Workers Against the Communist State - Radom, June 25 1976
"Radom, Mayday Street, 25th June 1976 - workers demonstration outside the burning building of the Regional Party Headquarters"from Gazeta Wyborcza 24.06.2006
Contents
1. Calendar of Events for the Events of Summer 1976
2. The Accounts of Radom Workers
3. Extracts from Warsaw Life, 29.06.1976
1. Calendar of Events for the Events of Summer 1976
[my translation of parts of this text from Gazeta Wyborcza]
24th June 1976 - Prime Minister Piotr Jaroszewicz presented the government’s project of drastic price rises in a televised address to Parliament: meat was to go up nearly 69%, cheese and butter by 50% and sugar by 100%... Parliament approved the project. The rises were to be implemented from Monday 28 June.
25th June 1976 - On Friday at dawn long queues begin to form outside food shops. People buy up everything that is supposed to increase in price. Above all sugar - previously readily available in the shops, from now on sugar will be in short supply to end of the People's Republic of Poland.
25th June 1976 – In the morning strikes begin in over 50 factories in Poland. In the afternoon there are close to a hundred. The largest gathered momentum in Radom, in a tractor factory in Ursus and at a Petrochemical Plant in Płock.
At 7 o’clock in the morning the first strikes started at the ‘Walter’ metal plants in Radom. About eight of the factories began demonstrating, and more began to join them. Some time after 14.30 the protesters set fire to the regional party headquarters and there is violent street fighting until midnight. ZOMO enter the town, followed by the army.
"Radom Town Centre, 2.30pm, 25.06.76 - ZOMO Units armed with long batons prepare to attack the workers' protest"
In Płock the workers at the Petrochemical plant strike from morning but do not come out onto the streets until the afternoon. The demonstration is peaceful and is not put down by ZOMO until 9 o’ clock in the evening.
In Ursus the workers come out onto the square in front of the factory and block the train tracks, holding up the Paris-Moscow train, among others.
"On the morning of the 25th of June the workers of Ursus blocked the train tracks in front of the tractor factory, to inform the country of their protest. They tried to weld the train engine to the tracks, but it did not work."
In the evening of this day the Poles watched a visibly upset Prime Minister Jaroszewiza withdraw the price rises on TV.
In Ursus, the workers began to head to their homes after the Prime Minister’s announcement, but they were attacked by security forces as they dispersed.
Those detained in each town were treated to severe beatings (in some cases detainees were forced to run the gauntlet) involving beatings with batons and kickings. The largest number of people - 600 - were detained in Radom, where round-ups started before the evening. 2500 people were detained in the country as a whole, with 350 people sentenced at rushed trials.
26th June - Edward Gierek, the First Secretary of PZPR (the Polish United Worker’s Party) holds a teleconference with the secretary’s of the regional party committees. He recommends beginning a propaganda campaign which was supposed to convince people that strikers harm the country. He also urged the use of aggressive language: “The more curses aimed at these people the better – and even demand that these irresponsible elements be given the boot from work.”
28th June - An aggressive propaganda campaign begins in the press, and on radio and television. The authorities organize thousands of rallies in support of the regime... The workers of Radom and Ursus are called “warchoły” (hooligans/ troublemakers/ brawlers) and this epithet becomes famous. The events in Płock are passed over.
19-20th July – Show trials in Radom’s Regional Court. In four mass trials many people are sentenced. Eight sentences were from 8 to 10 years. Eleven sentences were from 5 to 6 years, and six from 2 to 4 years.
2. The Accounts of Radom Workers
[my own translation of parts of this text from Gazeta Wyborcza]
Józef Szczepanik: - After being hit in the temple I lost consciousness. My colleagues told me that after I fainted one of the militia grabbed me by the throat and dragged me to the cell while a second one sat next to me and beat my legs and chest. After this my legs, chest and back was covered in bruises.
Waldemar Gutowski: - I was taken to the magistrate’s court. I couldn’t stand the torture and beatings and because of the pain I admitted to things I didn’t do. I saved my health this way.
Ryszard Nowak: - They told me that they would beat me until I admitted I stole something, even though I had never stolen anything from anyone in my life. I was so beaten up I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer.
Zbigniew Cibor: - I was beaten and kicked by the militia and prison guards so badly that blood poured from my nose and ears.
Piotr Wójcik: - I was thrown on the stove and chained to a radiator. They beat me together and I quickly lost consciousness. They used batons and lead handles, and they kicked me all over my body. Sometimes three of them beat me at once, sometimes five. Most of them were drunk. It lasted for five days.
Stanisław Adamski: - Beaten and kicked, chased from the top to the bottom of the prison. I was told that I would go through ‘the path of health’ (i.e. run the gauntlet) and that it would help me. After about two hours of continual beating I was thrown unconscious into the cell.
Zenon Baran: - In the van we had to lay down because the militia beat and kicked us, and treated us worse than animals. The militia beat me during the interrogations. And it happened that two of them held me and the third beat my back, head, legs, wherever he could.
Waldemar Michalski: - The first ‘path of health’ I walked the length of police vans, about fifty metres. They ordered me to walk slowly, so that all of them could hit me. They used their fists, batons and boots. I fell at the end. I couldn’t get back up because of the rain of blows.
Kazimierz Rybski: - When I came to, one of them asked me ‘Was that not enough for you?’ and ordered the other ‘Give it to him.’ They started to beat me with batons and kicked me as I lay on the floor.
Stanisław Wijata: - I was beaten with rubber batons 75cm long. Afterwards my whole back was black – we checked each other over in the cell.
Ferdynand Ufniarz: - At the Militia Headquarters they led me into a room and started to beat me so hard that I passed out. I came to in another room. I had a broken nose. In a dayroom a corporal started hitting and kicking me. At first I turned over, then I lost consciousness again. I woke up without any teeth.
Piotr Głowacki: - Two of them took batons and took it in turns to beat my back. They told me ‘We’ll manage without your help. We’ll take any boy from the plant, beat him a bit and he will say that he saw you set fire to the party headquarters. Or we’ll get one of the militia to say that he saw you and you’ll get done for arson.’
Grzegorz Jaroszek: I was lying with bare soles. Then they started to beat my soles with batons. At the start I felt pain in my sole and later I only felt as if someone was hammering a screw into my head.
"Tear gas and water canon were used to disperse the demonstrators. After controlling the situation outside the headquarters ZOMO and the militia used these weapons in other streets, often attacking peaceful passersby. The stench of tear gas lingered in the centre for the next few days." Photograph by Tadeusz Krzemiński
"WARSAW LIFE, Tuesday 29th June 1976 'The Indomitable Will to Continue the Realisation of the Thorough Development of the Fatherland' Full Support for the Correct Politics of the Party and the Government Thousands attend Rallies in Cities and Factories / Huge Demonstration in the Capital Thousands of Telegrams and Letters to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, Edward Gierek, and the Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Poland, Piotr Jaroszewicz"
3. Extracts from Warsaw Life, 29.06.1976
[my own translation of parts of this text from Gazeta Wyborcza]
“We are against all troublemaking, and lawless acts which disrupt public order and harm that which he hold dearest – the successful development of the country and Poland’s authority in the world. We condemn the troublemakers and destroyers from Ursus and Radom. We express our utmost contempt and opposition and at the same time we demand severe punishment for those who carried out acts of violence and robbery, destroying the common good. We do not agree with disruptions at work and we express our disapproval of their organisers.” – this is a fragment from a resolution read at a rally in Szczecin by Roman Szemborn, the head turner at the Szczecin shipyard, A. Warski.
Speaking at the rally at the car factory in Jelcz, the workers Ryszard Werocy and Stanisław Cecko stated that those who caused damage to our general national wellbeing should repair the damage themselves.
At a rally in their factory, 900 representatives of the crew from the Centre for Computerised Systems of Automation and Measurement in Wrocław roundly condemned the irresponsible, riotous and asocial conduct that was displayed in Ursus and Radom. Logic and reason – not incendiarism – must be the only way to solve all our country’s problems democratically.
…
Nearly 15 thousand factory workers from Siedlec and the region, as well as leading farmworkers, took part in a rally. Full support was expressed, in heated, simple words, for the correct politics of PZPR and its management by the First Secretary of the Central Committee Edward Gierek... Those gathered gave an approving round of applause to a resolution written in honour of PZPR and Edward Giertek “We firmly condemn the unruly and hooligan elements from Radom and Ursus who have made further peaceful discussion impossible... who have given our fatherland a bad name.”
At a gathering in Bielsko-Biała, the old master Władysław Papkoj from the Car Factory said: “The whole country is waiting for our little Fiats. We will not allow incendiarists to ruin our peaceful existence. It is a shame that part of the crew from Ursus allowed themselves to be drawn into dishonourable actions against our generally accepted norms. And yet they have so much to do – farm workers are waiting for their tractors, they want to increase the fertility of our land. We demand severe punishment for those responsible.”
"Radom, early afternoon. The workers from the second shift of Walter Factory drive towards the party headquarters."
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