a story lives forever
Register
Sign in
Form submission failed!

Stay signed in

Recover your password?
Register
Form submission failed!

Web of Stories Ltd would like to keep you informed about our products and services.

Please tick here if you would like us to keep you informed about our products and services.

I have read and accepted the Terms & Conditions.

Please note: Your email and any private information provided at registration will not be passed on to other individuals or organisations without your specific approval.

Video URL

You must be registered to use this feature. Sign in or register.

NEXT STORY

We need a new concept of socialism

RELATED STORIES

Why I stood in elections to the Senate
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
Comments (0) Please sign in or register to add comments

First of all, why did I decide to be a candidate, because that's what I will be. It's because I support the direction Wałęsa is taking, because I'm a member of the Citizen's Committee and I believe that although much criticism can be levelled at this line of politics, it is, on balance, the right one and it leads to changes which are beneficial to the opposition. I will be a candidate for elections to the Senate. This is very appropriate for my grey head. Although the Senate is politically slightly less significant than the Sejm, it requires less energy which I also have to take into consideration seeing how I'm not in the best of health. After several suggestions, it turns out that I will be the candidate for a place which perhaps I'd prefer more than Warsaw where there are crowds of willing candidates. Namely, Radom. As one of the founders of KOR [Komitet Obrony Robotników (Workers' Defence Committee)], an organiser of aid for the workers of Radom, someone who was pretty familiar with the Radom police station and its detention facilities, no one would have dared say at any election meeting, 'You're from Warsaw so what are you doing here and why have you come over here to us?' If anyone is bold enough, they'll get the following answer that I don't know where you were when the workers were taking the 'constitutional walks', and I was... straight after that, I was in Radom, I was at the trials, I was arrested and so on. This is how I'll win points. So I'm very pleased that the Citizen's Committee... the commission of the Citizen's Committee which initially had other plans which it considered as troublesome, that it placed me there. I have great satisfaction in going to Radom and, God willing, winning the seat there. I can go to Radom without fear of their secret policemen, their militia, without running into a courtyard and up the stairs each time I'd think there's something suspicious going on.

Przede wszystkim dlaczego zdecydowałem się na kandydowanie – bo będę kandydować. Dlatego, że popieram linię Wałęsy, że jestem członkiem Komitetu Obywatelskiego i uważam, że ta polityka, mimo że dużo, dużo można krytycznego na jej temat powiedzieć jest per saldo słuszna i prowadzi do zmian sytuacyjnych korzystnych dla... dla opozycji. Kandydować będę do Senatu. No, mojej siwej głowie to bardzo przystoi. Z tym że Senat jest to politycznie trochę mniej ważne ciało w tym układzie niż Sejm, ale jednocześnie mniej energii angażujące, co też... w swoich rachunkach jako człowiek średniego zdrowia muszę brać pod uwagę. Kandydować będę – ostatecznie się okazuje, bo były różne przymiarki – z miejsca w którym kto wie, czy nie bardziej mi właśnie zależało, żeby stamtąd kandydować niż ewentualnie z Warszawy, gdzie jest tłok duży jeżeli chodzi o chętnych: mianowicie z Radomia. Jednemu z założycieli KOR-u, organizatorów pomocy dla robotników radomskich, komuś kto zna dosyć dobrze Komendę Milicji w Radomiu i jej pomieszczenia aresztanckie, nikt nie odważy się na żadnym zebraniu wyborczym powiedzieć: „Pan jest z Warszawy, co Pan tutaj robi i po co Pan do nas przyjechał?”. A jeżeli się ktoś odważy, to otrzyma taką odpowiedź, że ja nie wiem, gdzie pan był, gdy robotnicy przechodzili przez „ścieżki zdrowia”, ale ja byłem... zaraz po tym byłem w Radomiu właśnie, byłem na rozprawach sądowych, byłem w areszcie i tak dalej. I w ten sposób wygrywam punkty. Tak że jestem bardzo zadowolony z tego, że ostatecznie Komitet Obywatelski, który... komisja Komitetu Obywatelskiego, która z początku miała inne przymiarki, które uważała za kłopotliwe raczej dla siebie, że umieściła mnie tam. Mam wielką satysfakcję pojechać do Radomia i jeszcze tam, daj Boże, wygrać. Pojechać do Radomia w sytuacji, kiedy się nie muszę bać tamtejszych ubeków, tamtejszej milicji, kiedy nie wpadam do bramy i na schody, kiedy mi się wydaje, że coś podejrzanego i tak dalej.

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: Citizen's Committee, Senate, Sejm, Warsaw, Radom, KOR, Komitet Ochrony Robotników, Worker's Defence Committee, Lech Wałęsa

Duration: 3 minutes, 4 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 15 March 2011