Kontrowersje wokół Andrzeja Szewczuwiańca – przywódcy strajku w Hucie im. Lenina w 1988 roku. Analiza dostępnych materiałów Służby Bezpieczeństwa
Controversy around Andrzej Szewczuwianiec – the leader of the 1988 strike at the Vladimir Lenin steelworks in Nowa Huta, Krakow, Poland

Summary/Abstract: This paper introduces the fi gure of Andrzej Szewczuwianiec, the controversial initiator and leader of the April-May strike at Krakow’s Vladimir Lenin Steelworks in 1988. Szewczuwianiec, who was approaching 38 years of age, was not well-known among Nowa Huta’s opposition circles. Nevertheless, it was he who led the strike at the Rolling-Smashing Mill Dept. of the Steelworks. Born in Kielce, Poland, he studied medicine in Szczecin where he participated in the labour protest in December 1970. It was these protests that resulted in his expulsion from the Pomeranian Medical University. He then took a job at the Vladimir Lenin Steelworks. Since the mid-1970s he was repeatedly charged, convicted and imprisoned for ordinary crimes. At the end of the 1980s, he was actively involved in the anti-communist underground (working within the structures of the “Solidarity” and the revived Polish Socialist Party). The mysterious fi gure of Andrzej Szewczuwianiec, with a complicated, convoluted biography evokes mixed responses to this day including that he may have been an agent of the Polish Communist Political Party. Based on the memories of the strikers, the available literature on the subject, and most of the information contained in the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the People’s Republic of Poland, attempts have been made to answer the questions as to whether he collaborated with the Polish communist political police; however, no evidence of this has been uncovered. Source criticism leads to the emergence of a biographical outline and psychological profi le sketch that may verify his true contributions to the Solidarity movement.

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