It was headed by Bronisław Baczko and Leszek Kołakowski and also included scholars such as Andrzej Walicki, Jerzy Szacki and Krzysztof Pomian.
On 21 October 1966, Kołakowski and Krzysztof Pomian gave formal speeches at a debate at the Faculty of History of the University of Warsaw where they openly criticised the ten-year rule of the Gomułka cabinet for incompetence, restrictions placed on freedom of speech, and the absence of democratic institutions in Poland.
Members of the group were involved in supporting students affected by reprisals in the aftermath of the riots, and many emigrated to escape persecution.
The School held a researcher is supposed to place himself outside of the investigated subject[1]: 42 valued objectivity, pluralism and the political independence of science.
[1]: 47 Their methodology borrowed from Marxism, hermeneutics, German sociology of knowledge, existentialism and elements of Claude Lévi-Strauss' structuralism[1]: 40–43 and aimed to describe historical phenomena without making statements about their truth or falsity.