Leopold Łabędź (22 January 1920 – 22 March 1993) was an

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British d ...

- Polish commentator on the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. Łabędź was born to a Polish Jewish doctor in Russia. The family soon returned to

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

and the young Łabędź decided to follow his father into the medical profession. He studied medicine in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. In 1939, he fled to the Soviet zone of occupation and was imprisoned by the Soviets in the

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

. He left the Soviet Union in 1942 as part of the

Polish Army The Land Forces () are the Army, land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 110,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military histor ...

led by General

Władysław Anders Władysław Albert Anders (11 August 1892 – 12 May 1970) was a Polish military officer and politician, and prominent member of the Polish government-in-exile in London. Born in Krośniewice-Błonie, then part of the Russian Empire, he serv ...

. After the war he studied at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

before settling in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, where he studied at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

. Strongly

, Łabędź edited ''Survey'' journal and headed the London office of Committee for the Defense of Workers known by its Polish abbreviation as KOR. Łabędź often campaigned for the ''

Solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...

'' union in Poland, and for political prisoners in the Soviet Union. Łabędź was one of

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

's principal champions in the West and often defended the Russian writer against the charge of

antisemitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

Bibliography

* *''Polycentrism : the new factor in international communism '' edited by Walter Laqueur and Leopold Labedz, New York : Praeger, 1962. *''Revisionism : essays on the history of Marxist ideas'' edited by L. Labedz, London : G. Allen and Unwin, 1962. *''Literature and revolution in Soviet Russia, 1917-62, a symposium'', edited by Max Hayward and Leopold Labedz, London, Oxford University Press, 1963. *''The Sino-Soviet conflict : eleven radio discussions'' by L. Labedz & George Urban, London : Bodley Head, 1965, 1964. *''International communism after Khrushchev'' edited by Leopold Labedz Cambridge, M.I.T. Press 1965. *''The State of Soviet Studies'' edited by Walter Laqueur and Leopold Labedz, Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press 1965. *''Solzhenitsyn : a documentary record'' Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England; Baltimore : Penguin, 1974. *"Chomsky Revisited", ''Encounter'', July 1980, pp. 28–35. *''The use and abuse of Sovietology'' edited by Melvin J. Lasky New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A. : Transaction Publishers, 1989. ;Critical studies, reviews and biography * First published in the ''American Scholar''. * Shils, Edward, ''Portraits : A Gallery of Intellectuals'', University Of Chicago Press 1997.

References

* Shils, Edward ''Portraits : A Gallery of Intellectuals'', University Of Chicago Press 1997. {{DEFAULTSORT:Labedz, Leopold 1920 births 1993 deaths Soviet Jews Jewish historians Polish deportees to Soviet Union 20th-century British historians Polish expatriates in the Soviet Union Polish expatriates in France Polish expatriates in Italy Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom