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Everyone took part in creating Solidarność

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The article in the Biuletyn Informacyjny
Jacek Kuroń Social activist
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In September we published an article in the Biuletyn Informacyjny with the title What next? in which I wrote about Solidarność and the whole situation, using the example of a timetable. I said imagine that one day in some country the train schedule, which as we know is centrally controlled, was changed and every tenth train was self-governing, meaning that all the passengers and its crew decided when it would travel, where it would go, what its destination would be and where it would stop. Then there would be two solutions. Either - these wouldn't really be solutions - either there'd be a disaster, a series of disasters or else, there would have to be a change in the way timetables were set up. And that is the situation in our country. We are living in a system which is centrally led in which suddenly even more than one in ten trains are self-governing, because we're not talking just about Solidarność here. What we're talking about is that the creation of an independent and truly self-governing Solidarność, immediately made all the other links independent. Factories. And now either everything will disintegrate or there'll be a change in the system. The sort of change that will enable us to reconcile the leadership role of the Party that we agreed to in the talks we held in August, with autonomy, self-government, social independence. This could be done and I presented a proposal of how it could be done, but right now, this proposal isn't important. It's funny how my words were quoted very liberally at the next plenary session by the First Secretary of the Party Central Committe, Kania, concluding that, he quoted me faithfully, concluding that I want catastrophes to occur. This especially shocked me. It seemed to indicate that he really had not understood the situation, which was exceptionally grave. Our movement, a social movement, had been created and now this movement belonged to the authorities. The Party had to make it because we had left the power in their hands and we didn't want to take it from them, very definitely we didn't want this. This now meant that they had to work out a system which would accommodate independence and autonomy whereas they weren't trying to do this nor could they do it because they didn't understand the situation.

We wrześniu w Biuletynie Informacyjnym opublikowałem artykuł Co dalej?, w którym pisałem o "Solidarności" i o sytuacji, odwołując się do przykładu z rozkładem jazdy. Mówiłem mianowicie, że gdybyśmy sobie wyobrazili któregoś dnia w jakimś kraju, w ruchu pociągów, który jak wiadomo wszędzie jest kierowany centralnie sterowanym rozkładem jazdy. Wprowadzono zasadę, że co dziesiąty pociąg jest pociągiem samorządnym, to znaczy wszyscy jego pasażerowie i załoga ustalają kiedy jedzie, gdzie jedzie, dokąd zdąża, gdzie staje. No to oczywiście byłyby wtedy dwa wyjścia. Albo... nie tyle dwa wyjścia, tylko... albo by nastąpiły katastrofy, seria katastrof, albo trzeba by zmienić zasady ustalania rozkładu jazdy. I taka jest właśnie sytuacja w naszym kraju. Żyjemy w systemie centralnie sterowanym, w którym nagle wprowadzono więcej nawet niż co dziesiąty pociąg samorządny, bo to nie chodzi tylko o "Solidarność", chodzi o to, że powstanie niezależnej rzeczywiście i samorządnej "Solidarności" usamodzielnia natychmiast wszystkie właściwie inne ogniwa współpracy. Zakłady. I teraz albo to wszystko rozpieprzy się w drzazgi, albo nastąpi zmiana systemu. Taka zmiana systemu, która pozwoli pogodzić przyjętą przez nas w sierpniowych porozumieniach kierowniczą rolę partii z samodzielnością, samorządnością, niezależnością społeczną. I to można zrobić i składałem tam propozycję, jak to zrobić, ale to w tej chwili ta propozycja nie jest istotna. Zabawne, że ten mój cytat bardzo obficie na najbliższym plenum przytoczył pierwszy sekretarz Komitetu Centralnego Partii – Kania – z taką oto... przytoczył go uczciwie, z taką oto konkluzją, że ja chcę katastrof. Mnie to szczególnie przeraziło. Jakby wskazywało, że on naprawdę nie rozumie sytuacji, a sytuacja była niezwykle dramatyczna. Jakby nasz ruch, ruch społeczeństwa został zrobiony, teraz ruch należał do władzy. Ona go musiała zrobić, ponieważ im żeśmy pozostawili władzę i nie chcieliśmy jej brać, nie chcieliśmy zdecydowanie. To znaczyło to, że teraz oni muszą, oni muszą wypracować system, w którym będzie się niezależność i samorządność mieścić, a oni takich prób nawet nie podejmowali i podejmować jakby nie mogli, bo jakby nie rozumieli sytuacji.

The late Polish activist, Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004), had an influential but turbulent political career, helping transform the political landscape of Poland. He was expelled from the communist party, arrested and incarcerated. He was also instrumental in setting up the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) and later became a Minister of Labour and Social Policy.

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: Biuletyn Informacyjny, What Next, Solidarność, Party, Stanisław Kania

Duration: 2 minutes, 34 seconds

Date story recorded: 1987

Date story went live: 12 June 2008