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We thought it was wrong, it was tragic,
that in the 1970s when they shot
at workers, the intelligentsia didn’t
sympathize with them.
When students were attacked in 1968,
and the intelligentsia was persecuted,
the workers didn’t support us.
In my circles, we all knew
this had to never happen again.
1968 was a real turning point,
not just for me, but for an entire generation,
for me and my friends.
I don’t mean just the year 1968,
because we had been preparing for
these kinds of opposition activities for quite some time.
We formed discussion groups,
we attended meetings.
We were young Marxists who were
moving away from Marxism. Very slowly.
I would say that at that time the scouts
was really the only training ground
for preparing people to organize.
That’s why we had a few people in KOR from the communist “Walter” scout troop.
There were also people from the scouts.
We had a whole group from the legendary “Black Troop.”
They came from Rejtan High School
from Mokotów, from the Black Troop.
Their numbers began to grow rapidly.
This was part of the ideological
and intellectual backdrop that led
to the formation of KOR.
They were young people who all agreed that
something needed to be changed in Poland.
Something concrete had to be done.
And this awareness that we expected
something concrete was a response to
the general political situation in the mid-1970s,
To the changes to the Constitution in 1975.
We participated actively, we organized,
and in addition to the Letter of 59
signed by the intellectuals, we organized
what was called the Letter of 600.
It was signed by a many academics,
young people, and others, as well.
It wasn’t just a protest against writing
into the Constitution the leading role
of the Communist Party and Poland’s
eternal friendship with the Soviet Union.
KOR was formed in 1976, when workers
were protesting the rise in prices.
There were street demonstrations in Radom and at the Ursus plant.
There was a major wave of strikes all through Poland.
The government responded with beatings of workers,
very ruthless and brutal beatings.
I saw women wearing no bra and no blouse
Everyone was kneeling or lying down.
No one could stand up.
None of the people arrested could stand on their feet.
Everyone had been beaten,
abused, and their clothes torn
On the way to the police station
I still had some faith
I went in, the door shut behind me,
and then it began.
They jumped on me like rabid dogs.
They began kicking and beating me.
If workers were risking their lives,
health and freedom to fight for the nation,
so that people could afford to buy bread, because things were that bad.
The price of sugar was rolled back,
the price increases were withdrawn.
Their actions proved to be effective.
And they achieved this not only for themselves, but for everyone.
Then it was the duty of those who
benefited from these actions
to provide them with assistance.
I want to assure the working class throughout
the country, the party leaders share your anger
and outrage that some of our comrades,
ignoring their primary responsibilities,
left their workplaces and started riots
not only in Radom, but throughout the country.
They put us on trial within the month.
They charged us with causing 28,000,000 zl.
in damages and injuring 75 militiamen, 9 seriously.
They charged me and those they said caused
this damage with Article 275, par. 1 and 2.
The penalty was from five years in prison
all the way up to the death penalty.
We could get at least 25 years.
We had to be ready for anything.
We had to find a way to defend them.
Not just those who were beaten and arrested.
A lot of people had lost their jobs.
What would they live on?
I go to the court at the appointed hour.
I go inside, climb the stairs, and then
someone behind me taps me on the shoulder.
I didn’t know anyone, I had no one to turn to.
I turn around, and the person asks,
“Are you Zofia Sadowska?” I say, “yes”.
“You’ll be defended by Mr. Si³a-Nowicki.”
The phone rang from morning till night.
They gave us all kinds of information.
So-and-so has been detained. “Mr. Kuroñ, I’ve been beaten.”
“I was kicked out of so-and-so in Radom.”
Every piece of information had to be checked. So-and-so gave us this piece of information.
People were constantly giving and receiving,
as much information as possible about what was happening at the time.
I was regularly passing it all on to journalists.
I was working non-stop, the whole family was.
Gajka, Maciek and myself. We were constantly
waiting by the phone, which rang constantly.
With everything they were telling us,
we were convinced many times
that there was nothing so unlikely
that it couldn’t prove to be true.
Red Radom, I remember the bruises
when they clubbed people’s backs.
Road no. 7, cops at the railway station,
some money, some addresses.
June found us outside the city,
and in the autumn, Kondrat
was waiting for us.
The first money’s been collected.
We went, someone had to go.
The three of us met that summer.
Macierewicz, Wojtek Onyszkiewicz and I.
We decided at that meeting that we three
would form a defence committee for the workers.
Maybe they’d arrest us, maybe they wouldn’t,
but if they arrested us, maybe somebody would continue
In a word, it was already an institution.
The institution had been declared.
And having made this decision,
we met with Jan Józef Lipski
and Jacek Kuron, who arrived on a pass from the army.
I heard “the Workers’ Defence Committee”,
and my eyes lit me up.
It’s a brilliant idea. This is what we need.
it might move public opinion a little,
that someone would hear about us,
and that maybe the authorities
would simply be unprepared for this kind of activity.
We told them different things.
I said that I was with KIK.
But these people didn’t know what it meant.
They thought KIK was the name
of some organization or something.
Some organization called ZKIKUŒ.
They weren’t bothered by this.
They listened. They never threw us out.
They were distrustful at first,
but they became more trusting.
The situation with contacts varied.
If you came with money, with help,
they would be very open.
However, when we tried to do
something more, hold a meeting,
then they immediately closed up,
with few exceptions.
And this was understandable.
We tried to do hold meetings.
For example, a meeting of workers from Ursus and Radom.
It was infiltrated by the secret police,
who then went to those workers and threatened them.
The Workers' Defence Committee considers
its duty to inform the public
about the extent to which the law
is being violated in our country.
In a statement issued in connection
with the tragic death of Stanislaw Pyjas,
we inform about the physical terror
used against KOR members
Staszek was found in the gateway
of a house in the centre of Krakow.
It was on old, historic house.
The circumstances around how
the body was discovered –
clearly showed this was no accident.
That the body had been abandoned in a panic.
This was the first time I became frightened.
After this happened they locked us all up.
This was probably their first
attempt to deal with KOR.
When we were released after a few months,
they announced an amnesty, but it wasn’t just for us.
They released all the other workers, as well.
Something like this had never happened before.
That you could fight with the regime and win.
That it was that simple.
We began our publishing activities
like the Soviet dissidents –
by typing out copies on a typewriter.
Later, we went through all the stages.
Carbon paper, spirit duplicating,
and finally a duplicator.
Our beginnings as real publishers were three dilapidated, horribly old
duplicators bought in an auction at the American embassy.
I think it was the only place in Poland where you could
buy them without permission from the government.
We were rank amateurs.
In the beginning we didn’t even know you needed to pour ink inside.
In the beginning, our print technique
was amateurish. It had nothing
to do with real printing.
Almost all our publications except
The Worker were printed at Nowa.
Its driving force, its founder
and head was Mirek Chojecki.
Working along with him
and helping run it were Grzesiek Boguta,
Konrad Bieliñski, and Ewa Milewicz.
Adam Michnik was the editorial chief.
Finally, we have independent, self-governing trade unions.
The was no place for KOR anymore.
So, at the Solidarity Congress
in September 1984, the head of KOR,
Prof. Lipinski, announced a resolution
to dissolve KOR.
I think this was an inevitable step
given the situation.
On the 5th anniversary of the founding
of the Workers' Defence Committee,
we consider our work finished.
Our desire was for it to make
a contribution to the great national
project to create an independent,
just and democratic Poland.
KOR was the collaborative effort
of great moral authorities,
the kind that were present in pre-war Poland
in the Second Republic,
in the Home Army.
A protest by post-war
intellectuals and young people
who simply didn’t want to live
in this gloomy system.
In which it was impossible to endure every day life.