The Gnomes that Marched for Polish Freedom

4 min readAug 5, 2022

Your eyes open in a slow squint as you come to consciousness under a harsh fluorescent light. As your vision adjusts, you see a grey cell, a wooden table with scratches, and — is that dried blood? A door slams and you start up. A tall man in a Soviet uniform walks in, his clean-shaven appearance contrasting with your unkempt beard and tangled hair. He grips the sides of the table.

“What do you know about the dwarves?” An interrogation is probably the wrong place to laugh, but who does he think you are — Snow White?

“Excuse me?”

“The gnomes. In the orange hats. All over the streets where Party slogans used to be. Who’s behind it?” He leans in, eyes widening in irritation.

“What?”

“The dwarves! The ones in the street! What do they want?” A giggle escapes your mouth.

“Shall I take you to their leader? The dwarf-king? Have you checked under the mountain?” The policeman’s face reddens. He curses and storms out.

*******************************************************************

After years of Nazis occupation in World War II, followed by life under Stalin and subsequent Soviet leaders, the Polish people had had enough. In the 1980s, the Polish resistance swelled to a climax. History makes much of the Solidarity Movement, strikes, and international negotiations — and rightly so. But a lesser-known resistance movement also deserves some attention — unless it appears to historians like a clownish child whose obvious desire for attention is best ignored. But the Orange Alternative is hardly an isolated street corner demonstration. In June of 1988, ten thousand Poles marched through the streets dressed as dwarves in orange hats. They mocked Communist police, cracked jokes, and drew pictures of orange gnomes over political slogans around the city.

No Dwarves, No Freedom

The Orange Alternative began as a group of university students led by Waldemar Fydrych. Chafing under communist rule, tired of shortages of basics like toilet paper and feminine hygiene products, a group of students in Wroclaw, Poland began the resistance. They staged “happenings” with ironic messages designed to subvert the common fear of Communist police. On December 13, 1988 they spread the word to “Help the Militia, beat yourself up” (Fydrych 295). “There is no freedom without dwarves!” was a favorite slogan in their anti-communist protests.

Comic Relief

While writers like Viktor Frankl and Alexander Solzhenitysn urged victims of fascism and communism to confront life’s suffering and find meaning in it, Fydrych argued in his “Manifesto of Socialist Surrealism” that the Soviet Union should be viewed as surrealist art — don’t try to make sense of it. It’s a bit of absurdity that deserves only laughter. He quipped,

“The whole world is a work of art. Even a single policeman standing in the street is a piece of art. Let’s have fun, our destiny is not a cross to bear” (304).

Basically, instead of cowering before the bully on the playground, turn the tables and start cracking jokes — even as he’s beating you up. Whoever retains his sense of humor has the psychological upper hand. Fydrych kept up his quips even when arrested at various times for subversion. The other prisoners would laugh and the guards had no idea how to handle a man who simply refused to act afraid.

A Unique Philosophy

Rationalism and realism, according to Fydrych, create depression and fear of limitless imagination. Why seek reason when you could simply enjoy yourself? Life isn’t a cross or a vale of tears — it’s a farce. He says,

“We have prepared very perfidious tricks for the well organized knowledge you possess” (305)

On the anniversary of the October Revolution, the Orange Alternative held an illegal demonstration and asked everyone to wear red — even if the only red was a cup of ketchup or painted nails. When the police showed up, the demonstrators cackled to hear Soviets order one another to “arrest the Reds!”

Smokers or Saints?

Reading Fydrych’s account of the revolution The Lives of the Orange Men, it’s obvious that his nonchalant attitude was partially maintained by large quantities of pot. In many ways, he and his comrades were the anti-communist version of American hippies in the 1960s. He writes with deliberate irreverence — like Vonnegut without the undertones of aching cynicism. But the spirit of the Orange Revolution also captures a bit of the Holy Fool tradition in Eastern Orthodoxy, which has its roots in St. Paul’s teaching that God turns convention on its head and works in ways the worldly-wise call foolish (I Corinthians 1).

In the foreword to the first edition of Orange Men, Anne Appelbaum from the Washington Post wrote,

“The young people who came to happenings probably hurt the regime more by mocking it than a whole decade of riots would have done. They proved the emperor had no clothes, that the regime was intellectually bankrupt … Communism fell apart totally only two years later” (298–299)

The Orange Alternative recognized that philosophical arguments and economic theories are only so convincing — sometimes the best way to demoralize the enemy is just to laugh at him. They understood that art (in their case, street art and theatre) captures the imagination and builds community. They created a revolution that people wanted to join — not saying “that looks dangerous,” but “that looks like fun!” So, hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to mock Communism they go.