Workers' Defence Committee
From 1971 through 1980, Wildstein studied Polish literature at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In the 1970s, he joined the oppositional Workers' Defence Committee ("Komitet Obrony Robotnikow"), an influential highbrow forerunner to the Solidarity movement that was established in 1980; and in 1977 he co-founded the Student Committee of Solidarity ("Studencki Komitet Solidarności"). From 1980 he lived in France, where he worked as a journalist for the Polish monthly "Kontakt" and for Radio Free Europe.