Adam Michnik - Activity Since 1989

Activity Since 1989

In 1988 he became an adviser of Lech Wałęsa’s informal Coordination Committee, and later he became a member of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee. He took an active part in planning and preliminary negotiations for the Round Table Talks in 1989, in which he also participated. Adam Michnik inspired and collaborated with the editors of the Ulam Quarterly prior to 1989 that journal pioneered the World Wide Web in the USA.

After the Round Table Talks, Lech Wałęsa told him to organize a big Polish national daily, which was supposed to be an ‘organ’ of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee, before the upcoming elections. This newspaper, under the Round Table agreement, was Gazeta Wyborcza ("Election Newspaper"), because it was supposed to appear till the end of the parliamentary election in 1989. After organizing this newspaper on the basis of journalists who worked in the „Biuletyn Informacyjny”, Adam Michnik became its editor-in-chief.

In the elections to the Contract Sejm on 4 June 1989 he became a Member of Parliament from Lech Wałęsa’s Solidarity Citizens' Committee electoral register, as a candidate for the city of Bytom.

Between 12 April and 27 June 1990 Michnik together with Bogdan Kroll, director of the central archive Archiwum Akt Nowych, and historians Andrzej Ajnenkiel and Jerzy Holzer had access to the archives of the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW). This group was called “Michnik’s Committee” and was brought into being by an initiative of the historian Henryk Samsonowicz. The result of three months' work was a short official report which stated that archives are incomplete.

Both as a Member of Parliament and as editor of Gazeta Wyborcza he actively supported Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s government and his candidature in the presidential election campaign against Lech Wałęsa in 1990. After the breakup of the Citizens’ Committee and Mazowiecki's failure, Michnik withdrew from his direct involvement in politics and did not run for a seat in the next parliamentary election, instead focusing on editorial and journalistic activities. Under his leadership, Gazeta Wyborcza was converted into a widely read and influential daily newspaper in Poland. On the basis of Gazeta Wyborcza assets Agora SA partnership came into existence. Currently (in May 2004) it is one of the biggest media concerns in Poland, administrating 11 titles monthly issued, portal gazeta.pl, outdoor advertising AMS, and shares in several radio stations. Adam Michnik does not have any shares in Agora and does not hold any office headship, excluding head editor, which is unusual in economic field in Poland. Michnik’s shares are kept by Agora.

Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki in his expose in September 1989 used a term broad-stroke policy which began new so-called broad-stroke attitude to political history of the most recent past. He is proponent and advocate of this term. In Gazeta Wyborcza he used his personal influence to protect General Wojciech Jaruzelski and General Czesław Kiszczak from the social- political- judicial cleansing campaign that refers to different periods when they held party and civil functions in People’s Republic of Poland (PRL). He postulated for quick and efficient adjudication of brought penal actions and to stop press battle. Crucial role played a famous interview “Pożegnanie z bronią. Adam Michnik- Czesław Kiszczak.” by Agnieszka Kublik and Monika Olejnik which was published in Gazeta Wyborcza on 3 February 2001.

On 27 December 2002 Adam Michnik and Paweł Smoleński revealed the so-called “Rywin affair” which was to be explained by a specially called select committee.

In autumn 2004 due to health problems (he suffered from tuberculosis) he resigned from active participation in editing Gazeta Wyborcza and passed his duties to editorial colleague Helena Łuczywo.

On the anniversary of the introduction of martial law, on 13 December 2005, Michnik delivered exposition at the University of Warsaw (article published in "Gazeta Wyborcza") in which he appealed to president Lech Kaczyński for statutory abolition for those who were responsible for the martial law. The article was a response to information about instituting an inquiry by Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) against General Jaruzelski. Michnik appealed about abolition even earlier- in 1991 (during the exposition on Faculty of Law at University of Maria Curie- Skłodowska in Lublin (UMCS), "Gazeta w Lublinie" 11 December 1991) and also in 2001 in the article "Stan wojenny 20 lat później" ("Gazeta Wyborcza" 12 December 2001).

He is a member of Association of Polish Writers and Council on Foreign Relations.