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Polish activist Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004) helped to transform the political landscape of Poland. He was expelled from the communist party, arrested and incarcerated. He was also instrumental in setting up Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) and became a Minister of Labour and Social Policy. [Listeners: Jacek Petrycki, Marcel Łoziński; date recorded: 1987]
TRANSCRIPT: And suddenly... we had quite a strong position in Silesia... and suddenly, Kazio Świtoń organised trade unions in Katowice. When he set up these trade unions, we were furious because according to our predictions, he had no... he didn't represent anyone while we only represented a few people. He got Władek Sulecki involved but he stuck his neck out too far and so the police came down on them heavily with batons and of course smashed up everything, every last bit of our work in Silesia, isolating Kazio Świtoń, and that was that. Occasionally, Kazio would make himself heard and he called for free trade unions. Leszek Moczulski usually boasts that he managed to set up a free trade union in Katowice and pushed for having a free trade union on the coast where there was a very good group. Wałęsa was already there, Ania Walentynowicz, Bogdan Rusewicz, Andrzej and Joanna Gwiazda and a sizeable group of workers around them, a sizeable group of workers. Suddenly, Moczulski used his own people to try and set up a free trade union on the coast, and that's when Krzyś Wyszkowski came to see me with a letter from Bogdan in which he said he knew, they knew that Moczulski wants to set up a free trade union with them because his explanation was it's true that we don't have anyone right now, but this is a plate, so let's put the plate in position because the time will come when soup will begin to drip down, and we'll be able to catch this soup in our plate. So Bogdan wrote a letter and said this was futile, if you show your colours it'll come to nothing. Łuczywo from 'Robotnik' had rightly said this earlier because there were quite a few groups that wanted to set up organisations, institutes and to show their colours. He said a group like that could be set up but only in places where the people had their own capacity to defend themselves, because what happened with Kazio was that when he got arrested, we had to export the revolution to Katowice. Week after week we used the people in Wrocław, Kraków and Warsaw to leaflet the area. The police attacked the people while we carried on leafletting on the premise that as long as we're handing out leaflets, organising some action, they've got so much shit to deal with that it's better, worse, worse... it's better to set Świtoń free than to have him locked up. And that's what happened - they let Świtoń out. Fine, that was him but if we're to organise a whole operation using all our resources in defense of one person who took it into his head to show his colours - we can't do that. However, I believed that on the coast this was possible, that here Łuczywo's law came into its own. Namely, there really was a community here that was able to defend the committee. And it was in this spirit that I expressed myself and it was in the same spirit that the editorial board of 'Robotnik' expressed itself, because Bogdan asked them for their opinion and as a result, free trade unions were set up on the coast. As we know, this turned out to be an exceptionally worthwhile and sensible thing to have done.
