Greetings from Warsaw.
As some of you know I am currently visiting friends in Warsaw, and wanted to share some of my experiences of the
last few days. Feel free to forward it to others you think might be
interested.
I am sure you have all heard the tragic news this weekend. A plane
carrying dozens of high ranking polish politicans and dignitaries,
including the polish president Kaczynski, crashed, apparently due to
heavy weather conditions, killing all aboard.
On Saturday I went on a long walk around the city and the cresidential
palace with one of my friends here. Thousands of people were passing
in front of the palace laying down flowers, praying, mourning, and
discussing. The mood is obviously one of shock, but there are many
undercurrents that I have learned about over the last three days that
were entirely new to me and that I wanted to share with you. I do not
share and continue to controversially discuss many of the readings and
interpretations below, and no doubt another selection of facts would
paint a different picture (you can find it in most western newspapers
for example). However I thought it was important to understand the
existence of these viewpoints and facts. Both to understand how the
Kaczynskis were elected and to understand what (if anything) might
happen in the next weeks, months and years.
If you are, like me, mostly informed by the German media you will know
the Kaczynski brothers mostly as highly conservative, catholic,
anti-German/European whoes power has been waning anyways, with a swing
back to the liberal elites. I was thus rather suprised at the drastic
reaction of my friends here who do not fit any of the former list of
adjectives, actually rather the opposite. Anarchists, free thinkers,
etc...
One of the only sometimes mentioned parts of the Kaczynskis appeal was
that they opposed a ruling elite attached strongly to the policy of
the thick line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick_line). As opposed
to...
Greetings from Warsaw.
As some of you know I am currently visiting friends in Warsaw, and wanted to share some of my experiences of the
last few days. Feel free to forward it to others you think might be
interested.
I am sure you have all heard the tragic news this weekend. A plane
carrying dozens of high ranking polish politicans and dignitaries,
including the polish president Kaczynski, crashed, apparently due to
heavy weather conditions, killing all aboard.
On Saturday I went on a long walk around the city and the cresidential
palace with one of my friends here. Thousands of people were passing
in front of the palace laying down flowers, praying, mourning, and
discussing. The mood is obviously one of shock, but there are many
undercurrents that I have learned about over the last three days that
were entirely new to me and that I wanted to share with you. I do not
share and continue to controversially discuss many of the readings and
interpretations below, and no doubt another selection of facts would
paint a different picture (you can find it in most western newspapers
for example). However I thought it was important to understand the
existence of these viewpoints and facts. Both to understand how the
Kaczynskis were elected and to understand what (if anything) might
happen in the next weeks, months and years.
If you are, like me, mostly informed by the German media you will know
the Kaczynski brothers mostly as highly conservative, catholic,
anti-German/European whoes power has been waning anyways, with a swing
back to the liberal elites. I was thus rather suprised at the drastic
reaction of my friends here who do not fit any of the former list of
adjectives, actually rather the opposite. Anarchists, free thinkers,
etc...
One of the only sometimes mentioned parts of the Kaczynskis appeal was
that they opposed a ruling elite attached strongly to the policy of
the thick line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick_line). As opposed
to Germany, where a thorough and systematic study of communist secret
service (which in the late phase of communism had become the most
powerful aspects of the state) and secret police activities has been
ongoing for two decades the polish political ruling class established
after the collapse of the communist regime has often and strongly
objected to such study. Now an institute called IPN exists, however
many files have of course been destroyed in the meantime. Still its
investigation has uncovered problematic results, most famously that
Lech Walesa was a collaborator of the secret service in the seventies
and destroyed files on his own work as an agent after becoming
president (http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-57570303.html). This
scientific work has been critizised furiously politically though never
scientifically. A commission introduced by Kaczynskis found huge far
reaching power abuses (infiltrating/influencing economy, politics and
media) in the military secret service WSI which was established in
1991. This service apparently continued with mostly personel recruited
from the communist secret service and apparently was working in close
collaboration with the KGB follow up institutions in much the same
fashion and with many of the same people as before the downfall of
communism. It was dissolved as a consequence of Kaczynskis action.
From this perspective as well as from further corroborating evidence
the reading of the history of the solidarity movement and the fall of
communism in Poland runs as follows: During the early and late 80s the
stronger and more radical people in the opposition were killed,
emigrated or otherwise eliminated from the political scene. Solidarity
underwent changes and emerged under the leadership of the ex(?)-secret
service collaborator Lech Walesa in a moderate and
undemocratic/leader-driven form. It was the only form of opposition
allowed to remain. The leaders of the ruling communist regime invited
selected leaders of Solidarity to the round table talks to discuss and
prepare the transition of power from the communist area to the
capitalist area but ensured that many who were powerful before would
be so after. A power elite born out of this and including many of the
new right wing/free-market parties has been ruling Poland almost
constantly since. Privatisation overwhelmingly benefited people well
connected to this elite. Immediately after the election which had
Walesas Solidarity run against the postcommunist party, documents were
destroyed by the secret services themselves, this was happening in
years 89-90 with the knowledge and approval of the "first democratic
government" which prevented efforts to preserve them. After the 4th
July 1992 disbanding of another Polish goverment which pushed
decommunisation and lustration (a process of looking at the secret
service history of the leading civil servants and politicians) Walesa
destroyed documents pertaining to his own activities. The (previously
fragile) government was disbanded as a direct reaction and on the same
day as its publication of a list
(http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_Macierewicza) of people holding
office which had worked for the secret service - by a joint action
including parties from across the spectrum including the party of
Donald Tusk who, as head of his party, was directly part of the events
of that day.
Many politicians, but also large part of the catholic church hierarchy
and almost all media have vigorously opposed the opening and
investigation of archives and secret services, at least partly because
they or their allies had much to lose. The before mentioned IPN would
have lost its political independence if not for a veto of the late
president. Among those who most strongly opposed the
investigation/abolishment of the military secret service was the now
acting interim president, Bronislaw Komorowski. In the last two years
his strong connections with the military secret services (WSI) were
unofficially disclosed, however no actual judicial process was
started. The main information about these relationships was believed
to be contained in the undisclosed annex to the report of the
commission on the WSI mentioned above, which was kept by the
presidential cabinet of Lech Kaczynski.
Furthermore Komoroswki has been linked to the repression of the
journalist Wojciech Sumlinski who has investigated the case of the
murder of the influential priest Popieluszko (which came as a strong
blow against the independent opposition to the communist regime) in
the 80's and connections of the WSI to Komorowski and others.
Sumliñski was arrested various times and shortly after one of these
"attempted to commit a suicide”
(http://www.facebook.com/pages/ODSTRZELIC-DZIENNIKARZA/178745869754).
Thus my friends here mourn the death of a president who vigorously
opposed and tried to investigate and counter the fascist/communist
underpinnings and history of much of the political economical and
media elite in their country. This would have constituted a central
element of the upcoming presidential campaign. Along with him died the
president of the IPN Janusz Kurtyka and Anna Walentynowicz a cofounder
of the solidarity movement who opposed the direction Walesa took it
into in the 80s.
People involved in the early solidarity movement like Andrzej Gwiazda
and the late Anna Walentynowicz, who have never aimed for political
power have written strongly
and condemingly about Walesas Solidarity movement. Since the early 80s
they were criticising and documenting how Walesa took over Solidarity,
and its resulting close partnership with the communist regime.
According to them this was possible as a result of the introduction of
martial law in 1981 as well as later actions by the regime/secret
services promoting his group.
The above reading of history is a particular one, but many parts of it
are well documented for example through the work of the IPN. Yet it is
not publicly discussed at all. Not only does this reading run counter
to the powers that be, but also to the popular founding myth of the
nation. Critical documentary makers are effectively prevented from
showing their movies (as happened to a documentary a flatmate of mine
here was working on), and at times apparently are met with police
brutality. In front of the presidential palace on Saturday random
groups formed discussing the events of the day. They had no problems
coming up with a dozen names of figures opposing the political
establishment who had "committed suicide" or disappeared over the last
years. The idea that the accident was anything but is not at all far
fetched to many people here. I have no idea where along the line
between incidental police brutality and systematic persecution of the
opposition (in the sense of what we are seeing in Russia run by ex-KGB
officers these days) the situation really is. What is sure is that the
plane crash immediately concentrates power in the hands of those who
oppose and have opposed investigating the role of the secret services
before and after the fall of communism.
The new head of the IPN, Maria Dmochowska, will be someone who
strongly opposed the publication of the book about Walesa.
By ways of a counter point another friend of mine here who disagrees
with many of the conclusions above still corroborates many of the
facts. This friend has direct contact to many politicians and knows
and has directly experienced many tales of the secret service
interfering at least at the mid level, as well as of repressive
tactics all the way up to the above mentioned "suicides". In contrast
to the above reading this friend maintains that while such a shadow
power structure exists it is not driving/controlling policy and
politics in Poland. Furthermore this friend argues that the IPN and
other investigations into secret service activities before the fall of
communism were and are a politically driven McCarthyist witch hunt,
which does not really target the right people. Thus this friend
completely disagrees in the assessment of the character of many key
players, and yet completely confirmed the problem of an overly
powerful secret service operating illegally and attempting to control
politics, as well as a political class that, while in this friends
view independent, is certainly compromised enough to not be willing or
able to take this secret service on.
As further reading on the role of the secret services I was
recommended the webpage of the sociologist Zybertowicz
(http://zybertowicz.pl/teksty-naukowe/), e.g.
http://zybertowicz.pl/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/an-unresolved-game.pdf
as well as his book with Los:
http://books.google.com/books?id=e0EB-x3uJrUC
-----
What I am being told reminds me in some ways of the way the Germany in
the 60s is described. 20 Years after the fall of a fascist regime we
have what is structurally a democratic state. But culturally and
within this democratic structure, groups and individuals still hold
power and control that stem from the pre-democratic times, an open
discussion of the crimes committed under the fascist regime is blocked
and not wanted. Preference is given to economic recovery and national
myths. In Poland the situation differs markedly in that the people
pushing back against this come from the right side of the political
spectrum. However to my friends here the differences in policies along
these lines are secondary to an open examination of what they see as a
corrupt power elite born out of a flawed and incomplete transition to
democracy.
The other country that springs to mind is Italy with its subversion of
public discourse and democratic politics by a criminal shadow system,
and the murder and supression of those who investigate these criminal
organisations.
"History of Solidarity and anti-communist resistance in Poland cannot
be damaged by scientific studies and resulting increase in our
knowledge of the past. History of opposition to totalitarianism
belongs to millions of Poles and not to one social or political group
which usurps the right to decide which parts of national history
should be discussed and which forgotten." - Open Letter by Anna
Walentynowicz and others in defense of the IPN.
Felice