First and foremost

The spring of ’89 was hot. The streets were festooned with pamphlets and images of Lech Wałęsa, who could be seen everywhere on posters shaking hands with all the opposition candidates. The first issue of independent newspaper ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ had just come out. And I had been gaining my first journalistic experience working for student radio, which had for some time been defying any form of censorship. Despite all that, opposition rallies were still being broken up by the militia, and student activists were still being urged to join the Communist Party, although no one expected any of them to do so. Revolution was in the air. When I went to the polling station on June 4th, I ran into a Solidarity campaigner I knew who was now acting as a member of the electoral commission. As he handed over the electoral form, he winked and asked me: “Do you know how to vote?” The official stood next to him protested meekly: “Mr N., how many times do I have to te