The Alternative Society Movement (RSA) against a Background of Other Youth Formations of Political Opposition in the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) in the 1980s (en translation)

Abstract: The paper raises the issue of the presence and uniqueness of RSA among political youth opposition in PRL in the 1980s. The very phenomenon of political oppositional activity among youth on such a large scale was undoubtedly unique to Poland when compared with other countries of the Eastern Bloc. In the period between 1980 and 1990, at least 400 organizations, movements, circles and groups were created. RSA’s originality consisted in formulating a political program that encouraged the Polish society to emancipate both from communist enslavement and capitalist system fostered by the Solidarity political opposition. The uniqueness of this formation came also from its acting both as a political opposition movement as well as a youth subculture which enabled it to survive the break-up of the whole current of the political opposition in the Polish youth millieu that took place in 1990.

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