Union of Socialist Youth Political Centre of the Student Left

Polityczny Ośrodek Lewicy Akademickiej Związku Młodzieży Socjalistycznej (POLA ZMS), an association of left-wing students founded in Kraków in March 1957 as a group under the Union of Socialist Youth (ZMS) umbrella. Grotowski presented its programme in a manifesto titled ‘Lewica akademicka’ (The student left) written together with Adam Ogorzałek. POLA aimed to continue the anti-Stalinist line initiated by Rewolucyjny Związek Młodzieży (Revolutionary Youth Union). The Centre took the form a discussion group with the aim of developing a programme for a Polish road to socialism of a radically anti-stalinist nature, while also propagating such ideas and seeking to influence the decisions taken by the ZMS leadership and other organisations in accordance with these ideas. POLA opposed the treatment of youth organisations as centrally-guided annexes to the ruling Polish United Workers Party (PZPR), while aiming to retain at least relative autonomy and intellectual independence. As an organisation that did not fall into line with the direction chosen by the Party (rebuilding centralised power, silencing independent political movements, ideological homogenisation of the left-wing movement) it was dissolved suddenly on the basis of an undemocratic decision taken by the Kraków ZMS leadership on 16 May 1957. Bolesław Tejkowski was a POLA activist alongside Jerzy Grotowski.