Workers' Defense Committee

The Workers' Defense Committee (Polish: Komitet Obrony Robotników pronounced [kɔmitɛt ɔbrɔnɨ rɔbɔtɲikuf], KOR) was a Polish civil society group that was founded by Antoni Macierewicz to give aid to prisoners and their families after the June 1976 protests and ensuing government crackdown. KOR was an example of successful social organizing based on specific issues relevant to the public's daily lives. It was a precursor and inspiration for efforts of the Solidarity trade union a few years later.

It was established in September 1976 by Antoni Macierewicz and Piotr Naimski. A year later it was reorganized into the Committee for Social Self-defence KOR (Komitet Samoobrony Społecznej KOR).

This organization was the first major anti-communist civic group in Poland, as well as Eastern Europe. It was born of the outrage at the government's crackdown in June 1976. Its stated purpose was to create "new centers of autonomous activity." It raised money through sales of its underground publications, through fund-raising groups in Paris and London, and grants from Western institutions.

KOR sent open letters of protest to the government and organized legal and financial support for the families of political detainees. The leaders of the organization established an activities and coordination center and offered analysis on workers’ conditions within Poland. They often collaborated with Western journalists on writing and publishing articles. The group worked with sympathetic lawyers to get better representation for striking workers and obtained medical diagnoses from doctors which they presented as evidence of police brutality in court trials. The group smuggled in mimeograph machines to print its underground newsletter, Komunikat, which had a circulation of around 20,000 by 1978.

As a side project of KOR, an underground publishing house called NOWA was founded using mimeograph machines owned by KOR. It printed material critical of the regime and reproduce banned writings from thinkers outside of the Warsaw Pact countries, such as George Orwell. NOWA had its own print shops, storehouses, and distribution network, and financed itself through sales and contributions.

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