Footnotes
Piotr A. Tusiński. The Judicially Sentenced Participants of the June 1976 Radom Protests. An Attempt at a Collective Portrait
1 See, among others A. Paczkowski, Pół wieku dziejów Polski [A half century of Polish history], Warsaw 2005, 5th edition, p. 203; J. Eisler, Grudzień 1970. Geneza, przebieg, konsekwencje [December 1970. Origins, course, consequences], Warsaw 2006, pp. 279 ff.; P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976. Geneza - przebieg - konsekwencje [June 1976. Origins - course - consequences], Warsaw 2006; A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy... Represje sądowe po radomskim Czerwcu 1976 r. [...how we hate them... Judicial repressions after the Radom June 1976], Lublin 2016, pp. 315-316.
2 D. Morgan, Konflikt pamięci. Narracje radomskiego Czerwca 1976 [The Conflict of Memories. Narratives of the Radom June 1976], Warsaw 2004, p. 33.
3 AIPN, 388/2, Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych [1944] 1954-1990, Dokumentacja Sztabu Komendy Wojewódzkiej Milicji Obywatelskiej w Radomiu dotycząca ćwiczeń "Lato 76" [Documentation of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom concerning the "Summer 76" exercise], Stenogram of recordings made in the office of Col. Mozgawa on 25-26 June 1976], pp. 259-260. However, in another place, the number of 275 detainees was given - see ibid., Assessment of activities of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom during the exercises and operation "Summer 76", p. 85. It seems that the value of the recording from the office of Col. Marian Mozgawa listed in the transcript is closer to the truth.
4 AIPN, 388/10, Materiały Wydziału Śledczego Komendy Wojewódzkiej Milicji Obywatelskiej w Radomiu - wykazy osób zatrzymanych w wypadkach czerwcowych w 1976 r. [Materials of the Investigation Department of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom - lists of persons detained during June 1976], List of persons detained in the custody of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom between 25 and 30 June 1976], pp. 9-52.
5 AIPN, 388/2, Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych [1944] 1954-1990, Dokumentacja Sztabu Komendy Wojewódzkiej Milicji Obywatelskiej w Radomiu dotycząca ćwiczeń "Lato 76" [Documentation of the Staff of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom concerning the "Summer 76" exercises], Assessment of activities of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom during the exercises and operation "Summer 76", p. 48. In light of the penal regulations in force at that time (and still), a perpetrator of the crime was considered a minor when on the day of committing a punishable act he or she was under 17 years old.
6 AIPN Ra, 08/107, vol. 1, Komenda Wojewódzka MO Radom, Wydz[iał] Śledczy, Materiały i sprawozdania z wypadków czerwcowych 1976 r. [Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom, Investigation Department, Report materials from the events of June 1976], pp. 19, 21, 56.
7 See P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 265-266. The number of 645 detainees as of 31 July 1976, quoted earlier by the author of the present study, along with other summary data, was provided in the publication: P.A. Tusiński, "Wydarzenia radomskiego czerwca 1976 r. (próba analizy historycznej)" [The events of June 1976 in Radom (an attempt at a historical analysis)], Biuletyn Kwartalny Radomskiego Towarzystwa Naukowego 27, no. 1-2 (1990), p. 76. This figure - uncritically, despite P. Sasanka's findings a decade earlier - is also quoted by A. Kutkowski (...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., p. 179), but in another place he gives the number of 634 detainees (p. 142). However, he does not mention the number of 651 detainees anywhere.
8 AIPN, 388/10, Materiały Wydziału Śledczego Komendy Wojewódzkiej Milicji Obywatelskiej w Radomiu - wykazy osób zatrzymanych w wypadkach czerwcowych w 1976 r. [Materials of the Investigation Department of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom - lists of persons detained during the June 1976 events], List of PZPR members detained in custody of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters for taking part in the events of 25 June 1976 in Radom, p. 68 and ibid., List of PZPR, ZSL and SD members detained in custody, p. 69-71. As a side note, it should be mentioned that on 27 June 1976, the voivodeship commander of the Citizens' Militia in Radom stated at a meeting of the local Secretariat of the PZPR that a large number of people detained and arrested in connection with the protest were members of the PZPR (quoted in P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., p. 305), which was greatly exaggerated and perhaps was stated on an ad hoc basis in order to "annoy" the highest party echelons in the voivodeship, led by the Party Voivodeship First Secretary Janusz Prokopiak, whom Mozgawa disliked and with whom he competed for power, as described by David Morgan in Konflikt pamięci..., pp. 24-25.
9 Two such cases are cited by P. Sasanka (Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 268-269), but other similar incidents are also known.
10 Ibid., pp. 267-268 and 280.
11 Ibid., pp. 269-280. The quoted author even supposes - not unjustifiably in the light of the totality of available accounts of participants from both sides of the June conflict - that: "One thing seems certain: the absolute exception would be a case in which the person arrested had not been struck at least once" (p. 270). See also: A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., pp. 51-56.
12 P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., p. 266. The Citizens' Militia (MO) report prepared as of 13 July 1976 mentions 125 detainees released due to lack of evidence of guilt. AIPN, 388/2, Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych w Warszawie [1944]1954-1990, Dokumentacja Sztabu Komendy Wojewódzkiej Milicji Obywatelskiej w Radomiu dotycząca ćwiczeń "Lato 76," [Documentation of the Staff of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom concerning the "Summer 76" exercises], Assessment of activities of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom during the exercises and operation "Summer 76", p. 48.
13 AIPN, Ra 08/107, vol. 1, Komenda Wojewódzka MO Radom, Wydz[iał] Śledczy, Materiały sprawozdania z wypadków czerwcowych 1976 r. [Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom, Investigation Department, Report materials from the events of June 1976], pp. 21 and 59.
14 Ibid., p. 59.
15 Act of 20 May 1971, Misdemeanors Code, Journal of Laws (hereinafter: JoL) no. 12, item 114, as amended.
16 Repressions against the participants of the protest with the participation of the Misdemeanors Council described in literature in the field: P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 281-286; M. Krzysztofik, "Represje stosowane przez radomskie kolegia do spraw wykroczeń" [Repressions applied by the Radom Misdemeanors Councils], Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej no. 4 (2011); A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., pp. 109-117.
17 A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., p. 117. More precisely, it should be stated that as a result of lodging an appeal and referring the case to court proceedings before the District Court in Radom, records has been preserved in the court files from the proceedings before the Council referring to 22 persons - see: AIPN Ra, 26/39, 26/41-45, 26/48-52, 26/54-55, 26/109-112, 26/203-206, 26/208.
18 AIPN Ra, 08/107, vol. 1, Komenda Wojewódzka MO Radom, Wydz[iał] Śledczy, Materiały sprawozdania z wypadków czerwcowych 1976 r. [Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom, Investigation Department, Report materials from the events of June 1976], List of offenders and decisions of the Misdemeanors Council of the first and second instance concerning events from 25 June 1976 to 28 June 1976 in the city of Radom, pp. 6-28; P.A. Tusiński, "Wydarzenia radomskiego czerwca," p. 77; P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., p. 281; A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., pp. 116 and 129.
19 Act of 20 May 1971, Code of Conduct in Misdemeanor Cases, JoL no. 12, item 116, as amended.
20 Act of 19 April 1969, Criminal Code, JoL no. 13, item 94, as amended.
21 Act of 26 June 1974, Labour Code, JoL no. 24, item 141, as amended; P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., p. 300.
22 Cf. P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 296-297.
23 These figures were cited by P.A. Tusiński, "Wydarzenia radomskiego czerwca," p. 79, and P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 295-296, while the figure of 300-400 is doubtful as those dismissed was quoted by David Morgan without reference to the source in Konflikt pamięci..., p. 38.
24 P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 295-296.
25 Ibid., p. 301. This issue requires separate research, but just a review of the catalog records in the archives of the IPN Delegation in Radom, concerning people convicted by the Radom courts for taking part in the June 1976 protest, allows us to conclude that at least a dozen of them were registered as secret collaborators of the SB and about 100 were subjected in the following years to harassment at home and in the workplace, detentions and summons to warning talks, while a dozen or so were interned in connection with the introduction of martial law in December 1981. Of course, a certain number of people found themselves the focus of closer interest of the security services due to the fact that representatives of the KOR reached out to their families or joined the "Solidarity" movement and the political opposition, but in each case the moment of initiation of their "anti-systemic" activities was participation in the June 1976 protest in Radom.
26 See P.A. Tusiński, "Wydarzenia radomskiego czerwca," pp. 72-73 and 75-79; P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 293-311.
27 A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., passim. Earlier, the concept of repression in a broad sense, including arrests and detentions, beatings, the activities of the Misdemeanor Councils, trials, administrative retaliation and party settlements, was used by P. Sasanka, in Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 262-323.
28 This issue is further explored by A. Kutkowski, in ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., pp. 193-204, 241-254, 275-283, 296-305.
29 P.A. Tusiński, "Wydarzenia radomskiego czerwca," pp. 76-77. The monograph by D. Morgan, which gives a highly questionable number of only 186 people brought to court on various charges [...], most of whom, as many as 120 people, were accused of theft and robbery, does not contribute much to solving the statistical issues concerning the number of convicted persons "on various charges [...]; 24 people were charged with leading the entire protest" - D. Morgan, Konflikt pamięci..., pp. 32-33. Not only do the given figures not correspond to facts and do not have a specific source reference, but they also distort the charge against 24 people accused in the first instance before the Voivodeship Court in Radom (which will be discussed below). It was not a matter of leading the protest, as this charge was not brought against anyone accused of participating in the June 1976 protest in Radom, but rather a matter of trying the so-called "instigators," specifically people who purportedly incited the protest and its escalation.
30 P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., p. 287. The number of 51 accelerated proceedings is also quoted by A. Kutkowski, in ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., p. 129.
31 A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., pp. 101-102.
32 P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., pp. 287-290.
33 See A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., pp. 140 ff.
34 Ibid., p. 180.
35 Ibid., p. 295.
36 Ibid., p. 188.
37 The first list referred to by Kutkowski (AIPN, 388/12, Materiały Komendy Wojewódzkiej Milicji Obywatelskiej w Radomiu - dokumentacja dot[ycząca] nieletnich biorących udział w wydarzeniach na terenie Radomia w dn. 25 VI 1976 r. [Records of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom - documentation regarding minors taking part in the events in Radom on 25 June 1976], List of minors taking part in Street Incidents on 25 June 1976 in Radom. Data as of 30 June 1976 according to records of the District Court, Juvenile Division in Radom, pp. 9-29), which formally contains 55 names, concerns - as the author himself notes - 53 minors, since two of the persons listed were 17 years old on 25 June 1976 and were liable as adults. An analysis of the second list (AIPN, 388/10, Materiały Wydziału Śledczego Komendy Wojewódzkiej Milicji Obywatelskiej w Radomiu - wykazy osób zatrzymanych w wypadkach czerwcowych w 1976 r. [Records of the Investigation Division of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom - Lists of persons detained in the June 1976 incidents], List of persons detained in the custody of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom between 25 and 30 June 1976, pp. 9-52), leads the author to conclude that by 30 June 1976, 36 minors were detained in the custody of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom, while in reality 37 minors were listed there (including Krzysztof Garczyński named twice, in both cases distorting his name). As for the third of the cited lists (AIPN, 388/12, List of minors taking part in the events of 25 June 1976 in Radom [detained in the Children's Ward], pp. 30-32), Kutkowski states that 37 people are listed there. In fact, there are elementary personal details of 38 people, but one of them - a 17-year-old from Łódź, who could be tried as an adult, was detained in Radom on the night of 1 July 1976 - did not meet the criteria not only of a minor, but also of those repressed for participating in the protest of 25 June 1976. Finally, the author's statement that the joint database of minors mentioned in the list of minors in custody of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters and the Children's Ward includes 26 people is not true, because it counts three more people. Finally, however, it is appropriate to agree with Kutkowski that he does not dispel any doubts arising from the attempt to establish the exact list of minors repressed for participation in June '76 in Radom, whose cases (59) were brought to court, mentioned in the report of the Radom Voivodeship Prosecutor's Office as at the end of July 1976, as it is not accompanied by an appropriate list of names.
38 A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., p. 188, states that the Radom court handed over files concerning only 18 minors. This data is inaccurate, because in the resources of the IPN Archives in the Radom Delegation there are trial files concerning 21 minors, see AIPN Ra, 26/270-291.
39 However, it is worth supplementing this finding with the fact of a previous conviction of one of the persons belonging to this group by the local Misdemeanors Council, acting in an accelerated mode. This refers to Waldemar Gutowski, AIPN Ra, 8/2, vol. 2-4 passim.
40 It deviates in minus only by one or two persons from the value summed up on the basis of Kutkowski's partial calculations, but its analytical picture is in several places significantly different from the one given by the cited author.
41 AIPN Ra, 8/1, vol. 1-6; ibid., 8/2, vol. 1-6; ibid., 8/3, vol. 1-2; ibid., 8/4; ibid., 16/87; ibid., 26/3-9; ibid., 26/11-16; ibid., 26/18-35; ibid., 26/37-45; ibid., 26/48-52; ibid., 26/54-55; ibid., 26/57-100; ibid., 26/102-157; ibid., 26/159-196; ibid., 26/198-200; ibid., 26/203-206; ibid., 26/208; ibid., 26/213-219; ibid., 26/270-291; ibid., 33/64; ibid., 36/1, vol. 1-9; ibid., 36/2, vol. 1-7; ibid., 37/7-10; ibid., 37/21; ibid., 57/16.
42 AIPN Ra, 08/107, vol. 1, Wojewódzki Urząd Spraw Wewnętrznych w Radomiu [1975] 1983-1990, Materiały sprawozdawcze z wypadków czerwcowych 1976 [Reporting materials from the June 1976 incidents]; ibid., vol. 8, Dokumentacja osób ukaranych przez Kolegium ds. Wykroczeń w trybie przyspieszonym, zatrzymanych w wypadkach czerwcowych 1976 r. [Documentation of persons punished by the Misdemeanors Council arrested in the June 1976 incidents]; Personal files: ibid., vol. 39, vol. 164, vol. 197, vol. 214, vol. 340, vol. 362.
43 AIPN, 388/2, Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych w Warszawie [1944] 1954-1990, Dokumentacja Sztabu Komendy Wojewódzkiej Milicji Obywatelskiej w Radomiu dotycząca ćwiczeń "Lato 76" [Documentation of the Staff of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom concerning the "Summer 76" exercises], Stenogram of recordings made in the office of Col. Mozgawa on 25-26 June 1976; AIPN, 388/10, Records of the Investigation Division of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom - lists of persons detained in June 1976, List of persons detained in the custody of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom between 25 and 30 June 1976; AIPN, 388/12, Records of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom - documentation regarding minors taking part in the events in Radom on 25 June 1976, List of minors taking part in street incidents on 25 June 1976 in Radom. Data as of 30 June 1976, according to records of the District Court Juvenile Division in Radom.
44 Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw (hereinafter: AAN), Prokuratura Generalna PRL (hereinafter: PG PRL), 16/71, 16/75. More detailed data on participants of the Radom 1976 protests.
45 The age of Misdemeanor Council adjudicated persons is one of three source-available characteristics - along with place of residence and place of work - that synthetically describe this group of individuals. Source: own calculation based on AIPN Ra, 08/107, vol. 1, Komenda Wojewódzka MO Radom, Wydz[iał] Śledczy, Materiały sprawozdania z wypadków czerwcowych 1976 r. [Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom, Investigation Department, Report materials from the June 1976 events], List of offenders and decisions of the Misdemeanors Council of the first and second instance concerning events from 25 June 1976 to 28 June 1976 in the city of Radom, pp. 6-28.
46 Own calculations based on archival records cited in footnotes 41-44. Sources do not provide data on the place of birth of one person.
47 AIPN Ra, 08/107, vol. 1. The sources do not provide data on the place of residence of one person, and for a further eight it was not possible to establish the nature of the place of residence.
48 Own calculations based on AIPN Ra, 08/107, vol. 1, Komenda Wojewódzka MO Radom, Wydz[iał] Śledczy, Materiały sprawozdania z wypadków czerwcowych 1976 r. [Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom, Investigation Department, Report materials from the June 1976 events], List of offenders and decisions of the Misdemeanors Council of the first and second instance concerning events from 25 June 1976 to 28 June 1976 in the city of Radom, pp. 6-28.
49 This refers to Henryk Krzyszkowski, who, in his letter to the First Secretary of the Voivodeship Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) in Radom dated 20 October 1976, referred to the fact of his origin "from a working-class family, whose ancestors were and are activists of the revolutionary and worker's movement" - see AIPN Ra, 26/88.
50 AIPN Ra, 26/155.
51 It is interesting to note that one of the convicted men was a former officer of the Citizens' Militia, who had been dismissed from service on disciplinary grounds 5 years earlier; AIPN Ra, 26/216, pp. 1-203; AIPN Ra, 08/107, vol. 1, p. 97; ibid., vol. 39, p. 149; AAN, PG PRL, 16/75, Bliższe dane uczestników zajść w Radomiu w 1976 [Closer data on participants in the 1976 Radom protest], pp. 8, 56, 84; A. Kutkowski, ...jak my ich nienawidzimy..., pp. 49, 210.
52 This finding corresponds with the information given in historical literature, which noted, among others, that in 1973 Radom industry employed 57.8 percent of its workers with less than a basic vocational education; T. Kwiatkowski, S. Witkowski, "Radom w Polsce Ludowej 1945-1975. Życie gospodarcze. Przemysł" [Radom in People's Poland 1945-1975. Economic life. Industry], in Radom. Dzieje miasta w XIX i XX w. [Radom. The history of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries,] ed. S. Witkowski, Warsaw 1985, p. 359.
53 Ibid., pp. 357-358.
54 It is characteristic that in the source materials on the Radom June 1976 protests there is no list showing the membership of repressed people of social organisations, except for the above-mentioned list of detainees belonging to the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) and the information that ZSL and SD members were not among them.
55 Own findings on the basis of archival records cited in footnotes 41-44. As an aside, it can also be noted that among those sentenced to trial were two members of works' councils, which were a form of employee self-government licensed by the authorities, as well as one former councilor of the Commune National Council in Stromiec and one former councilor of the Voivodeship National Council in Kielce (incidentally, he was the above-mentioned former MO officer), which were bodies of the regime's "territorial self-government."
56 Own findings on the basis of archival records cited in footnotes 41-44. With regard to men under 19 years of age, despite the lack of source information on their particular situation concerning compulsory military service, it was assumed that they had a pre-registration or pre-conscription status. This was based on the provisions of the Act of 21 November 1967 on the Universal Obligation to Defend the Polish People's Republic (JoL no. 44, item. 220, as amended).
57 Krzysztof Staszewski was also held responsible by the court, and his brother Kazimierz was convicted by the Misdemeanor Council.
58 The above should be supplemented by the information that one of those convicted who was a bachelor had two children and two unmarried women had one child each.
59 Data after P. Sasanka, Czerwiec 1976..., p. 57.
60 Own calculations based on archival records cited in footnotes 41-44.
61 The exact home addresses of the two of those convicted could not be determined.
62 Own calculations based on archival records cited in footnotes 41-44.
63 D. Morgan, Konflikt pamięci..., p. 25. The quoted author gives also other data illustrating the "coarseness" of life in the city, but he indiscriminately fantasises when he notes that in 1976, apart from cabs, there were still horse-drawn carriages on the streets of Radom. Certainly, the writer of these words states from his own experience that they disappeared from the city as early as the end of the 1960s, and those that were in the registers stayed there probably because they simply forgot to cross them out. Only to a small extent, mainly because of the statistics showing the progress of "socialist construction" and the fact that the decade of the 1970s was not included in the data (despite the editing of the monograph at the beginning of the 1980s), it is possible to draw conclusions about the living conditions of inhabitants of Radom on the basis of the relevant excerpts from the above quoted publication: Radom. Dzieje miasta..., pp. 371-389.
Piotr A. Tusiński
University of the National Education Commission in Cracow
The Judicially Sentenced Participants of the June 1976 Radom Protests. An Attempt at a Collective Portrait
Introductory Remarks
The workers' protest in June 1976, which was most fierce in Radom, was - next to the Poznań June '56 and March '68 protests, as well as the bloody events on the Polish coast in December 1970 - one of the most dramatic uprisings of a society enslaved by the communist system against its oppressive authorities. Although the number of fatalities in Radom in June 1976 was incomparably lower than in the protests of 1956 and 1970, the scale of repressions against participants of the protests, who took part in spontaneous strikes and demonstrated on the city streets, was more extensive than in 1956 and comparable to those in 1970.1 According to various estimates, between 15 thousand and 40 thousand2 people took part in the protests in Radom on 25 June 1976, and the repressions against the participants involved a total of several thousand people, including those detained by the Citizens' Militia (MO) - mainly on the day of the protest and a few days afterward - and subjected to beatings on the so-called "gauntlet runs." Those repressed were sentenced by the Misdemeanor Council at the President's Office of the City of Radom (in accelerated and regular procedures) and the District Court in Radom, dismissed from work for participating in spontaneous strikes and street demonstrations, and also were affected by wage and social repressions. Furthermore, the participants were registered and harassed by the Security Service (SB) for the reasons mentioned above over the following months and years. These included also representatives of the administrative apparatus (managerial, administrative, economic, social, and party cadres) who were punished in various ways for their lack of counteraction or effectiveness in preventing such strikes and for the abandonment of work posts by the workers. Finally, other members of the internal and local structures of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) were subjected to verification. A characteristic feature of the groups mentioned above was their interpenetration, as the same people relatively often found themselves in two or more of the groups mentioned above at the same time. Despite the passage of four decades, it is challenging to determine the precise number of people detained by the Citizens' Militia with charges of participating in the June 1968 events in Radom. Source data included in reports prepared by the repression apparatus of that time mention various numbers. According to them, 383 people3 were detained until midnight on 25 June 1976, and 5504 until 30 June. As of 13 July 1976, the list shows 605 detainees, including 55 minors.5 On the other hand, a report of the Investigation Department of the local Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters stated that 651 people6 were detained for taking part in the workers' protest in June 1976 in Radom as of 12 August that year. This number and other data recorded in sources produced by the system of repression concerning the total number of detainees in Radom have been quoted in a monograph devoted to June 1976, with an awareness of numerous discrepancies and inconsistencies in this respect. It also cites a figure of around 2 thousand detainees, estimated by the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR),7 which is purely intuitive and does not refer to any specific sources. However, this figure should be treated with great caution since it is more than three times higher than the administrative data from sources, and it is not straightforward to assume that more than two-thirds of those detained were not entered in the records. Among those detained and temporarily arrested participants of the 25 June 1976 protest in Radom, according to the data, as of 30 June 1976, there were ten members of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR). However, no members of the other regime political parties, such as the United People's Party (Zjednoczone Stronnictwo Ludowe) and the Democratic Party (Stronnictwo Demokratyczne),8 were found in this group.
In light of the available testimonies of some of the detained participants of the Radom June protests, there is no doubt that there were more frequent than isolated situations in which detainees were released without prior registration in Citizens' Militia records. For example, this occurred when the detainee was known to one of the militiamen or was immediately interceded for by some important individual with a position in the local authorities.9 Leaving the number of detainees as unspecified, it should be noted that the available literature has formed a view, supported by sources, that the majority of those detained and then temporarily arrested were deprived of freedom groundlessly and in clear violation of the then penal and criminal-administrative10 procedures in force at the time. Similarly, there is no doubt that detainees were subjected to beatings, sometimes repeatedly, along the so-called "gauntlet runs" in detention centers and during MO interrogations.11
Some of those detained by the MO and beaten along the mentioned "gauntlet runs" were released in the following days, usually after so-called "warning talks," and were not subject to further administrative or criminal court proceedings. The exact number of these people can no longer be determined because of disparate source materials produced by the repressive apparatus of the time. We certainly have to agree with Paweł Sasanka that the figures they give and the data mentioned above on the number of detainees, which was stated once as 138 and in another place 175 - are unreliable.12 They do not even correspond to the difference resulting from subtracting the number of persons brought before the Misdemeanor Council and accused before both regional and district courts in Radom (see below) from the total number of 651 detainees quoted above. The accusation of mathematical inconsistency completely falls in light of one of the MO reports, where the number of released persons was stated to be 101. However, a few dozen pages later, this number was increased by five people.13 The release of a detainee without proceedings before a Misdemeanor Council or a court and the abandonment of procedural preventive measures (usually in the form of temporary arrest, which will be discussed below) did not, however, usually end the detainee's contacts with his/her government oppressor. After a few days, many such people were arrested again by the MO and brought before the Misdemeanor Council or charged with criminal offenses, with the prosecutor issuing a temporary arrest warrant. Preparatory proceedings initiated in such a situation usually ended with an indictiment being brought to court by the prosecutor's office. It should also be noted that all persons released from detention, who were not subjected to criminal-administrative or criminal-judicial proceedings after a specific time, were later placed under surveillance.14
Several hundred protesters detained by the MO were brought in an expedited procedure before the Misdemeanor Council by Citizens' Militia officers acting as public prosecutors (sometimes several times as a result of appeals from the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters to a higher instance with the complaint for imposing "a punishment disproportionately low - in a relation to the alleged act"). These protestors, in the end, in the overwhelming majority of cases, were handed down arrest sentences, usually for a maximum amount of 3 months15 provided for by the Misdemeanor Code.16 A more detailed look at this part of those repressed for taking part in the workers' protests in Radom is today practically impossible, due to the destruction of the personal files of those subjected to a ruling by the Councils.17 It is also impossible to establish with certainty the exact number of people brought before the Radom councils, since there are discrepancies in the sources. The authors of the above-mentioned studies, which deal with repressions involving the Misdemeanor Councils, are inclined to accept - as the most reliable - the number of motions for punishment submitted by the MO to the Radom Misdemeanor Councils, as provided for in the report of the Investigation Group of the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters (Grupa Śledcza KW MO). The cited document mentions 244 such motions.18 Some of those convicted under the misdemeanor procedure19 (we will talk about them in greater detail), using their right to take the proceedings to court, filed appeals requesting that their case be heard by the District Court in Radom. For the vast majority of those sentenced by the Councils, contact with the then "administration of justice," however, ended with two appearances before this administrative body of repression, and for less than 10% of those appealing to the court, with the decision-making body of the Criminal Department of the District Court (Wydział Karny Sądu Rejonowego). In the case of a few people, which will be discussed in more detail later, a case initiated by MO detention and brought before the Misdemeanor Council would continue before the Supreme Court (SN) as a result of an extraordinary review filed by the Minister of Justice in their favour after several weeks, or before the Regional or District Court in Radom as a result of the prosecutor's accusation of committing an act prohibited by the Criminal Code (kk),20 regardless of a prior conviction under the Misdemeanor Code (kw).
Participants of the protest detained by the MO in Radom, who were not released or did not appear in an accelerated procedure before the Misdemeanor Councils, were charged by the prosecutor's office with crimes under the Criminal Code, issuing a kind of automatic decision on applying a preventive measure in the form of temporary arrest, commonly referred to as the prosecutor's sanction or sanction (sometimes the decision on temporary arrest was issued by the district court on the prosecutor's motion or motu proprio). In relatively few cases, as discussed below, detainees were subjected to a milder preventive measure or were not subjected to anything at all. The fate of this group of people (with rare exceptions, when the prosecutor's office decided not to file an indictment) involved bringing them to court, where, after a hearing that often violated the requirements of the penal procedure of the time, initially in a fast-track, accelerated procedure, and later in an ordinary procedure, a verdict of imprisonment (or acquittal in only a few cases) was passed, or a so-called "non-custodial sentence" (kara wolnościowa), that is a suspended prison sentence. The basic penalties were accompanied by additional penalties or other penal measures. Figures concerning this category of the repressed participants of the June 1976 protest in Radom will be presented below.
Persons sentenced by the Misdemeanor Council, provisionally arrested or convicted by the court were usually still in the course of procedural actions or soon afterwards subjected to workers' employment liability, in the overwhelming majority of cases concerning violation of the labour code in force at the time,21 in the form of disciplinary dismissal without notice and with immediate effect. Employment consequences were also brought against those who were arrested and dismissed after having had warning talks, without being held accountable for committing a misdemeanor or a crime. Those repressed in this way could rarely expect to be rehired at their previous workplace, and if they were, it was on much worse employment and pay conditions. Of course, in numerous cases, running into hundreds, immediate dismissal was a repression in its own right, applied to the participants of the June 1976 protest in Radom, regardless of whether they fell under the Citizens' Militia truncheons of 25 June 1976 or the mills of the Gierek-era "justice system." This repression usually continued by one being blacklisted [Pol.: "wilczy bilet"] for the following months and years, making it impossible or difficult to take up new employment, as well as resulting in significantly worse working conditions and pay in any new workplace, usually connected with the loss or reduction of previously acquired social rights. The above-mentioned category of repressed people is the most difficult (next to the group of those subjected to administrative repression) to establish statistically,22 due to the passage of time. The materials of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) mention the immediate dismissal (as of 25 August 1976) of 939 workers from over 20 companies in Radom for taking part in the workers' protest of 25 June 1976.23 The author of the monograph concerning the protest in question is convinced, however, that this number is understated.24 It cannot be ruled out, however, that the number of protesters repressed in such a manner was higher by at least several hundred people, and may even have reached about 2 thousand workers, a figure impossible to verify today.
The consequence of exposing oneself to "people's democracy" by taking part in the protest was also - with regard to many convicted and dismissed people - submission to surveillance by the Security Service, which sometimes lasted until 1990, and with regard to a certain number of selected people, actions consisting of forcing them to cooperate as secret collaborators. Almost all of the people in the latter group were imprisoned and became hounded victims of the vicious game played by the Security Services.25
Undoubtedly, the widest personal dimension, which is also very difficult to capture statistically, was the administrative and intra-organisational retaliation against those who took part directly in the June protest or who, to varying degrees, were held responsible by the authorities of the time for allowing "work stoppages" and the escalation of the protest, or who were in any other way deemed to have contributed to the course of events on that memorable day. Like the issue of workers' liability and administrative repression, this issue, too, remains outside the scope of interest of this study. As a side note, it is worth adding that these issues have already been reflected, albeit in a far from exhaustive manner, in the literature in the field, which, among other things, such as reports, based on rudimentary source data, showed that administrative punishments - reprimands, admonishments, demotions, deprivation of bonuses - affected 717 employees of Radom's factories. One hundred and fifty eight people were expelled from the ranks of the PZPR in Radom, 60 were crossed out (most probably these were the so-called "dead souls," that is inactive and non-paying members, who were discovered during the party cadre review in June), 210 more people were reprimanded and five others were dismissed from party functions. The dismissal of two deputy directors of the two largest factories in Radom - the "General Walter" Metal Works and the Radom Leather Works "Radoskór" - as well as two department directors in the Voivodeship Office in Radom - also had a worker/employee and party dimension.26
General Comments on the Studied Population Group
The population segment that remains in the author's direct area of interest in this study is the group of people referred to in the title as the judicially sentenced participants of the Radom protests of June '76. The reason for such a selection of the researched population is the argument, sufficiently proven in the literature in the field, that the group of those sentenced - referred to by the author of the monograph devoted specifically to this issue as "those repressed by the courts"27 - suffered the harshest legal retaliation (apart from the death penalty, of course, which was not applied to the participants of the June 1976 protests) - specifically imprisonment, preceded, as in the case of the vast majority of people subjected to criminal responsibility for participation in the June 1976 protest in Radom, by detention in police custody combined with "gauntlet run" and beatings during the interrogations. This was then culminated by the application of a preventive measure in the form of temporary arrest. Obviously, the repression that was slightly less severe (both subjectively and objectively) than subjecting to criminal proceedings and sentencing, and which affected more than 240 people, was Citizens' Militia detention and the subsequent sentencing to several months' imprisonment by the local Misdemeanor Council. Undoubtedly, therefore, this group of repressed participants in the Radom protest should also be the subject of research interest on the basis of the premise of deprivation of liberty. However, this is prevented by the above-mentioned important objective reason in the form of the disappearance of more than 90% of the personal files of those punished by the Council. Nevertheless, if we are able to find out anything more about this group on the basis of the residual source data that remains, we will do so, especially when it comes to comparison of the available information on those punished by the Misdemeanor Council with detailed findings on those sentenced by the courts.
The term "judicially sentenced" itself also requires closer explanation. It includes, of course, the whole group of people who were given punishments defined by the provisions of the Criminal Code and the Misdemeanor Code by the District and Voivodeship Courts in Radom at that time. In addition, this category includes 21 persons punished by the Misdemeanor Council of the President of the City of Radom, who decided to use their legal entitlements to appeal in the form of a motion to bring the case to a district court, as well as one person against whom this entitlements to appeal were used by the public prosecutor, that is, the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters in Radom. The term "convicted in court," contrary to its semantic explicitness, also includes people who were acquitted by the courts, contrary to the demands of the indictment. The rationale behind this procedure is the fact that these people, just like those sentenced to punishment, went through the ordeal of imprisonment, which is provided for by procedural law, but most often goes beyond it. It began with detention, which was usually combined with a "gauntlet run" and during interrogations by the Citizens' Militia, accompanied by the humiliation of one's dignity. This was followed by incarceration in pre-trial detention, which was accompanied (in the case of people who were employed) by immediate deprivation of work and stigmatisation by the apparatus of totalitarian power, and finally by the imposition of often unfounded or "trumped-up" charges and indictments, which culminated in a show trial, subject to ideological and administrative-party pressure. It was not uncommon for such people, despite their formal acquittal, to experience repression that was more severe - not only in their subjective perception - than that suffered by some of those punished by the courts, especially when they were accused of acts that were, after all, disgraceful and socially stigmatising, strictly criminal acts that they did not commit and to which they did not admit. The sense of personal injustice of those formally acquitted was confronted with the fact that a significant number of the participants of the Radom June '76 protests, who had been sentenced to code-mandated punishments, very quickly started to have their pre-trial detention lifted or prison sentences suspended (or even waived) under latent or overt amnesty measures.28
Just like determining the above mentioned categories of people repressed for taking part in the June protest in Radom, determining the exact number of people sentenced for this reason is also quite difficult to achieve. The studies quoted above are limited in this matter to quoting statistical data, taken from source materials created by the Citizens' Militia structures, the prosecutor's office or units of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) in the period immediately after 25 June 1976. At the beginning of the 1990s, the author of this analysis, in one of the first studies on the June 1976 events in Radom, quoted one of the documents of the Administrative Department of the Voivodeship Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) in Radom from the end of January 1977 (ignoring the fact that the numbers do not add up) that 189 people were prosecuted for taking part in the protest. A total of 207 people were to have been sentenced, and criminal proceedings against 13 were to have been discontinued. He also noted that 51 of the convicted persons were given immediate custodial sentences.29 Regardless of the mathematical inconsistency that has been noted over the years, these figures raise considerable doubts today, especially as they are clearly understated, in light of the incomparably broader source base. Only one of the above numbers was confirmed in subsequent years by researchers of the June 1976 protest in Radom on the basis of other sources. It concerns the figure of 51 people subjected to accelerated proceedings before the District Court in Radom, which proceeded against them on 26-27 June 1976. According to P. Sasanka, who cites this number, 28 of these persons were given immediate custodial sentences (from five months to one year), 14 were sentenced to imprisonment (from 2 to 3 months), one was sentenced to imprisonment with restrictions of freedom, and the cases of 8 persons were forwarded to the District Prosecutor's Office for further proceedings, as it turned out that these defendants had previous criminal records, which made it impossible to apply the accelerated procedure.30 Exactly the same figures, supplemented with other detailed data and own analyses, are also quoted by Arkadiusz Kutkowski in his monograph concerning the judicial repression after the events of June 1976 in Radom.31
The above-mentioned Paweł Sasanka provides, apart from the aforementioned, other figures illustrating the group of judicially repressed participants of the June 1976 events in Radom. He speaks of indictments filed in the District Court in Radom against 188 people, of whom 147 were temporarily arrested and 25 people identified by the Citizens' Militia and the prosecutor's office as the ringleaders of the events, tried (in the first instance) by the local Voivodeship Court during four collective hearings. The first two of the cited aggregate numbers are based on data from the files of the Voivodeship Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) stored in the State Archive in Radom, while the third one is based on the trial data stored in the IPN Archive in Warsaw.32 All the figures given by Mr. Sasanka, reflecting the number of those subjected to judicial repression, raise doubts. First of all, the 188 figure does not add up to the number of charges brought against persons belonging to this community, 37 members of which were accused under Article 275 of the Criminal Code, and 149 under the so-called criminal articles (theft, burglary, receiving of stolen goods). Secondly, not 25, but 26 "provocateurs" were charged in the first instance before the District Court in Radom. They were tried in four collective trials (24 defendants in all) and two individual ones, in September and October 1976.33 Paweł Sasanka does not provide any specific data on the sizeable group of juveniles judicially repressed for their participation in the protests that occurred during the June 1976 events in Radom.
The most detailed numerical data characterising the group of judicially repressed participants in the June 1976 protests can be found in the above-mentioned monograph by Arkadiusz Kutkowski. Among other things, we learn that a total of 261 people were tried by the Radom courts as adults (i.e., they were at least 17 years old on the day they committed the alleged crime). This figure consisted of: 42 persons convicted by the district court under the accelerated procedure, 26 persons indicted before the Voivodeship Court as a court of first instance, and 193 persons indicted before the district court under the ordinary procedure.34 The latter figure is not consistently upheld by the quoted author, because in a different place of his work he states, and the difference is not recognised, that the District Court in Radom tried 194 people under the standard procedure.35 Kutkowski supplements the above data concerning defendants in the adult procedure with statistics of minors who were brought to the Juvenile Department of the Radom District Court. According to the author, there were a total of 64 minors. He compiled this number on the basis of personal data from four different juvenile records, prepared in the summer of 1976 by the Radom MO and prosecutors' offices.36 Unfortunately, among other reasons, because of the failure to present a detailed analysis of the last figure, it raises doubts as to its accuracy.37
It is probably impossible to remove those doubts today because the District Court in Radom handed over the trial files concerning only 21 people38 to the archives of the local IPN Delegation, which may give rise to the fear that the remaining files may be missing or even totally lost.
In light of the above, after adding up the partial data provided by Kutkowski, the total number of people brought before the Radom courts for their participation in the June protest (adults and minors) was 325, or 326, if we accept the second of the given numbers, that 194 people were charged under the regular procedure before the District Court.
The above-quoted partial data, which make up the size of the population brought before the Radom courts for participation in the June 1976 protest, notwithstanding the doubts which have already been raised, brings further objections to the fore. First of all, these values omit the above-mentioned group of 22 persons convicted by the Misdemeanor Council, whose cases were referred to the Radom District Court as a right of appeal. The summary values quoted above based on historical literature, defining the population of the judicially repressed, as well as the elementary values comprising it, should have been confronted in this situation first of all with the numbers showing statistics of procedural records of persons repressed after June 1976, handed over to the IPN Delegation in Radom by the local courts.
Secondly, it was necessary to compare them with the data resulting from a thorough review of Citizens' Militia and prosecution sources known to historians (for the purposes of this research). Only the number of 26 people sentenced in the first instance by the Voivodeship Court in Radom,39 precisely determined by Kutkowski, and the number of people sentenced in the first instance by the District Court in Radom under the accelerated procedure, including 42, are confirmed.
It should be stated that in light of the analysis of personal case files kept in the archives of the IPN Delegation in Radom, the number of persons convicted by the court of first instance under the ordinary procedure amounts to 191. It should also be stressed that this number includes 14 persons already sentenced under the accelerated procedure by the District Court and a group of 3 persons sentenced by the Misdemeanor Council, who were tried in criminal proceedings on new charges of violating the Criminal Code. On the other hand, the number of juveniles whose names are contained in personal trial records handed over to the archives of the IPN Radom Delegation (only 21), the three lists referred to above, and mentions made in the trial records of other persons (usually tried as adults) includes 57 persons (which is 7 fewer than the figure given by Kutkowski). Thus, the total number of persons sentenced by the court - in the understanding of the concept adopted for the purposes of this study - includes 324 persons.40 This figure includes: a group of 22 persons sentenced first under the accelerated procedure by the Radom Misdemeanor Council, and then by the local District Court, which considered their appeals (in one case an appeal by the Citizens' Militia Voivodeship Headquarters). A group of 28 convicted exclusively by the District Court in Radom, acting under the accelerated procedure; a group of 14 convicted twice by the District Court - first under the accelerated procedure and then again under the standard procedure; a group of 177 persons sentenced by the District Court under the standard procedure; a group of 26 sentenced in the first instance by the Voivodeship Court in Radom, as the "instigators" of the protest; and a group of 57 minors brought before the judges of the Juvenile Department of the local District Court.
The data and calculations characterising the population of the convicted participants of the June 1976 protest in Radom, presented below, were made mainly on the basis of archival data and supplemented with partial data, which appeared on this subject in the above-mentioned historical literature. The source basis for the summary statements presented below was an analysis of personal data included in the trial files of people accused before the Radom courts for their participation in the June 1976 protest, currently stored in the archives of the IPN Delegation in Radom.41 Detailed personal data contained in the trial files were supplemented and verified on the basis of documents created by the structures of the Voivodeship Office of Internal Affairs in Radom,42 already mentioned, the files of the Ministry of Internal Affairs43 team stored in the central archives of the IPN in Warsaw, as well as files of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Polish People's Republic, relating to repressions against the participants of the Radom protest and stored in the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw.44
The collective portrait of the sentenced participants of the protest in Radom was drawn on the basis of personal data found in the above-mentioned sources, forming a personal information package, which was to a large extent standardised for the needs of criminal proceedings at that time. The following information was collected: gender, date and place of birth, place of residence, social background, marital and family status, education and professional background, occupation and place of work (education), amount of income and spouse's income (in the case of married persons), membership of social organisations, military service record (in the case of men), their reputation in the local community and at work (school), previous criminal record, criminal charges and the preventive measure applied in criminal proceedings, the penalties imposed by the court and accompanying penal measures, legal measures taken against the judgment of the court of first instance and the sentence passed in the appeal, if any, and rehabilitation measures taken after 1990. The presented data series constitutes information that makes it possible to compare the participants of the protest in Radom who were subjected to judicial repression and to synthesise data concerning them in order to draw a collective portrait. Other than the above-mentioned data, these archival sources contain only rudimentary information and do not make it possible to draw more detailed collective profiles of those affected by the authorities's revenge by repressions with the participation of the "justice system" of the time. The mentioned group of residual source information includes: the place of birth and social origin, the occupation of the convicted person's parents and siblings, the housing situation and financial status of the convicted person and his or her family, health and attitude towards such matters as use of tobacco and alcohol (in this last respect, however, the frequency of source references is significant enough to allow us to formulate some important generalising remarks below), personal interests and hobbies, satisfaction with work and education, ambitions and plans for the future (including personal and professional plans), religious beliefs and attitudes toward religious practices, along with a great deal of other data that researchers usually need in order to paint a more detailed collective portrait of selected groups and communities.
The above-described catalog of data present in the court and administrative records of the vast majority of members within the studied group allows us to sketch their collective portrait, taking into account: the age of the judicially convicted protesters and their origin and social affiliation; their place of birth and residence; their education and occupational position as well as their material position; their marital and family status; their membership in regime-approved social organisations; their previous criminal records as well as their reputation in the community and at their place of work or study; the course of the proceedings and the criminal charges brought against them; the amount and scope of the court sentences handed down; the undertaking of legal appeals against the judgments of the first instance and the sentences handed down in the second instance; the undertaking after 1990 of efforts aimed at the rehabilitation and exoneration of the charges on which the conviction was based for participation in the June 1976 protests.
Age and Social Status of the Convicted: the Protest of Young Workers
Out of the total of 324 people summoned before the Radom courts for their participation in the 25 June 1976 protest, only two underage girls could not have their exact date of birth established. These minor shortcomings therefore do not disrupt the analysis of the age of those convicted. Precise figures on this subject, with distinction of age and gender, are presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Persons sentenced by the courts for participation in the protest on the streets of Radom in June 1976 according to age group and gender
Age Group
Men
Women
Men and Women - Total
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
Data n/a
0
0.00
2
3.70
2a
0.62
Less than 13 yrs. old
3
1.11
0
0.00
3
0.93
13-14 yrs. old
9
3.33
1
1.85
10
3.08
15-16 yrs. old
39
14.45
4
7.41
43
13.27
17-18 yrs. old
36
13.33
4
7.41
40
12.35
19-21 yrs. old
47
17.41
12
22.22
59
18.21
22-25 yrs. old
55
20.37
3
5.56
58
17.90
26-30 yrs. old
36
13.33
3
5.56
39
12.04
31-40 yrs. old
28
10.37
7
12.96
35
10.80
41-50 yrs. old
14
5.19
9
16.67
23
7.10
51-60 yrs. old
3
1.11
8
14.81
11
3.39
61-70 yrs. old
0
0.00
1
1.85
1
0.31
Total
270
100.00
54
100.00
324
100.0
a Both persons were minors.
Source: Own calculation based on archival records referenced in footnotes 41-44.
For taking part in the Radom protest, 57 juveniles, including 7 girls and 50 boys, were subjected to judicial repression. Minors accounted for 17.6% of the entire studied group, and 17 and 18-year-olds another 12.3%, which together, is almost 30% of those sentenced by the courts. The 19-21 age group accounted for 18.2% of the repressed, which means that almost every second person brought before the Radom courts was under 22 years old. Persons under the age of 25 constituted as much as two-thirds of the total number of the judicially repressed. We can therefore state with certainty that the protest in Radom was generational in nature - a revolt of the young. There were only twelve prisoners over the age of 50, most of whom were women with strictly criminal charges (which will be discussed in more detail later). This is symptomatic of the fact that the studied group of those convicted was clearly dominated by men, who accounted for as much as 83.3% of its total number. The clear predominance of men is visible in each of the age groups identified in Table 1, with the exception of people over 50 years of age. A higher percentage of women among those convicted of participating in the protest is still visible only in the 19-21 age group, where every fifth person was a woman. It should also be noted that a significant proportion of women among those convicted begins to be visible for the generation above 30 years of age, then in each of the subsequent age brackets has an increasing tendency to reach the already mentioned dominance in the last two age groups.
The above observations on the age and gender of persons sentenced by the Radom courts clearly correspond with the data on persons sentenced by the Misdemeanor Council of the President of the City of Radom,45 presented in Table 2. These differences are due to the penal policy of the time, which required that minors be brought to court rather than to the Misdemeanor Council. The only identified case of a juvenile convicted by a ruling of a Misdemeanor Council however does not allow the reason for this state of affairs to be determined, in light of the above mentioned destruction of the Radom Misdemeanor Council files dated 1976. Persons under the age of 25 accounted for slightly more than 60% of those sentenced by way of a Misdemeanor Council decision, a figure that is only slightly lower than delete in the comparable group of persons sentenced by the court. Among those sentenced by the Misdemeanor Councils, men predominate even more clearly than in the case of those with court sentences, as they accounted for as much as 97.13% of this group. Thus, this value is nearly 14 percentage points higher compared to the relative number of women sentenced by the courts.
Table 2. Persons sentenced by the decision of the Misdemeanor Council of the President of the City Radom (under the accelerated procedure) for taking part in the protest on the streets of Radom on 25 June 1976, according to age group and gender
Age Group
Men
Women
Men + Women (Total)
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
Data N/A
1
0.42
0
0.00
1
0.40
Less than
17 yrs. old
1
0.42
0
0.00
1
0.40
17-18 yrs. old
23
9.70
0
0.00
23
9.42
19-21 yrs. old
71
29.97
2
28.57
73
29.93
22-25 yrs. old
48
20.25
4
57.14
52
21.32
26-30 yrs. old
50
21.10
0
0.00
50
20.49
31-40 yrs. old
26
10.97
1
14.29
27
11.07
41-50 yrs. old
10
4.22
0
0.00
10
4.10
51-60 yrs. old
7
2.95
0
0.00
7
2.87
Total
237
100.00
7
100.00
244
100.00
Source: See Table 1.
On 25 June 1976, Radom was the scene of the largest protest in the country, in terms of the number of demonstrators. The spontaneous strikes and street clashes of that day had clearly local roots and were the work of Radom residents. This context, in addition to the part of the city in which the protest took place, is described by two basic features that define the participants of the protest - their place of birth and residence. Of the 324 people convicted by local courts of taking part in the events of June 1968, as many as 205 were born in Radom, which accounts for 63.3% of the studied group, while another 77 (23.8%) were born in the vicinity of the city (within a 30-kilometer radius). Only 33 people (10.2%) were born further away from Radom, in another region of the country or abroad (individual cases). In the group of people born outside of Radom, every fourth person was born in the countryside (exactly 82 people), and almost every fifteenth (exactly 22 people) in another city. Some of the people born outside Radom settled there permanently because of either their or their parents' job.46
The local Radom character of the protest is even more visible in light of the data concerning the place of residence of the participants of the protest. As many as 258 of them, that is 79.6% of the total number, resided permanently in Radom, while another 11 (3.4% of those convicted) were temporarily registered there. Out of the remaining 55 persons sentenced by Radom courts, 45 lived in villages and 2 in towns located within 30 km radius from the city. Most of them commuted to Radom for work or attended local secondary schools. The same applied to six other persons who lived in towns located more than 30 km away from the city. Only one of the persons sentenced to prison was living further away.47 This observation also describes the community of offenders sentenced by the Radom Misdemeanor Council, as 186 of them (76.2% of the total) also resided permanently in the city, 48 in villages near Radom, and one in a nearby town. Only 8 persons sentenced by the Criminal Court lived further away from Radom.48
The prevalence of people born in Radom among those sentenced points indirectly to their social origin. This is because the city, at least since the turn of the 19th and 20th century, had a clearly working-class character. This is illustrated by the data from court records presented in Table 3.
Table 3. Persons sentenced by the courts for their participation in the June 1976 protest on the streets of Radom, by social origin
Background/Origin
Men
Women
Men + Women (Total)
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
Working-class
196
72.59
36
66.66
232
71.61
Peasant/Working class
5
1.85
1
1.85
6
1.85
Peasant
42
15.56
15
27.78
57
17.59
Intelligentsia
6
2.22
2
3.70
8
2.47
Others
4
1.48
0
0.00
4
1.23
Data n/a
17
6.30
0
0.00
17
5.25
Total
270
100.00
54
100.00
324
100.0
Source: See Table 1.
The Radom courts sentenced mainly individuals from working-class families, and secondly, people from peasant families. The peasants' origin is understandable, as the main migration environment to the working-class city of Radom were the surrounding villages, as already shown by the analysis of the place of birth of those convicted. The share of people of intellectual and other origins (mainly craftsmen and small merchants) among the repressed was insignificant and amounted to only 3.7%. Therefore, it can be assumed that among the dozen or so of those convicted whose social origin could not be established, people of peasant or more generally plebeian origin prevailed. The available source data, which illustrate the phenomenon described here, do not allow the analysis to go deeper than the parent's generation and establish the multi-generational social affiliation of those who did not come from the peasant class (in villages, social origin was mostly inherited through many generations). This circumstance was established only in one case,49 but it should be assumed that among people born in Radom, this phenomenon was very significant, if not dominant. As an isolated, individual piece of information it should also be mentioned that the father of one of those convicted (an unqualified disabled worker), incidentally was born in Cracow in the early 1930s, and was an air force officer in the years of the Second Polish Republic and was murdered in Katyn.50
Taking into account the above mentioned young age of the participants in the revolt, who were repressed by the court and their social backgrounds, it should be clearly emphasised that the streets of the city were dominated by the children of workers, peasants and members of the peasant-working class. The protest was therefore attended by young people from the lowest social strata, which - according to the official propaganda of the communist authorities - were to determine the social face of the Polish People's Republic. Thus, the protesters were predominantly young people from working class families (and, more broadly, from the peasant strata). It is worth remembering, however, that the popular narrative of the June 1976 protest in Radom speaks of a workers' protest, not at all because of the overwhelming number of people of working-class origin who were subjected to judicial repression, but above all because of their direct class affiliation, as well as the social responsibility of those who left their jobs on that day in large numbers (in a group amounting to tens of thousands of people) but managed to avoid being arrested by the MO and brought before the Misdemeanor Council or a criminal court. The direct social affiliation of the majority of those sentenced is determined by such source-identifiable detailed characteristics as: type of occupation, place of work, education, and profession. The numerical picture of this phenomenon is presented in Tables 4-7.
Table 4. Persons sentenced by courts for participation in the June 1976 protest on the streets of Radom according to their occupation
Type of Occupation
Men
Women
Men + Women
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
Manual workera
137
50.74
28
51.85
165
50.93
Occasional worker, in private enterprises
16
5.93
1
1.85
17
5.25
Manual workerb and on one's own land
2
0.74
0
0.00
2
0.62
Technicianb
4
1.48
0
4
1.23
White collarb
2
0.74
1
1.85
3
0.93
Own craft, trade or service business
3
1.11
3
5.56
6
1.85
Work on one own's farm or of parents
5
1.85
2
3.70
7
2.16
Pensioner/retiree
2
0.74
3
5.56
5
1.54
Unemployed
99
36.67
16
29.63
115
35.49
- evading work
12
12.12c
0
0.00
12
10.43c
- dependent on parents
83
83.84c
10
62.50c
93
80.87c
- dependent on spouse
1
1.01c
6
37.50c
7
6.09c
- for other reasons
3
3.03c
0
0.00
0
0.00
Total
270
100.00
54
100.00
324
100.00
a Permanent work in a "social," i.e. state-controlled (120 men) or private (17 men) workplace.
b Work only in a "social" workplace.
c Percentage of unemployed persons.
Source: See Table 1.
Among the data listed in Table 4, two groups of values stand out - the number of physical/manual workers and the number of unemployed. The total number of permanent blue-collar workers, mostly employed in the state-owned enterprises of Radom, but also those employed permanently and occasionally in small private crafts enterprises (mainly in construction and locksmith-mechanical enterprises) points directly to the blue-collar employees. This group accounted for 56.8% of the total number of persons that were sentenced in court. The fact that the number of unemployed exceeded the total number of persons sentenced by the courts by one-third is mainly a correlation of the above-mentioned young age of those convicted, of whom - let us recall - almost 30% were 18 years old or younger. Such persons, mostly attending primary and secondary schools, are usually supported by their parents. They accounted for as much as 28.7% of the total studied group of convicted participants in the Radom protest. All of the other numerical values listed in Table 4 are statistically notable, but are rather of lesser significance for the characteristics of the population in question.51
The above data on the occupations of the participants of the events of June 1976 sentenced by the court, and especially the social characteristics of the studied group revealed on this occasion, are, as it seems, confirmed by numbers of a slightly different kind, namely those showing the places of work (occupations) of the people belonging to the group of those sentenced by a ruling of the Misdemeanor Council at the President's Office of the City of Radom. They are presented in Table 5.
Table 5. Persons sentenced by decisions of the Misdemeanor Council at the President of the City of Radom for taking part in the 25 June 1976 protest according to their workplace or occupation
Place of Employment
Men
Women
Men + Women
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
State-owned enterprise
138
58.23
3
42.86
141
57.79
Private company
20
8.43
0
0.00
20
8.20
Own craft shop, trade or service establishment
4
1.69
0
0.00
4
1.64
Farm work on one's own farm or that of parents
4
1.69
0
0.00
4
1.64
Pensioner/retiree
3
1.27
0
0.00
3
1.23
Not working
45
18.99
2
28.57
47
19.26
- secondary school students
17
37.78a
0
0.00
17
36.17a
- students
2
4.44a
0
0.00
2
0.82a
Data n/a
23
9.70
2
28.57
25
10.24
Total
237
100.00
7
100.00
244
100.00
a % of non-working/unemployed people
Source: See Table no. 2.
A reliable and telling picture of the collective portrait of the convicted participants of the 25 June 1976 protest in Radom emerges from an analysis of the data on education contained in their personal court records. The data presented in Table 6, regardless of its usefulness in describing a local phenomenon, can contribute to a deeper vivisection of the social condition of the Polish working class as a group in the mid-1960s in the country's large industrial centers.
Table 6. Persons sentenced by courts for participation in the 25 June 1976 protest in Radom by educational level and type
Education
Men
Women
Men + Women
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
With no formal education
0
0.00
1
1.85
1
0.31
Un completed primary schoola
12
4.44
9
16.67
21
6.48
Primary school
104
38.53
24
44.44
128
39.50
Partial vocational
13
4.81
0
0.00
13
4.01
Basic vocational
53
19.63
5
9.26
58
17.90
Partial secondary
6
2.22
3
5.56
9
2.78
Technical (secondary)
8
2.96
0
0.00
8
2.47
General (secondary)
2
0.74
1
1.85
3
0.93
Primary school pupilb
21
7.78
4
7.41
25
7.72
Pupil of a basic vocational school
28
10.37
2
3.70
30
9.26
High school student/vocational school studentc
19
7.04
4
7.41
23
7.10
Higher education student
1
0.37
0
0.00
1
0.31
Data n/a
3
1.11
1
1.85
4
1.23
Total
270
100.00
54
100.00
324
100.00
a Incomplete primary education (general education) included mainly persons born before World War II, but it also includes a few persons born after the war.
b In the group of 21 pupils there were 15 pupils of a regular elementary school, 2 pupils of a special elementary school and 4 pupils of vocational elementary school, and among 4 female pupils two were from a regular elementary school and a special elementary school.
c In the group of 19 boys there were 7 pupils of a day technical school and 1 of a technical/vocational school for those employed, on the basis completing elementary school, 8 pupils attending a technical school for those employed on the basis of completing basic vocational school, 2 pupils of a general or vocational secondary school and 1 of a general secondary school for those working; among 4 girls, there were pupils of: a daytime technical school, general secondary school, daytime technical school on the basis of completing basic vocational school and technical school for those working on the basis of a completed elementary school education.
Source: See Table 1.
The numbers presented in Table 6 show that almost 61% of all people sentenced for participation in the events of June 1976 did not have a secondary school education, having reached basic vocational or secondary school. In this group, which included 197 repressed people, the majority had a primary education, but there was also a large share of students of regular and special primary schools (or basic vocational schools) and people with an incomplete primary education.52 The previously mentioned large number of juveniles and adolescents among those repressed by the courts explains the relatively large share of students from different types of schools in Radom shown in the table. Together with the only higher-education student in this group, there were as many as 79 of them, that is almost a quarter of the total number of people sentenced by the courts. Thus, this is a much more significant percentage than among those sentenced by the Misdemeanor Council, where at least half as many were affected. The reason for this was the above-mentioned criminal policy, dictated by the letter of the law in force, which stipulated that persons under 17 years of age, suspected of committing criminal acts, were held responsible before juvenile courts. The data discussed here leads to a sad conclusion about the miserable social condition of workers from the city of Radom who, by not showing up for work on 25 June and taking to the streets of the city, defied the "people's" authority. This miserable state of affairs, in addition to other reasons which will be discussed later, was determined - who knows if not to the greatest extent - by a very low level of education, correlating with low wages and poor social and living conditions.
The figures indicating the level of education of court-sentenced participants in the June 1976 Radom protests are matched by those indicating their occupation, presented in Table 7. As a result of the low level of education, which in most cases was limited to completing elementary school (or not completing the said school) or secondary school, a lack of profession or trade was statistically predominant. The numerical values illustrating it are almost identical with the data presented in Table 6. Regardless of the above statement, there are also other observations. Firstly, the significantly higher proportion of women without an occupation among the group of convicted men was caused by two circumstances: women had less work experience due to childbearing, which did not favour at least acquiring an occupation outside the basic vocational school system; secondly, the traditional model of the social role of women, which was present in Polish society forty years ago and which required that before acquiring an education or a profession, they should first get married as young as possible (in order to protect themselves from the deeply-rooted "old spinster" label), give birth and then raise their offspring. It is also worth remembering that the structure of Radom industry in those years (mainly the metal, electrical machinery, and tanning industries) and the construction industry (the building materials and contractors' workshops), which were the dominant places of employment in the city,53 clearly preferred these traditionally men's professions. A wider range of jobs for women was offered only by the "Radoskór" Leather Industry Plant (in the part of the plant producing shoes), the Radom Telephone Plant and the Tobacco Industry Plant. The structure of the Radom economy in the 1970s was closely connected with the vocational education system, which clearly preferred traditionally "male" professions. Secondly, in almost all other occupational groups listed in the table below, the proportion of women is significantly lower than that of men. Thus, even such a narrow, local research sample, such as the group of people convicted of participating in the June 1976 protest in Radom, confirms the repeatedly proven thesis that in the PRL the level of education and professional preparation of women was significantly lower than that of men.
Table 7. Persons sentenced by the courts for taking part in the events of June 1976 in Radom according to their professions
Profession or Trade
Men
Women
Men + Women
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
With no profession
148
54.82
43
79.64
191
58.94
Learned profession (w/o a vocational education)
45
16.67
2
3.70
47
14.51
Occupation after finishing a vocational school
66
24.44
6
11.11
72
22.22
Technician
9
3.33
0
0.00
9
2.78
Other profession
1
0.37
1
1.85
2
0.62
Data n/a
1
0.37
2
3.70
3
0.93
Total
270
100.00
54
100.00
324
100.00
Source: See Table 1.
Other data can be obtained from court records that describe the social condition of the studied population concerning the group of convicted participants of the events in Radom, as well as from administrative records created by the security apparatus and the prosecutor's office. This is, above all, information on the membership of those sentenced by the court of the regime's political and social organisations and - with regard to men - their attitude towards military service. However, in comparison with the data analysed above, as well as with most of the data that will be discussed in later sections of this study, the representativeness of this information is significantly lower. This is most often the result of such data not being included in the personal questionnaire at the beginning of interrogation protocols drawn up at the pre-trial stage, or not being included in indictments and trial reports.
With regard to membership of political and social organisations, archival sources concerning those sentenced by the court for their participation in the June protests recorded the data of only 76 people, which is less than a quarter of the total number of the repressed (23.46% to be exact). Eight of these people were members of the PZPR (five men and three women), and two were candidates for membership (a man and a woman). Thus, a total of 10 people were associated with the ranks of the communist party. This number coincides with the information given above (which, due to the circumstances of the list of detainees, did not have to be precise and referred to all 10 people as party members) of about ten PZPR members detained by the MO. The analysed data from the personal files of those convicted confirm also the information that there were no members of the other political parties, the (ZSL) and (SD), among the detainees. As far as participation in social organisations is concerned, it is doubtful that only 66 of those sentenced by the courts were on their membership lists. The author of this study, who remembers the reality of the mid 1970s in detail, knows that membership of social organisations licensed by the communist authorities of the time, above all youth organisations and trade unions - of course understood by those interested only formally, as "enrollment," and not as a conscious and voluntary accession - was tremendously widespread and was the result of linking this "enrollment" by the activists of these organisations with the allocation of various social benefits and bonuses in the area of participation in cultural life (for example the allocation of places in youth camps, other camps for young people, trips in-country/trips abroad, attractive performance tickets, and so on) Probably, therefore, the number of members of the regime's social organisations among the convicted participants of the June 1976 protest in Radom was significantly higher than recorded, but they themselves were reluctant to admit their membership (or perhaps they simply did not remember it). In turn, MO or SB officers and prosecutors who interrogated them were not eager to disclose suspects' mass membership information in the investigation files, above all in youth organisations that were in the vestibules of the political parties, as this could bring an additional, unfavorable overtone for the communist regime.54 In a detailed aspect, the analysed sources noted: eleven members of the Polish Scouting Association (exclusively young men), six members of trade unions (three women and three men), three members of the National Defence League (two men and one woman), three members of the League of Polish Women (female), one member of the Council of the Voluntary Labour Corps (OHP) and finally ten members of other social organisations (exclusively men). Separate attention should be paid to membership in socio-political youth organisations affiliated with the regime's political parties. Court records of convicted persons show that 28 of them (23 young men and five women) belonged to the Union of Socialist Youth (ZMS), one man to the Union of Polish Socialist Youth (ZSMP) and three men to the Union of Socialist Rural Youth (ZSMW).55 The latter two organisations were established in the spring of 1976. The former replaced the ZMS, the latter replaced the Union of Rural Youth (ZMW).
An almost universal feature identifying men of the communist era in their CVs was their inclusion of information on two years of military service (in the case of Navy - three years of the service on vessels). Although the personal questionnaire in the pre-trial interrogation protocol contained two questions relating to this issue, the answers were not always entered or were so inaccurate that in many cases it is no longer possible to determine whether or not a given man had performed his military service on the basis of the court records examined. Out of a total of 270 men brought before the Radom courts for their participation in the events of June 1976, sources do not indicate military service records in relation to 49 of them (18.15%). Of the remaining men, as many as 126, in other words almost every second of those convicted (46.67% to be exact), had an unregulated status regarding their military service, such as the status of a pre-registered conscript (under the age of 18), a conscript (after fulfilling his military duty, between the ages of 18 and 19), a conscript (awaiting a call-up for basic military service after turning 19), or a deferred conscript (subject to the call-up, but with a deferred date due to, for example, studying, temporary health problems or a difficult family situation). This figure is not surprising insofar, as already detailed in Table 1, almost one-third of the men sentenced by the courts (32.22% to be exact) were of an age up to and including 18, and a further 17.41% were between 19 and 21, which was the age at which young men were usually called up for basic military service. Among the remaining 95 men in relation to whom sources provide information on their obligation to perform military service, 58 performed it (21.48%), 18 were declared unfit for service due to health reasons (6.67%), 4 did substitute military service with the OHP (1.48%), and the remaining 15 did not perform military service for undetermined reasons (5.56%).56
Family Status and Financial Condition: Everyday Life in Shades of Gray
It was pointed out above that the protest on the streets of Radom on 25 June 1976 was overwhelmingly attended by young Radom workers and underage workers who, it is reasonable to assume, would mainly join the ranks of the workers when they came of age. Both of these groups constituted at least the second generation of Radom workers. The court sources analysed for the purposes of this study, along with supplementary administrative data, make it possible (albeit with a certain degree of caution due to the incompleteness of data on this subject) to take a look at the family and material situation of those convicted, which - at least in part - makes it possible to search for individual motives for their behavior during the protest. As far as this issue is concerned, the sources in question contain information on the family status of the judicially repressed, specifically whether or not they had both parents and siblings, their marital status and the number of children, the amount of income they and their spouse earned, and the housing situation of the families to which they belonged.
Out of a total of 157 court-ordered convicted individuals under the age of 22, only fourteen did not have one parent, one person did not have both, and data were missing for one person. Thus being an orphan, comprising less than a tenth of the convicted youths, did not weigh significantly on collective perceptions of social frustration and inclinations to rebel. It can be assumed that the same was true of the premise of a difficult family situation caused by the number of siblings. Having siblings was reported in the sources pertaining to slightly less than half of those convicted (for 156 people, that is 48.15%). It should be clearly emphasised at the same time that having siblings was recorded in the vast majority of cases in the questionnaires of young people, mostly of a bachelor and bachelorette status, and sporadically in the questionnaires of older, married people with children of their own. Of those convicted with siblings, those with one brother or sister constituted the largest proportion (57 persons), followed by those with two siblings (32 persons), three (28 persons), four (14 persons), and six or more (12 persons). Two individuals had five siblings, and nine were only children.
A significant phenomenon defining the group of convicted participants of the June 1976 protest in Radom was the fact that this form of repression covered several members of one family. The record-holders in this respect were the Majewski siblings from Bernardyńska Street in Radom - Stefan, Bogdan, Barbara, Janusz and a minor, Krystyna. Brothers subjected to judicial repression were: the Mitak family (Tadeusz, Tomasz, and Wojciech), the Majewskis (Czesław and Zbigniew), the Dobosz siblings (Józef and Władysław), the Jęczkowiak siblings (Jacek and Romuald), the Kwiatkowski brothers (Lech and Mirosław), the Skrzypek siblings (Wacław and Zygmunt), and the Stępień siblings (Józef and Zenon).57 Other siblings were Grażyna and Zbigniew Kopciński, Mirosława and Zygmunt Wac and Barbara Sochacka née Stachurska and Wojciech Stachurski. The court also sentenced Zofia and Jan Sadowski, as well as parents and children: Jan and Irena Czyżewski with son Jan, father and son - Marian, Andrzej and Waldemar Grzegorzewski, mother and son - Janina and Marek Siedlecki, and mother and daughter - Joanna and Małgorzata Królak. The group of those convicted with family connections ends with mother-in-law Maria Markiewicz and son-in-law Wiesław Tomczyk. In total, 42 people (12.35% of those convicted) were connected by family ties (kinship, marriage, or other form of affinity), in other words every eighth person subjected to judicial repression.
Data on the marital status of those repressed provide interesting information useful for drawing a collective portrait of those convicted of participating in the June 1976 protest in Radom. This is illustrated in Table 8.
Table 8. Persons sentenced by courts for participation in the events of June 1976 in Radom, by marital status
Marital Status
Men
Women
Men + Women
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
Married
93
34.45
30
55.56
123a
37.96
Single
171
63.33
20
37.04
191
58.95
Divorced
5
1.85
1
1.85
6
1.85
Widowed
1
0.37
2
3.70
3
0.93
Data n/a
0
0.00
1
1.85
1
0.31
Total
270
100.00
54
100.00
324
100.00
a Including seven separated men and three women and two men who remarried.
Source: See Table 1.
The analysis of the numbers quoted in the table above clearly shows that the most active - according to the then authorities - participants of the 25 June 1976 protest in Radom were people who had not yet managed to get married and start their own families. In the group of men nearly two out of every three of those convicted were still single, and among women more than one out of every three were unmarried. The data quoted here correlate clearly with the information given above on the clear numerical predominance of people of young age. Let us recall at this point that as many as two-thirds of the total number of persons sentenced to court were under 26 years of age. Observations of demographic trends in the mid-1970s show that men most often married between the ages of 23 and 27, and women between 19 and 23. Thus, the different proportions of men and women in the pre-marital period among those convicted should not be surprising. Given the prevalence of young single men among the participants of the June 1976 repressions, almost half of whom were under the age of 18, points to another important circumstance. It shows that such people were more prone to spontaneous and daring actions, such as taking part in strikes, street demonstrations, and clashes with the intervening police. As people grew older and got married, started a family, and had children (especially more than two), the propensity for risky behavior that could lead to criminal repression decreased, especially among men. These observations seem to be confirmed by the data on the number of children of those convicted presented in Table 9. Although, with regard to fertility, we do not have data for nearly one in ten of those convicted, it can be noted that the figures showing the total number of bachelors and bachelorettes and those without children do not differ significantly from each other.58 Sources also note several cases where the convicted man's wife was pregnant (usually the second pregnancy) and one case of a convicted woman who was pregnant at the time.
Table 9. Persons sentenced by the courts for participation in the 25 June 1976 protest in Radom according to the number of children they had
Men
Women
Men + Women
No.
%
No.
%
No.
%
Childless
157
58.15
25
46.30
182a
56.17
1 child
29
10.74
7
12.96
36
11.11
2 children
29
10.74
10
18.52
39
12.04
3 children
20
7.41
4
7.41
24
7.41
4 children
3
1.11
3
5.56
6
1.85
5 children
1
0.37
2
3.70
3
0.93
6 children and more
2
0.74
2
3.70
4
1.23
Data n/a
29
10.74
1
1.85
30a
9.26
Total
270
100.00
54
100.00
324
100.00
a In the absence of source data, childlessness was assumed for those before the age of 22, and from the age of 22 onwards as no data was available in the strict sense.
Source: See Table 1.
The above-mentioned data presenting the marital and family status of the convicted participants of the protest in Radom are supplemented by information on their material situation. This is illustrated above all by the relatively large amount of information present in the sources concerning the monthly earnings of convicted persons, if they were employed on a permanent or an intermittent basis, or the amount of pension or disability benefits, and incomes of employed spouses (or their pensions or disability benefits). The presence of data on the earnings of both spouses, or information about the earnings of the convicted person and the lack of employment of the spouse, in turn, allows for an attempt to determine the amount of earnings of both spouses, which affected the material condition of their families. The data available in the sources, concerning the amount of earnings of those convicted with permanent or intermittent employment and the amount of pension and disability benefits collected, are summarised in Table 10.
