Jacek Kuroń - Why they threw me out of the Party (40/150)

To listen to more of Jacek Kuroń’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Jacek Kuroń (Social activist)   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: Finally, after three days, I was summoned for a talk, but Wołczyk wasn't there. There was one comrade from the KW and one from the ZMP Chief Committee. And we went through all of it again. I stuck to what I'd said while they didn't even go into what was true, but were only interested in my reasons for doing what I did. It turns out that I's suggested... anyway, there is one more story connected with all of this. I had one associate. I was looking for some people to help me in the department of propaganda. Finally, I found one guy who as I thought was very bright, the kind of a person who can do the impossible, organise everything and stuff. A couple of days after that guy came to our department for the first time, one of my associates came to me and said, 'Listen, I was in the district security services and they told me there that this guy is an American spy, but I have to let him in.' Then he told me how he was going to provoke him into telling him some secrets. So when that guy came I took him for a beer and told him what I had found out and he disappeared. And later I was reproached for it, that I wanted to employ an American spy. The funniest thing is that some time after that I met him, it was in '56. He was a delegate of the Ministry of the Interior working for the Golden Tiger, you know, the publishing house Golden Tiger and he was a representative of the Ministry of the Interior, I think it was the Ministry but it could have been of the district, I'm not sure. Anyway, he clearly worked for the secret police. I haven't seen him since. But I wasn't reproached for telling him what I had been told in secret, I want to make it clear, I wasn't reproached for that. I was reproached for employing an American spy, and the daughter of a volksdeutsch. She was actively working in a workers' hotel at Ogrodowa Street. There were terrible things happening there. In general those workers' hotels were really appalling. She was working very hard there trying to create a better atmosphere or something. So we were associates and I asked her one day if she would like to join the ruling committee. She said she would but that she's the daughter of a volksdeutsch's from Łódź. I asked her to write this down in a questionnaire and I took it to Wołczyk. He said, 'No, leave it.' But I was reproached for it then anyway. It took a long time and there were lots of charges brought against me, but at the end of the Party meeting the main problems discussed were my conceit. And so I was expelled from the Party for being conceited.