We would collect supplements from 'Życie Warszawy' and 'Trybuna' from Dom Słowa Polskiego,
special supplements which we distributed by night across town where we had our new office staff.
The following day, Kliszko and Starewicz came to see us.
They'd come on account of the artists across the way from us because they'd suddenly become active.
Altogether around that time, when it was already too late, lots of people suddenly became very active.
They made this huge banner saying, 'Rokossowski go to Russia',
and were handing out leaflets which they lithographed with pictures.
This unnerved the Party leaders so Kliszko came down with Starewicz
and asked us if we were behind this, and we said no, it's the artists from the art school across the way.
Can we take them there? We can, so Jędrek Garlicki and I went there with them.
We told them that this was Kliszko and Starewicz
and we'd listened to what they had to say and I'm not going to repeat it again.
What was important was that as we were leaving, we both said to one another: well, the new ones are coming back.
We sat down and drew up a leadership straight away for that university organisation, and we decided,
I keep saying university organisation committee but ZMP had broken up completely, there were about 500 of us gathered there.
Oh, those were the days when you had to keep your people on standby in the university courtyard in the plenary rooms so they
would always be ready to walk out. Staszewski was gripped by the idea that this session could be forced into a compromise by
demonstrations. At the same time, we had to make sure no one was going to lead the people out on the streets because that would have
been a pretext for the army to move in. Say what you like, but Staszewski risked everything at that point, there's no doubt about it.
We called the governing body together and said,
'You have to be prepared to take up determined, oppositional action.'
This was around eleven, twelve o'clock. I don't remember what time it was - twelve? one?
There was a huge meeting of the residents of Warsaw in the courtyard, in Parade Square.
We'd all marched down there from all over the city, there was a huge crowd
and Gomułka said, 'Go home.' We were all saying, well, he's not much of a revolutionary leader,
he'd like to hide us in his pocket now; we were still in a fighting mood.
Soon after this, something started which I'm now convinced was simply an expression of enthusiasm and
of joy on the part of the people who wanted to do something, to take to the streets, to march,
so now that's what they did, they took to the streets.
We decided this was provocation,
this was going to give the army an excuse to get involved.
We tried to guide these protests away from sensitive points that they could attack like the prison, the Soviet embassy.
Our people were leading the crowd and were shouting out slogans.
Everyone laughed when Modzelewski was walking at the head of the crowd shouting, 'Rokossowski go to Russia!'
They had liaison people who were running around calling the university committee where there were three people studying a map
and telling them which way to go or where not to go or whether to turn back and to go by a different route.
Later, the following day, the comrades from security told us, 'We had no idea what was going on with that protest march.'
Everyone had lost their marbles - they were going forward then they were backing up.
I was standing in front of the Central Committee and the KBW was there, too, with a massive crowd coming to see Gomułka.
It was pressing forward but behind there was the KBW and they were armed with guns.
We were explaining to them that between the KBW and these people, that they can't.
But they were shouting, 'When Wiesław shows up we'll go away.' Wiesław came out, said something,
nodded his head: people, go home. Exactly. This wasn't Gomułka. Dąbrowski came out saying, 'People, let comrade Wiesław rest.'
This wasn't Gomułka, they were completely drunk.
They were shouting all sorts of things.
After we regrouped later that night, we came to the conclusion that a reactionary attack was coming, that this was the main enemy.
It was at this point that the demise of October began.
I've kind of skipped over Hungary which played a fundamental role here.
The events in Hungary started that same day or perhaps the day before.
Either way, we began to post information in the display cabinets and soon after that, detailed stories started to appear in the press.
When, following the second intervention, it turned out the matter was going to be debated on by the UN,
someone from the directorate came to us and said they'd remained silent
and were asking us not to do anything because those tanks were ready to invade us.
We then had a very long and heated discussion during which we decided that we would not hold a demonstration.
That's when Krzysztof Pomian said that he raises the motion, which we carried, that we would not leave the Party,
because someone had had the idea that we should return our membership ID, do nothing just hand back the membership ID.
Krzysztof Pomian said, 'You cannot hand back your membership, we won't let them have the Party.'