The Agent Who Broke the System. The Life Story and Victory of Lech Wałęsa

Agent Bolek

The biggest controversy surrounding Wałęsa erupted not during the years of the underground, but much later, after he had already left politics, in 2008. Documents then surfaced revealing that from 1970 to 1976, four years before "Solidarity", Wałęsa was an informant for the Polish Security Service under the pseudonym Bolek and spied on his colleagues at the factory.

Wałęsa vehemently denied his collaboration, claiming he simply signed something during interrogations. However, it appears he was an agent in his youth. To what extent he betrayed anyone is unclear, but he severed covert ties many years before the wave of workers' protests elevated him to the leadership of "Solidarity".

An interesting detail: some documents about Wałęsa's cooperation with the special services, which were not in the archives of the Polish secret police, were found in the possession of the widow of Poland's Interior Minister General Czesław Kiszczak (at this stage, the PRL special services were part of the Ministry of Interior) after his death in 2015. It was General Kiszczak who sat on the government's side at the Round Table, which resulted in the change of system.

Wałęsa was born in 1943. At the moment he became head of the trade union, he was 37 years old and already had six children. He never lived in the capital, was born in a village in Pomerania, and later moved to Gdańsk.

His father returned from a German concentration camp emaciated and ill and died two months later. His mother instilled resilience in her son.

Under Jaruzelski's Command

Wałęsa first worked as a car mechanic, then as an electrician. Interestingly, in the army he served under Wojciech Jaruzelski, the future general who would impose martial law to suppress "Solidarity". Nevertheless, Jaruzelski was far from a dictator by nature. He first met Wałęsa in March 1981. They talked for three hours. The Soviets were to conduct military maneuvers in Poland, and it was important for Jaruzelski to avoid incidents that could provoke Moscow into intervention.

Павялічыць

Although Jaruzelski was dependent on the USSR and a sincere friend of the Soviet Union, he still thought in terms of Poland's national interests.

When martial law was introduced, Wałęsa was interned in a town near the Soviet border. It was not a prison, but a government residence; he was treated respectfully as a leader, albeit an enemy. He spent 11 months in internment.

As an opposition leader – both during his legal activities and in the semi-underground period – Wałęsa had an important and characteristic trait. He trusted experts and advisors. And he was not a proponent of radical steps. Under "Solidarity", committees of experts and intelligentsia operated, and Wałęsa also consulted with the leadership of the Church, as he himself is a devout Catholic.

During the years of martial law, "Solidarity" almost ceased its activities; the authorities allowed nothing. At that time, cells of the organization "Solidarność Walcząca" ("Fighting Solidarity") were active in some cities, a more radical part of the former trade union movement that used methods of street struggle, but without any violence (graffiti, leaflets). "Fighting Solidarity" rejected any compromise with the authorities.

By the way, the previous Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, is the son of Kornel Morawiecki, the leader of "Fighting Solidarity".

Trade Unionist with a Trade Unionist

When the Soviet system began to falter in 1988, public attention once again turned to Lech Wałęsa. His past and the Nobel Prize gave him authority. It was with him that the authorities, who understood that the regime could not last long with old methods, decided to speak.

Wałęsa was allowed to participate in his first public televised debate alongside the head of the country's official trade unions. This was Alfred Miodowicz. The older generation of Belarusians still remembers these names, as events in Poland were closely watched in the Soviet Union, and Brest and Grodno even widely watched Polish television on homemade antennas during Soviet times. Wałęsa handled those debates flawlessly.

Павялічыць

Dealable!

Documents found in the archives of the PUWP reveal how the dictatorship's leadership became hostage to its own propaganda. Propaganda—and the special services too—for a long time depicted "Solidarity" as the devil with horns, wanting to cut communists ("and on trees, instead of leaves, communists will hang!"). Eventually, those at the top themselves began to believe their own propaganda. Only when Jaruzelski, who first sensed the new winds of perestroika from Moscow, led the matter to the Round Table, only after Wałęsa's first appearance on television did the leadership of the Polish security forces and the regional aktiv of the PUWP realize that "with this 'Solidarity,' it turns out, we can deal!" These very phrases are recorded in the transcript of the first Politburo meeting of the PUWP Central Committee after the Miodowicz-Wałęsa debate.

Wałęsa, with his reputation as a leader, sanctified the Round Table between the authorities and the opposition, which resulted in a peaceful and "negotiated" transformation of power in Poland, unlike in Romania or East Germany.

At the same time, the radical wing of "Solidarity" eventually began to consider the Round Table a conspiracy, as a result of which the former party nomenclature and ex-state security officials gained control over lucrative parts of the Polish economy. It was the necessity of breaking this "conspiracy" that the Law and Justice party of the Kaczyński brothers pushed for, which for a decade and a half has been vying for power with varying success, mainly against the center-right Civic Platform, which emerged from the moderate circles of "Solidarity." For the Kaczyńskis, Wałęsa has been a political opponent since the early 1990s.

Wałęsa himself did not participate in the first multiparty parliamentary elections. But on every poster of a candidate from the Civic Platform "Solidarity", there was a photo of Wałęsa next to the photo of the contender himself. In those elections, "Solidarity" won all the seats that could be won — according to the decisions of the Round Table, a part of the mandates in the Sejm was reserved for the old regime.

Wałęsa was not limited to the role of a symbol; he played a central role in practical politics during the transitional period. It was he who convinced the leadership of the parties, which had previously been "sparring partners" of the ruling PUWP, to form a coalition government with "Solidarity." The United People's Party and the Democratic Party were pseudo-entities all the time the communists controlled society. But in 1989, it was their votes that gave the majority to Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government—the first government without communists in the former Soviet bloc in 40 years.

What a sensation that was then! It turned out, one could live without the "irreplaceable ones."

"Nie chcę, ale muszę"

In 1990, Wałęsa decided to run for president. "Nie chcę, ale muszę" — "I don't want to, but I have to," he articulated, explaining why he was running in the elections. His main competitor seemed to be Prime Minister Mazowiecki, whom he had previously nominated. But in the end, second place was taken not by the prime minister, but by a murky populist from nowhere, Stanisław Tymiński — such types are sometimes carried by the wave of change. True, in Poland, Tymiński had no chance against Wałęsa in the second round of elections.

Павялічыць

Those first elections, at the peak of "Solidarity's" success, also showed something else. It is never the case that changes are supported by everyone. Although the Soviet system was crumbling, and power was already falling into the hands of the former opposition, Wałęsa and Mazowiecki together only garnered 58% of the votes in the first round of elections, while reformist candidates from the parties of the "old regime," Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz from Social Democracy, the successor of the PUWP, and the candidate from the Peasant Party, received as much as 16%, and the populist Tymiński, who promised "money from a helicopter," received 23%. Nevertheless, these elections proved what had been clear to the naked eye since 1980: "Solidarity" was supported by the majority. It was only a matter of time until a convenient foreign policy, geopolitical combination emerged for power to change in the country. In Poland, that change had to wait 8 years.

A Stranger in Democratic Politics

In 1995, Wałęsa lost by a fraction of a percent to Aleksander Kwaśniewski, a former Komsomol leader from the times of the PUWP, PRL, and martial law. These would be absolutely honest, free elections, the results of which no one would dispute. And Kwaśniewski would change nothing in the strategic directions of Polish politics: the course towards the European Union, NATO, a market economy, and free media.

Wałęsa would remain in politics for a few more years, but this would already be petty democratic politics, where one minister told another... a party left the government coalition... a mayor resigned due to a scandal surrounding a tender... A man who moved tectonic plates was a stranger in such politics.

Wałęsa is that rare person in whose honor an airport was named during his lifetime. When Belarus finally emerges from international isolation and you fly to the resorts of the Polish "Wybrzeże," to the Hel Spit or Sopot, your plane will land at "Gdansk Lech Walesa Airport".

Changes in Poland occurred peacefully and became a model for the peaceful transformation of a system that had outlived its usefulness. As a result of these changes, Poland became a truly democratic state and experienced rapid economic growth.

30 years ago, Poles lived worse than Belarusians. Now, the real incomes of the population in Poland are higher than those of Belarusians.

Poles built a strong and stable state. Yes, Poland's foreign exchange reserves amount to 265 billion dollars (in Belarus — 11 billion).

In addition, the level of social protection for Poles has significantly increased. Not only salaries and pensions: for example, for every child under 18, the state pays parents an allowance of 220 dollars per month.

Belarusians can only dream of all this. This is all thanks to the achievements of "Solidarity" and the result of the opposition's struggle, which was neither simple nor quick.

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