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Students occupied the headquarters of the PZPR National Committee. “Mom thought I was at school”

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The government is led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the president is Wojciech Jaruzelski. The Polish United Workers' Party will soon cease to exist. Protests are being announced across the country against the transfer of her property to the new party. In Poznań, students go a step further. At dawn, they break into the provincial committee and begin occupying the building. This is the 35th anniversary of these events.

The text was originally published on January 18, 2020.

1. 6.30 a.m. – meeting in the arcade of the tenement house on the corner of Święta Marcin and Lampego streets (currently Gwarna);

2. before 7 a.m. – entrance to the building;

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3. from 7 a.m. – occupation of the building until receiving a guarantee that the Polish United Workers' Party will hand over the building to the city.

The plan was approved only a dozen or so hours before the action.

– We agreed on this time the day before. On January 16, at 6:30 p.m., there was a “combat meeting” attended by a dozen or so people. There, we established a preliminary plan on how to carry out this action to seize the building of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, says Filip Kaczmarek, today a councilor of the Wielkopolska Voivodeship Assembly on behalf of the Civic Coalition, then chairman of the Independent Students' Association in Poznań.

Action before the funeral

The idea for the occupation of the party's headquarters in Poznań was Andrzej Jegliczka, a fifth-year history student. – The plan was to take over the building as quickly as possible in the early morning hours. The idea was to avoid a situation where many employees were inside. We assumed that the more people there were, the more potential conflicts – explains Kaczmarek.

What was the purpose of occupying the building? As the then chairman of the Poznań NZS explains, in this way the students wanted to forestall the movement of PZPR activists. After the electoral defeat in June 1989, the party was already a political corpse. The “funeral” was to take place on January 27 during the 11th Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party. The first, in a situation when the party was not ruling the country. A new creation was to be brought to life.

Kaczmarek: – We did not believe that the “new” party, emerging on the ruins of the “only right party”, would voluntarily give up its assets built during monopolistic rule. We couldn't let this happen.

Protests against the takeover of the PZPR's assets by the party founded on its ruins were announced throughout Poland on January 23 and 26. But Poznań students received signals that the building could be rented for business purposes by that time by a company dependent on PZPR activists – Przedsiębiorstwo Wielobranżowe Polstar. – There was no specific information about what it would do. The communists themselves did not know this yet. Trade, manufacturing and “implementation activities” were involved, says Kaczmarek.

The communist party, trying to escape responsibility for the past, is trying to transform into the so-called a “new party of the left”, without losing the wealth created as a result of monopolistic rule. We cannot agree to this!

They had their own intelligence

Therefore, it was decided to introduce a radical solution. The proposal for a peaceful occupation of the headquarters of the PZPR Committee was supported by the “Freedom and Peace” movement, Fighting Solidarity and Confederation Independent Poland.

At 6.30 a.m. several dozen people gathered in the arcades of a tenement house on Lampego Street. After about 20 minutes, they reached the building of the National Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party under the arcades. Thanks to information from archival students who had undergone internships at the PZPR National Committee, they knew what the layout of the building looked like and how to get to it. – Some of us entered through the main entrance. But the porter managed to close the door, so the rest entered through the side door on Kościuszki Street. He then saw that there were a lot of people inside and gave us the key, says Kaczmarek.

Some from the main entrance, others from the back. This is how the students entered the building of the National Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party17/01 | Filip Kaczmarek, chairman of the Independent Students' Association in Poznań, talks about the occupation of the building of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party in Poznań in 1990.TVN 24 Poznań

– I will never forget the scared face of the porter when we entered the building – recalls Mariusz Lisiecki, probably the youngest participant of those events. – I was active in Fighting Solidarity and the Independent School Youth Union. I was only 15 years old then and I shouldn't have been there at all. My mother believed I was at school. But I had such a nature that I slipped in everywhere. Maciej Frankiewicz (Poznań activist of Fighting Solidarity, vice-president of Poznań in 1999–2002 – editor's note) always watched over me and kept an eye on me to make sure nothing happened – he explains.

There were several people in the building occupied by students. Everyone was given 15 minutes to leave their offices. – After a few hours, it turned out that a technical worker was hiding somewhere under the stairs and was terribly afraid. He thought we were going to do him some harm. We released him, says Kaczmarek.

The next action of the “occupiers” was to seal the rooms. – We stamped almost all of them, including one of the party workers. The idea was not to accuse us of destroying or stealing anything, explains Kaczmarek. Only the conference room, the secretariat, toilets and one of the rooms where negotiations were held were not secured.

They took down the banners and hung up banners

Red flags were removed from the roof of the building. In return, it was suspended, among others, Flag of Fighting Solidarity. – I remember hanging this flag with Maciej Frankiewicz and Krzysztof Cnotalski. None of us lacked courage back then and no one thought about any consequences – recalls Lisiecki.

The occupation of the building began on January 17, 1990Filip Kaczmarek's collection

Banners with the words “occupation”, “committee to the university” and “It's over” were hung between the windows. The latter was hung on the top of the building, where in June 1956 protesting workers hung out the banner “Freedom and bread!”

– Today we would say that these were elements of visual identification. The idea was to let people outside know that someone else was in the building. They knew something was happening and were surprised, says Kaczmarek.

However, not everyone received information about the occupation of the PZPR National Committee. The phones in the office were ringing during the day.

– We made sure to take advantage of it. We answered by saying: “This is the Adam Mickiewicz University” or “Independent Students' Association, I'm listening.” Surprised callers hung up, thinking they had mixed up the numbers, Kaczmarek laughs.

Appropriate changes were also made inside: the inscription “NZS” appeared on red storm jackets, Lenin's bust was smeared with paint and dressed in a hat and scarf, and the eagle on the old emblem in the conference room was given a crown painted with chalk – after all, the new rules had been in force for three weeks. coat of arms and name of the country.

Lenin smeared in a hat and scarfFilip Kaczmarek's collection

This is how history was born

The First Secretary of the National Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party was summoned to negotiations. But it was not he who came to the students first, but the then president of Poznań, Andrzej Wituski (a member of the Polish United Workers' Party). To the students' surprise, he did not intend to attack them. On the contrary, he admitted to them that he understood their demands.

Negotiations started in the evening. The students were joined by, among others, Deputy Speaker of the Sejm Tadeusz Fiszbach and Secretary of the Central Committee Marek Król.

Party activists were furious. The “occupiers” were even surprised by such a hostile attitude. – Only later did it turn out that the next day, on January 18, a meeting of delegates from all over Greater Poland to the congress in Warsaw was to take place here. And here some students occupy the building and the meeting cannot take place. Therefore, the party wanted to negotiate leaving the building as soon as possible. We didn't care about that. We had other priorities, says Kaczmarek. The students demanded that the building be donated to social purposes.

They took down the banners and hung banners. Students occupied the National Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party

They took down the banners and hung banners. Students occupied the National Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party17/01 | Filip Kaczmarek, chairman of the Independent Students' Association in Poznań, talks about the occupation of the building of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party in Poznań in 1990.TVN 24 Poznań

No agreement could be reached on the first day. The meeting of delegates to the 11th Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party had to be moved to the Provincial Office.

The students spent the entire night in the PZPR National Committee building. – At night, UAM professors supported us and brought us soup and bread to the building – Kaczmarek recalls.

On Wednesday, the parties reached an agreement. Ultimately, it was decided to establish a social commission that would determine how the buildings throughout Greater Poland came into the hands of the party, what their legal status was and who financed their construction. It was also agreed that the current legal status of the building would be maintained, and the Polish United Workers' Party could not rent the premises to any other entities (the exception was the Adam Mickiewicz University).

At On the 13th, the students left the building, cleaning up after themselves and giving the painted Lenin a bath.

On January 29, 1990, the PZPR was dissolved.

In April 1990, a decision was made to hand over the building to the university. The history department was moved there. – Fate played such a trick on me that a year later I defended my master's thesis here – laughs Kaczmarek.

In 2015, history students moved to a new building in Morasko, Poznań.

Today it operates in the former building of the National Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party Enigma Cipher Centerdevoted largely to AMU graduates, “Enigma breakers” – Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski.

Author:Filip Czekała

Main photo source: Filip Kaczmarek's collection



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