This is the first study of Comrade October, the only drama in the oeuvre of Kazimierz Wierzyński (1894–1969). Written in 1950, it was not published until 1992. The article traces the origins of the play and assigns it to the tradition of dystopian fi ction (as exemplifi ed primarily by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. A close reading of the structure of the play (the characters, the plot and its temporal structure, etc.) reveals the originality of Wierzyński’s approach and the links between Comrade October and the poetry he wrote after the war in exile.

This article deals with the American chapter (World War II) in the lives of three Polish poets, Julian Tuwim, Kazimierz Wierzyński and Jan Lechoń, shown through the eyes of their fourth friend Józef Wittlin and his wife Halina, who spent the rest of their lives in the USA. The article is based on archival materials, most of which in the collections of Houghton Library.