Confronting the ‘New Class’ in Communist Poland: Leftist Critique, Student Activism and the Origins of the 1968 Student Protest Movement

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the origins of the student protest movement that appeared in March 1968 in communist Poland. Its main purpose is to portray the evolution of the critique of the communist system by a group of leftist students in Warsaw whose activity from 1956 onwards would provide the spark that ignited the student milieu in Warsaw and the rest of Poland in the spring of 1968. Simultaneously, this article will reflect upon some of the consequences of the so-called ‘March events’ in the Polish student milieu from a generational point of view. Furthermore, it will present the ‘Polish 1968’ in comparison to the broader international context of student protest, the emergence of the New Left and subsequently the Far Left.