Kuroń Jacek
Kuroń Jacek (3 March 1934, Lviv – 17 June 2004, Warsaw), political and social activist.
In the years 1949–1953, he was a member of the Union of Polish Youth, and in the 1952–1953 – a member of the Polish United Workers’ Party. In 1954, he co-founded the General Karol Świerczewski (“Walter”) scouting movement, which came to be known as “walterowcy” or red scouts. In 1956, he co-founded the Walterowcy Troop in the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association, dissolved in 1961 for criticising social and political conditions in the Polish People’s Republic. In 1956, he was one of the founders of the Polish Socialist Youth Union at the University of Warsaw. At the turn of 1957, he joined the Revolutionary Youth Union, and in the years 1962–1963, he was a member of the Debate Club at the University of Warsaw. In July 1965, Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski wrote an open letter to the members of the Polish United Workers’ Party, describing the conflict between the working class and high-ranking party officials and proposing a vision of a new political system, based on the rule of workers’ councils. In consequence, Kuroń was once again removed from the party and interned for illegally distributing the letter in the years 1965–1967. In 1968, he participated in the demonstrations protesting the ban on Kazimierz Dejmek’s staging of Dziady by Adam Mickiewicz. He then became one of the principal targets of the smear campaign launched by the Polish press. On 8 March, he was arrested as one of the so-called inciters of the March events. He was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison in January 1969. He was released on probation in September 1971.
The entry was written by Martyna Rusiniak-Karwat, Ph.D. on the basis of source materials of the PWN printing house