Subtitle:

Polska 1944/45-1989 : studia i materiały 10 (2011)

Contributor:

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Publisher:

Instytut Historii PAN

Place of publishing:

Warszawa

Description:

p. 331-359 ; Eng. summary

Type of object:

Journal/Article

Abstract:

A Workers’ Defence Committee (Polish: Komitet Obrony Robotników) founded in 1976 was the first open oppositional organisation in communist Poland. Apart from legal and financial assistance to the workers persecuted by the state authorities, the KOR organised a publication of periodicals outside the reach of the state censorship, such as the ‘Information Bulletin’ (‘Biuletyn Informacyjny’). Initially, the periodicals copies were typewritten, but at the turn of 1976 and 1977 they began to be multicopied on duplicating machines, which allowed to greatly increase their circulation. The KOR Communiqués described the scale of reprisals: a number of detained, fired and convicted workers, they reported beatings, trials and sentences. They presented detailed scopes and types of the assistance offered and informed of the police actions towards the opponents: arrests, interrogations, beatings and other persecutions. According to the main principle, only proven information was published. The information about the KOR activities was passed on to Western journals and broadcasting stations from where it was transmitted back to Poland, through the broadcasts of the BBC Radio and the Radio Free Europe.To the mid-March of 1977 the Committee had financially assisted 557 families. Cases of legal and medical help are impossible to be counted. The KOR’s representatives were sent to workers’ trials, they reached the families of imprisoned workers. The information had been gathered about the fate of almost thousand persons throughout the whole country. The operation was conducted by volunteers only, and the funds were raised through individual donations handed from person to person. The authorities of communist Poland launched a campaign to plague the opposition members with anonymous letters containing insults and threats, telephone calls and intrusions of alleged workers, but all those failed to interrupt the KOR activity.

Relation:

Polska 1944/45-1989 : studia i materiały

Volume:

10

Start page:

331

End page:

359

Detailed Resource Type:

Article : original article

Format:

application/pdf

Resource Identifier:

oai:rcin.org.pl:59715 ; 2450-8357

Source:

IH PAN, sygn. B.155/10 Podr. ; IH PAN, sygn. B.156/10 ; click here to follow the link

Language:

pol

Language of abstract:

eng

Rights:

Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license

Terms of use:

Copyright-protected material. [CC BY-ND 4.0] May be used within the scope specified in Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license, full text available at: ; -

Digitizing institution:

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Original in:

Library of the Institute of History PAS

Access:

Open