opposition

Abstract

In the second half of the 1980s, the first symptoms of what was to come became visible in Poland. At that time, a new generation of oppositionists was coming of age, who rejected the principle of underground resistance against the regime and instead opted for open manifestations of dissent. On the other hand, in other countries of the Soviet Bloc any expressions of dissatisfaction were still harshly punished. As the decade drew to an end and the process of liberalization progressed in Poland, this rift grew wider. Sensitive to the plight of their neighbours, Polish oppositionists staged acts of solidarity with other countries. It was an exceptional situation in which citizens of a non-democratic state were standing up for the rights of oppositionists living under dictatorships in other countries. This text is an attempt to describe this phenomenon. Apart from recreating the course of the most important actions, this paper is also intended to find out who the main actors in those events were, deter- mine the role of young people whose generation came of age in the late 1980s, and describe which forms of protest were used most frequently.