would have been broken by the other side with the use of force, it didn't have the right to surrender, we just had to limit the outcome of the forceful invasion. So when at midnight we could see that – at midnight between Monday and Tuesday – we could see that they were entering the factory grounds, there remained out of a workforce that numbered several thousand, only around 400 people squeezed into one hall, actually, not squeezed in just gathered, and I had a feeling that this was a failure. Only 400 people had had the courage to stay. How much easier is it logistically to disband, to dismantle a strike involving a few hundred people.

No, gdy okazało się, że uniknąłem internowania, od razu musiałem się zdecydować, co mam robić. Było widać, że zarząd regionu się zapewne nie zbierze, a w każdym razie nie w takich warunkach, które w tym momencie były i postanowiłem się dostać do którejś z fabryk, bo tam jest miejsce dla członka zarządu regionu, gdy robotnicy strajkują, i wybrałem Ursus ze względu na to, że miałem tam dostateczną ilość znajomych, działaczy „Solidarności”, żeby wiedzieć, iż zostanę do zakładu przemycony, no chyba, że byłaby bardzo silna szpera, to bym wtedy nie. No i rzeczywiście dostałem się, ale pierwsze już wrażenie było dla mnie przerażające, bo przyszedłem między pierwszą a drugą zmianą i płynęła ogromna fala na zewnątrz i tak długo płynęła, że ja sobie w pewnym momencie pomyślałem: „Tam się strajk skończył najwyraźniej”. Okazało się jednak, że strajk się nie skończył, ale że ilość ludzi strajkujących bardzo zmalała, a z następnej zmiany bardzo niewiele osób weszło, wkrótce zresztą Ursus został dokładniej, szczelniej otoczony. No i moim zadaniem właściwie było to, żeby instruować ludzi, jak się mają zachować. To znaczy, że tłumaczyłem tym bardziej gorącym, że łom i mutra nie są żadną bronią, są tylko pewnym rodzajem demonstracji, który będzie kosztował w lepszym wypadku paru zabitych, w gorszym kilkunastu zabitych, w najgorszym jeszcze więcej. I uważałem, że jest to za duża cena, potem się postawi pomnik poległym, ale nie wpłynie to na pewno na ogólny bieg wydarzeń, no i przeważnie udawało mi się tym ludziom, tym najbardziej gorącym, jednak jakoś przemówić do przekonania, że rzeczywiście w ten sposób nie będzie... ale jednocześnie musiałem zwalczać tych, którzy powiadali, że strajk trzeba zakończyć, ogłosić... rozwiązanie strajku. Dla mnie nie ulegało wątpliwości, że ze względu na efekt krajowy kapitulacja Ursusa zrobi fatalne wrażenie na ludziach, będzie im odbierała ducha, strajk musi być z tamtej strony złamany siłą, nie ma prawa się rozejść, trzeba tylko zminimalizować koszty tego wkroczenia sił. No i kiedy o północy już było widać, że – o północy z poniedziałku na wtorek – kiedy było widać, że wkraczają na teren zakładów, to z kilkunastotysięcznej załogi Ursusa było nas stłoczonych na jednej hali – no, nie stłoczonych, bo właśnie tłoku nie było – zebranych na jednej hali około czterystu osób i to przeżywałem poczucie klęski. Tylko czterysta osób odważyło się pozostać. O ileż zresztą łatwiejsze nawet technicznie jest rozbrajanie, likwidacja strajku kilkusetosobowego.

Jan Józef Lipski (1926-1991) was one of Poland's best known political activists. He was also a writer and a literary critic. As a soldier in the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), he fought in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1976, following worker protests, he co-founded the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). His active opposition to Poland's communist authorities led to his arrest and imprisonment on several occasions. In 1987, he re-established and headed the Polish Socialist Party. Two years later, he was elected to the Polish Senate. He died in 1991 while still in office. For his significant work, Lipski was honoured with the Cross of the Valorous (Krzyż Walecznych), posthumously with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1991) and with the highest Polish decoration, the Order of the White Eagle (2006).

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: Ursus, Solidarity

Duration: 4 minutes, 25 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 14 March 2011