page_title: Orange Alternative
section_title: Happenings
hierarchical_section_title: Orange Alternative / Happenings
context_page_description: The Orange Alternative is a Polish anti-communist underground movement, started in Wrocław, a city in south-west Poland and led by Waldemar Fydrych, commonly known as Major in the 1980s. Its main purpose was to offer a wider group of citizens an alternative way of opposition against the authoritarian regime by means of a peaceful protest that used absurd and nonsensical elements.
  By doing this, members of the Orange Alternative could not be arrested by the police for opposition to the regime without the authorities becoming a laughing stock. The Orange Alternative has been viewed as part of the broader Solidarity movement. Academics Dennis Bos and Marjolein 't Hart have asserted it was the most effective of all Solidarity's factions in bringing about the movement's success.
  Initially it painted ridiculous graffiti of dwarves on paint spots covering up anti-government slogans on city walls. Afterwards, beginning with 1985 through 1990, it organized a series of more than sixty happenings in several Polish cities, including Wrocław, Warsaw, Łódź, Lublin, and Tomaszów Mazowiecki.
  It was the most picturesque element of Polish opposition to Stalinist authoritarianism.
context_section_description: What brought the Orange Alternative the biggest fame were its street happenings which it organized throughout the second half of the 1980s. These actions gained it enormous popularity among the Polish youth, who joined the movement, seeing it an alternative to the opposition style presented by the Solidarity, which they viewed as more stiff and boring.
  The first modest happening called the "Burning of Tubes" was organized as early as 1985 in Wrocław by Major Waldemar Fydrych accompanied by a small group of artists to which belonged: Krzysztof Skarbek, Piotr Petyszkowski, Andrzej Głuszek, and Sławomir Monkiewicz.
  The break-through moment came in the fall of 1987, during the Open Theatre Festival in Wrocław, when the Village Voice reported the Orange Alternative's action known as "Distribution of Toilet Paper" – a happening that satirized the annoying lack of that consumer product at the time. After the publication of this article, the Orange Alternative became of interest to a number of Polish and foreign media.
  The biggest happenings however took place in the years 1987 through 1989, with the "orange" wave spilling over Poland into cities such as Warsaw, Łódź, Lublin and Tomaszów Mazowiecki, following Major Fydrych's arrest on 8 March 1988.
  The actions of the Orange Alternative – although its leaders and participants often expressed anarchistic viewpoints – were not inherently ideological. No serious demands were ever expressed. Rather, the slogans were surrealist in character (such as "Vivat Sorbovit", Sorbovit being a popular soft drink at that time) or "There is no freedom without dwarves". They often paraphrased slogans used by the Solidarity Union or the communists. Their role was to laugh at absurdities and pompousness of both sides of the system and provoke independent thinking.
  The open street formula allowed all individuals to take part in the happenings. This openness drew thousands of pedestrians to participate in the group's actions. In such a way, the majority of the happenings could assemble thousands of participants, of whom many were accidental passers-by. The culmination point in the movement's history was the action organized on 1 June 1988, known as the "Revolution of Dwarves", during which more than 10 thousand people marched through the center of Wrocław wearing orange dwarf hats.
  The happenings usually terminated with the arrest of hundreds of participants, who did not manage to escape in time from the hands of the militia. At one point, the participants were even able to provoke the Communist militia to arrest 77 Santa Clauses or, on another occasion, anyone wearing anything orange.
  For each of its actions, the Orange Alternative printed leaflets and posters, featuring slogans like "Every militiaman is a piece of Art" or "Citizen, help the militia, beat yourself up".
caption: Poster
exif: {}