Friendship and Revolution in Poland: The Eros and Ethos of the Committee for Workers’ Defense (KOR)

Abstract

Solidarity, the movement that toppled communism in Poland, was preceded and prepared by a still earlier opposition to East‐bloc oppression – The Committee for Workers’ Defense (KOR), which operated from 1976. The Polish government, busily engaged in the suppression of workers’ strikes, came up against a clutch of 14 idealist and nonviolent intellectuals who announced their commitment to taking the workers under their protection. KOR used their friendship as a weapon against the fear imposed by the communist state. They openly sought to mobilize the media to serve a liberative purpose, to protect civil rights, and in this to bring into being an altogether new polis. KOR’s ‘warm circle’ of friendship was built upon ceaseless argument in all spheres, not least in politics. KOR supplies perhaps the most vibrant and important contemporary example of the role and power of friendship in social movements which are committed to the democratic project.