Identity and the City: The shipyards of Szczecin tell the story!

In the exhibition and website: 


Wystawa „Stocznia Szczecińska. Historia nie tylko polityczna" 

Exhibition "Szczecin Shipyard. Not only political history"  

We find a story of local identity that emerges out of histories of political struggle and economic survival: 

On the one hand, shipyard workers were favoured by the government, while on the other they were a subversive and rebellious community: the community of tough people, hardened by harsh working conditions, making a strong team. It was in the shipyard that the Szczecin anti-communist opposition was born.

On 10 December 1956 in Szczecin first major anti-communist riots took place. The crowd attacked, among other things, the Soviet consulate. It follows from the report of the head of the Voivodship Office for Public Security in Szczecin that one of the agents provocateurs was a shipyard worker Zygmunt Własiuk, residing in a worker’s hostel of Szczecin Shipyard. A large part of people arrested after the riots was made up of shipyard workers.

In 1958 the first post-war strikes took place in the shipyard. On 9–11 January a strike was undertaken by a part of the shipyard workers. According to the authorities, the protest was organised by a turner Adamowski. And on 20–21 August a rebel began in the K-2 Division after the salaries and wages budget was decreased. On 29 August another strike broke out in the Machine Assembly Division, organised by Antoni Sawicki, a president of the divisional section of the Trade Union of Metalworkers.

The most dramatic protest of workers took place in December 1970. According to sociologists, the December of 1970 is one of the two dates (with the August of 1980) that most integrated the society of Szczecin inhabitants still looking for their identity. It was at that time that shipyard workers demanded free trade unions.

On 12 December 1970 the Government announced the increase of prices for many food and industrial products. This sparked a workers’ revolt in Tricity (Trójmiasto) two days later. The information about the revolt hit the front pages of international newspapers.