Jacek Jan Kuroń
Jacek Jan Kuroń
A dissident socialist who linked workers’ self-management to civic solidarity
When the strikes began in 1980, he declared that the stranglehold on workers’ organisation and free information had finally been broken.
Jacek Kuroń was a Polish historian and organiser who tried to separate socialist ideals from the rule of party bureaucracy. His Open Letter to the Party, written with Karol Modzelewski, argued that the bureaucracy dominated workers and proposed workers’ councils and democratic pluralism. A co-founder of the Workers’ Defence Committee in 1976, he connected intellectuals with workers and became a leading adviser to Solidarity in 1980, advocating a programme of self-management. Interned on the first night of martial law in December 1981, he continued to support the underground union and later served as labour and social policy minister during Poland’s post-1989 transition.
Career timeline
- 1955–1961Co-organiser of the socialist scout movement and commander of the Walterowcy troop
- 1965–1967Co-author of the Open Letter to the Party; political prisoner
- 1968–1971Organiser of the March student protests; political prisoner
- 1976–1977Co-founder of the Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR)
- 1980–1981Adviser to Solidarity’s National Commission
- 1981–1984Martial-law internee and defendant in the KOR trial
- 1989–1991Minister of Labour and Social Policy
- 1992–1993Minister of Labour and Social Policy
- 1989–2001Member of the Polish Sejm