A New Evolutionism

Adam Michnik is among the most influential figures in Poland. Part of the Communist Party in Poland in the 1960s, he was persecuted for his Jewish origins in 1968, and subsequently became part of the dissident movement for political change. In 1976, he was among the founding members of the Committee for the Defense of Workers (Komitet Obrony Robotników), which focused on providing assistance to prisoners detained after a series of labor strikes. He was imprisoned in 1977 for this activity. He wrote "A New Evolutionism" in 1976, which laid out his vision for how a successful workers' political movement against the Communists could emerge. In many ways, his essay describes both the emergence of the Committee for the Defense of Workers, as well as the later Solidarity movement, of which he also was a part.