This was a time of revolution in every conceivable area,
although at the root of it all was a cultural revolution,
and every possible dogma suddenly began to collapse and was open to discussion.
Around this time, I switched to uni and it was at this point that we discovered taboos.
It's hard for me to say whether we discovered the taboos, they were there,
and besides, they suddenly started publishing them, although I don't know why.
They simply could, there was no need to have a special document giving permission,
so people began to read, and the most amazing discussions took place.
The discussion about when all of this began in the Soviet Union came after Khrushchev's Secret Speech.
And so, Khrushchev's Secret Speech. I've already said here that we were sort of prepared for it
but even so, it was an enormous shock, an enormous shock.
The speech was read out at open party meetings.
These meetings were so open that I listened to this,
someone, a friend of mine from ZG, Olek Dróżdżyński, brought it to me.
He knew about this and he told me everything. Then I heard it in a history class at some party open meeting.
Then I heard it at a history lesson at uni, of course.
A funny thing happened there - did Jan Józef tell his story about Braud? Yes.
There was a really funny event at that meeting because a lady,
what was her name, God, that story, Natalia Gąsiorowska, she was very old.
At the meeting, one person after another was taking the floor. They were all saying: we didn't know, we didn't know, it's such a shock,
such a shock, we didn't know, when suddenly Natalia Gąsiorowska took the floor. 'What do you mean, we didn't know, we didn't know,
it's such a shock? We old people knew exactly what was going on'.
No, sorry, she started differently, that's not how it was.
'We didn't know', began Mrs Gąsiorowska, 'it was a terrible shock, we knew nothing. And I feel sorriest for the young ones
because they're hearing this for the first time, they knew nothing whereas we older ones, we knew everything really'.
In fact, Puchatek - Mr Zawadzki who was a member of KOR, a wonderful man -
told me some time later that there were various models of what was going on in the Soviet Union.
There was the model of the worker, some kind of intellectual model,
then there was the gutter press, CZERWONIAKI
and it was said this was the model that prevailed but, he said, no one believes this any more, and yet it all came true.
So after Khrushchev's Secret Speech, there was one big, public discussion.
For me, Khrushchev's speech was what I called a personality cult "a rebours", and I spoke about this at various rallies.
I attended all kinds of meetings.
I'd go to those places where it was going to be read out, because I needed to hear it one more time, and get it right in my head.
It was a huge shock, no doubt about it. Like I said, the interpretation seemed really lame to me, explaining nothing.
So Stalin was bad, but what kind of an explanation is that? Collectivisation kept coming back more and more strongly.
We used to talk about this and a lad joined us, Stefek Marody, whom I knew from my time in ZWM,
he was one of the youngest ones there, younger even than me in the Warsaw ZWM,
and he came from the Soviet Union, from Odessa, where he was studying history,
and he joined us in the fifth year of history, or was it the fourth, I can't remember, it was the fourth.
As soon as he turned up, I gave him my version that it was all down to collectivisation, which was the reason for this
and that the revolution had become corrupted because it had to enter into a struggle with the masses.
Cruelty, barbarism, theft, all of these things had brought about its destruction,
and this was the moment when the revolution collapsed.
He listened to this horrified after which, as he told me later,
he rushed off to the town borough committee to make a complaint against me.
But the comrade to whom he made the complaint said, 'What can I do about it? These are the times we're living in.'