1986: Adam Michnik

1986

Adam Michnik - Poland

Released

Adam Michnik was born in October 1946 in Poland. In 1964 he was suspended from Warsaw university where he was a student, for distributing an open letter to members of the Polish United Workers Party (PUWP) which called for a ‘repairing' of the Polish political system. In 1966 he was suspended a second time for organizing a discussion with expelled former members of the PUWP.

In March 1968 Poland was rocked by student protests across the campuses and major cities. For his involvement Michnik was once again excluded from university and sentenced to three years imprisonment for ‘acts of hooliganism'. He was released the following year under an amnesty.

After a brief period in Paris Michnik returned to Poland in 1977 and became involved in the Workers Defense Committee (KOR) and edited of several underground publications such as Biuletyn Informacyjny, Zapis, Krytyka. He also helped manage the underground publisher NOWa and became advisor to the independent trade union Solidarity.

In December 1981 Marshal Law was declared and Michnik was taken into custody, accused of attempting to ‘overthrow socialism'. He was released in 1984, however, the following year was sent back to prison for attempting to organize a strike in the Gdansk shipyard. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment but released in 1986 under another amnesty.

In 1989 Michnik helped organize the Round Table talks between the authorities and opposition and, after the fall of the communist government, went on to found and become editor of Gazeta Wyboreza one of Poland's leading newspapers.

His books include Letters from Freedom: Post-Cold War Realities and Perspectives, Church and the Left, and Letters from Prison and Other Essays.

Writing Sample:

General Jaruzelski has announced that those internees who desist from activities "contrary to the law" will be released. And so freedom is within the reach of one's hand. A few strokes of the pen on the loyalty declaration will suffice...

Friends and relatives are asking, "So what's stopping you from making these few inconsequential gestures?"

It is very easy, indeed, to exchange the barred window, with its clear outline of barbed wire fence behind it for "freedom." The steel gates of Bialoleka will open up before you, and instead of the prison yards you will see the streets of your hometown, filled with strolling army patrols and rolling tanks. You will see people being asked for identification cards, cars being stopped to have their trunks inspected, the security agent, with his keen eye, fishing out of the crowds individuals suspected of "violating the state of war legislation." You will hear World War II terms that until now you knew only from history books: "roundup," "Volksliste" - words cleansed of the dignifying patina of time and pulsing with new menace.
...

And if you are capable of making self-interested decisions, then the first reason for not signing is: it isn't worth it. Here, no one can put you in "provisional detention"; here, you need not fear anything. It is paradoxical, I know, but if one morning you are awakened by banging on the door you are not going to be afraid of the uniformed guests; it is only your good-humoured jailer handing out the morning coffee. Here, you do not panic at the sight of the cynic with his darting eyes - a stool pigeon is not a threat. Bialoleka is a moral luxury and an oasis of dignity. It is also a conspicuous symbol of your dissent and your importance. Since you are an internee, the authorities take you seriously.

They will sometimes try to scare you. A friend of mine, a factory worker from Warsaw, was promised fifteen years in jail; another was threatened with trial for espionage; a third was interrogated in Russian; a fourth was marched out of his cell and told that he would be going to the depths of Russia (when he was really being taken for an X-ray). But all this is bearable. I actually believe that it is easier to cope with than the morally and politically complicated situation on the other side of the wire fence.

From Letters from Prison and other essays translated by Maya Latynski (Berkeley; London : University of California Press, 1985) ISBN: 0-520-06175-6 accessed from Google Books