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The role of the Church

RELATED STORIES

Polish fondness for uniforms
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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The First Secretary was successfully replaced, after which there was relative peace for a few years. They tried this a second time, replacing the compromised Gierek with Kania but this didn't last long. The Party apparatus considered Kania to be too soft and unable to cope, and suddenly this person in a uniform appeared, General Jaruzelski, who became... who began to concentrate all authority in his hands and this was because of the strength of the army that he represented as well as because in Poland, people have always had a fondness for uniforms.

Z powodzeniem zastosowano manewr wymiany Pierwszego Sekretarza i na kilka lat był spokój. Tym razem spróbowano tego po raz drugi i skompromitowanego już Gierka zastąpił Kania, ale to na... też nie potrwało długo. W aparacie partyjnym uważano, iż Kania jest za miękki, nie potrafi sobie dać rady i nagle pojawił się człowiek w mundurze, generał Jaruzelski, który został... który zaczął koncentrować całą władzę w swoich rękach, a było to obliczone zarówno na siłę tej armii, którą reprezentował, jak i na to, że w Polsce zawsze błąkają się jakieś sentymenty do munduru.

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: First Secretary, Party, Poland, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Edward Gierek, Stanisław Kania

Duration: 57 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 15 March 2011