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An initiative of the PZPR

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Lech Wałęsa
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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As far as Wałęsa is concerned, there isn't a shadow of a doubt that no other person in Poland has the kind of authority he has – an authority that many question but also one that many people in Poland accept unquestioningly. In addition, Wałęsa is the sort of person who has shown more than once that he's capable of original political initiatives, that he's not the kind of person who'll be swept up on a wave or that he can't control the direction the movement is taking. There is no doubt that without his participation, without – as everyone agrees – his great political intuition with which he made numerous mistakes – today we learn from the press that he publicly admits to one of these mistakes – but still he is a man of significant calibre and the special role he played in Solidarity and in the country is irrefutable. By the same token, he also had to be in the first place when the decision was being made about the Round Table, when people were sitting down to the Round Table, when the elections were being held, when people were being chosen, selected in various ways – it's untrue that everything was done by nominations, by simple nomination, the relations were quite complicated. However, Wałęsa's role in all of this was primary and fundamental, and a symbolic trace of this will forever remain in the election posters which will be preserved somewhere, and where each candidate was photographed alongside Wałęsa for his or her election poster. I'm not a fan of excessive... this kind of excessive emphasising of the role of even the most wonderful individual in political life, in social life, but whether or not you're a great supporter of this kind of thing, there's one thing that can't be called into question and it's that Wałęsa worked hard to bring about this situation, and anyone who negates it is not showing any political sense.

Jeżeli chodzi o Wałęsę, no to nie ulega wątpliwości jedna rzecz – że nie ma człowieka drugiego o tak dużym autorytecie w Polsce, nie... przez wielu kwestionowany autorytet, ale przez masę Polaków – niekwestionowany. W dodatku Wałęsa jest człowiekiem, który niejednokrotnie pokazał, że stać go na oryginalne inicjatywy polityczne, że nie jest to człowiek, który daje się nieść fali, a nic... a to... tym kierunkiem ruchu nie potrafi kierować. I nie ulega wątpliwości, że bez jego udziału, bez zresztą tej jego – wszyscy się z tym godzą – wielkiej intuicji politycznej z którą popełnia niejednokrotnie błędy – dzisiaj się z prasy dowiadujemy, że do jednego z tych błędów się na przykład przyznaje publicznie – ale jest to człowiek wielkiego kalibru i jednak w masach solidarnościowych i w masie narodu jego taka rola szczególna nie jest kwestionowana. I tym samym, musiał być też numerem pierwszym wówczas, gdy decydowano się na Okrągły Stół, gdy siadano do Okrągłego Stołu, gdy przystępowano do wyborów, gdy wybierano, gdy wyznaczano raczej na różne sposoby – to nieprawda, że to wszystko była jakaś nominacja, prosta nominacja, to były dosyć skomplikowane układy. Wałęsa jednak odgrywał w tych wszystkich sprawach rolę pierwszą, zasadniczą, czego znowu takim symbolicznym śladem na zawsze pozostanie w plakatach, które będą przechowywane gdzieś tam z czasów wyborów, że każdy z nas kandydatów był fotografowany na podstawowy swój plakat wyborczy razem z Wałęsą. Ja nie jestem miłośnikiem... zbytniego... takiego zbytniego uwydatniania roli jakiejkolwiek, nawet najwspanialszej jednostki w życiu politycznym, w życiu społecznym; niemniej jednak czy jest się wielkim wielbicielem czy nie tego rodzaju mechanizmów, no, jedna rzecz nie ulega wątpliwości – że Wałęsa tutaj sobie tę sytuację wypracował i ktoś, kto ją neguje, postępuje nierozsądnie w wymiarze politycznym.

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: Marcel Łoziński Jacek Petrycki

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.

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.

Tags: Poland, Round Table, Solidarity, Lech Wałęsa

Duration: 2 minutes, 46 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 15 March 2011