Thirty years ago today, Poland's communist government relented and registered the Independent Students' Union (NZS), a branch of the Solidarity movement which included many activists who are now in government.

Besides Prime Minister Donald Tusk, current ministers Bogdan Zdrojewski, Bogdan Klich and Waldemar Pawlak were also active in the first independent student union in communist Poland.

The seeds for the organisation had been sown in Gdansk in conjunction with the seminal strike at the Lenin shipyards.

On August 27 1980, a group of students, among them today's prime minister Donald Tusk and author Pawel Huelle, gathered outside the shipyards to appeal for a free student union.

The following month, representatives of dissident students from across the country met at Warsaw's Polytechnic, to advance their programme.

The enterprise was conceived in direct opposition to the official Polish Students Association (ZSP), which was considered a finishing school for aspiring communist functionaries.

On 13 November, an application was submitted to register the union, but it was rejected. A wave of strikes followed at colleges across the country, with students barricading themselves in buildings, and taking to the streets with placards. Approximately 34,000 people took part in the demonstrations.

The union was eventually registered on February 17th 1981, but it was banned following the coming of martial law in December of the same year.

NZS was reactivated following the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and it is now the main independent students' body in Poland. (nh/pg)