[Minorcompositions] Lives of the Orange Men

[Minor Compositions]

New book on socialist surrealism in Poland released…

Lives of the Orange Men: A Biographical History of the Polish Orange 
Alternative Movement
Major Waldemar Fydrych
Foreword by the Yes Men
Edited by Gavin Grindon

In Communist Poland, Surrealism Paints You!!!

Between 1981 and 1989 in Wroclaw Poland, in an atmosphere in which 
dissent was forbidden and martial law a reality, the Orange Alternative 
deployed the power of surrealist creativity to destabilise the Communist 
government. It worked. The militia were overwhelmed by thousands of 
unruly dwarves; celebrations of official festivals so disturbingly loyal 
that the Communist forces had to arrest anyone wearing red; walls 
covered in dialectical graffiti; new official festivals to assist the 
secret police with their duties; and a popular restaging of the storming 
of the Winter Palace using cardboard tanks and ships.

Lives of the Orange Men tells for the first time the story of this 
activist-art movement and its protagonists that played a key role in the 
1989 revolution in Poland. Written by its central figure and featuring 
an appendix of newly-translated key texts including the ‘Manifesto of 
Socialist Surrealism’, a timeline of every Orange Alternative happening 
and a new foreword from the Yes Men.

“The streets of Wrocław were a magical place to be, once upon a time… 
Communism's melting away in Eastern Europe in 1989 cannot be understood 
without the Orange Alternative. So listen to Major Fydrych – This book 
teaches the mystical tongue of the Orange Men and unveils their rites. 
Long live the dwarves!” – Padraic Kenney, author of A Carnival of 
Revolution: Central Europe 1989

“Lives of the Orange Men presents eyewitness reports and primary 
documents of the Orange Alternative’s cultural activism. Their 
ideological masquerade, predating The Yes Men and Reclaim the Streets, 
baffled police and stymied the disintegrating regime of General 
Jaruzelski. What more could anyone ask except to remind readers that 
there is no freedom without dwarves!” – Greg Sholette, author of Dark 
Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture

“Dwarves belong to capitalism!” – The Polish Communist Militia

PDF available freely online: http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=624.

Released by Minor Compositions, Wivenhoe / Brooklyn / Port Watson
Minor Compositions is a series of interventions & provocations drawing 
from autonomous politics, avant-garde aesthetics, and the revolutions of 
everyday life.

Minor Compositions is an imprint of Autonomedia
www.minorcompositions.info | minorcompositions at gmail.com