Lech Walesa Files Charges Against Station (They Claim He Collaborated with Secret Police/Communists)

WARSAW, Poland - Solidarity founder and former Polish President Lech Walesa said Monday he filed charges against a radical Roman Catholic radio station that allegedly accused him of collaborating with communist authorities in the past.

Walesa told PAP news agency he filed the charges with prosecutors in the northern port city of Gdansk last week in connection with comments made during a debate on Radio Maryja several weeks ago. At least one of the participants allegedly accused him of collaborating with communist authorities in the 1970s.

"This is an attempt to answer certain questions. Is Radio Maryja lying and cheating, or am I lying?" the agency quoted Walesa as saying.

Gdansk prosecutors launched a preliminary investigation in March after Walesa brought the incident to the attention of the nation's justice minister in an effort to clear his name.

Walesa, credited with leading the Solidarity union protests that toppled communism in Poland in 1989-90, said the station accused him of signing secret agreements with the communists and working as an informer for the nation's dreaded secret police.

In 2000, a special court that checks the records of officials running for public office cleared Walesa of any communist activity in the 1970s.

Radio Maryja has been criticized by some mainstream Roman Catholic officials in Poland, including the late John Paul II. It is run by a charismatic priest, the Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk, and enjoys a following of thousands of mainly poorer Poles in the nation's rural areas.

Background on the Solidarity movement taken from Soviet KGB Defector Anatoly Golitsyn's 1984 book, NEW LIES FOR OLD.

(Any spelling errors or other mistakes are mine)

WESTERN MISINTERPRETATION OF EVENTS IN POLAND

Page 328: “Because the West has failed either to understand communist strategy and disinformation or to appreciate the commitment to it of the resources of the bloc security and intelligence services and their high-level agents of political influence, the appearance of Solidarity in Poland has been accepted as a spontaneous occurrence comparable with the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and as portending the demise of communism in Poland. The fact that the Italian, French, and Spanish Communist parties all took up pro-Solidarity positions gives grounds for suspecting the validity of this interpretation.”

“Western misreading of events led to predictions of Soviet intervention in Poland in 1981, which turned out to be unjustified. It may lead to more serious errors in the future.”

“There are strong indications that the Polish version of ‘democratization,’ based in part on the Czechoslovak model, was prepared and controlled from the outset within the framework of bloc policy and strategy. For twenty years the Polish Communist party had been working on the construction of a ‘mature socialist society’ in which the party and its mass organizations would play a more active and effective political role. In 1963 the party’s ideological commission was set up. In 1973 new means of coordinating the activities of youth organizations were established. In 1976 a new law was adopted on the leading role of the party in constructing communism and on the party’s interaction with the Peasant and Democratic parties. In the same year all youth organizations, including those of the army, were merged into one Union of Socialist Polish Youth.”

Page 329: “Party membership increased from 1 million in 1960 to 3 million in 1980. In the same period Polish trade unions increased their membership from 5 to 13 million. The Union of Socialist Polish Youth had 2 million members in 1980. By the end of that year, 85 percent of the army’s officer corps were party members. All Poles of Jewish origin had been eliminated from the army.”

“Throughout the twenty-year period Polish leaders have been fully involved in the coordination mechanisms of the bloc, such as Comecon and the Warsaw Pact, as well as in bilateral meetings with other communist parties. The Polish security service took part in the conference in Moscow in 1959 of bloc security services at which their new political role was discussed and means of coordination were improved. Poland was among the countries visited by Mironov, the originator of this new political role, when he was head of CPSU’s Administrative Department.”

“Significantly two of the key figures in recent Polish events, the so-called ‘renewel,’ took up important positions soon after the ‘Prague Spring’ in 1968: Jaruzelski became Minister of Defense, and Kania became head of the Polish communist party’s Administrative Department, with responsibility for the affairs of the Polish security service. In 1971 Gierek took over from Gomulka and the future leader of Solidarity, Walesa, began his political activity. Gierek and members of other important departments, including Kania’s Administrative Department, consulted with their Soviet counterparts in Moscow. In the same year the Polish and Czech leaders had several meetings. In 1973 an agreement on ideological cooperation was signed between the two parties. In 1977 a delegation led by Gierek signed an agreement on the further strengthening of cooperation between them. Gierek also took part in Crimean summit meetings in the 1970s at which strategic questions were discussed.”

“In the course of the 1970s Kania was promoted to be Minister of the Interior and a member of the Politburo with responsibility for supervising the army and the security police. He also acted as the government’s principal link with the politically active Catholic church. After the ‘renewel’ had begun, Kania was further promoted to be leader of the party. Two other security chiefs were also promoted, Moczar to membership in the Politburo and Kowalczyk to be deputy premier. These promotions are the clearest indication of the involvement of Kania and the security services in the preparation of the Polish ‘renewel.’”

Page 330: “There was intensive consultation between Polish and Soviet leaders and party officials in the two years preceding the ‘renewel.’ Among the more significant items, apart from Comecon and Warsaw Pact meetings, were the appointment of a new Soviet ambassador to Poland in 1978 (Aristov, a senior party official from Leningrad); a conference in Moscow of bloc officials (including Poles) on organizational matters and mass organizations; Jaruzelski’s visit to Moscow in 1978; the meeting of Jaruzelski and the commander in chief of the Warsaw pact forces in 1979; two meetings in 1978 and 1979 between Soviet and Polish party officials responsible for strategy and coordination of the communist movement, at which there were discussions on international and ideological questions; visits to Moscow by Cruchek, the chairman of the Polish trade union organization, and by Shidlyak, head of the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society, who discussed the strengthening of Soviet-Polish cooperation with his Soviet counterpart, Shytikov. This last visit is particularly interesting, since between February and August, 1980—just before the ‘renewel’—Shidlyak was head of the Polish trade unions.”

“In 1979 Gierek had two meetings with Brezhnev and separate meetings with the Czechoslovak, East German, West German, and French Communist party leaders. At the meeting with Brezhnev in the Crimea in August 1979, the discussion focused on ‘favorable new conditions for joint action against Europe.’ In February 1980 a Soviet publication referred to the strengthening of fraternal relations between the two countries resulting from agreements reached at their meetings.”

“A Polish party delegation attended a twenty-nine-party conference in Hungary in December 1979 that discussed relations between communists and social democrats and perspectives for European security. Suslov, the late leading Soviet ideologist and strategist, headed the Soviet delegation to the Polish party congress in February 1980. At the congress Gierek attacked NATO and the deployment of nuclear missiles in Western Europe and offered to act as host to an East-West disarmament conference in Warsaw. In May 1980 Brezhnev, Gromyko, and other senior Soviet officials attended a conference of bloc leaders in Warsaw. In his introductory speech Gierek said that the conference would open new prospects for peace and security in Europe and the world. His speech was the only part of the proceedings to be published.”

Page 331: “There were frequent consultations between Polish party officials responsible for the press, TV, and radio with their Soviet collegues, suggesting preparation of the Soviet and Polish media for a forthcoming important event.”
“Brezhnev awarded honors to Gierek and Jaruzelski in 1978 and Gierek honored Rusakov, head of the CPSU’s department for bloc affairs, in February 1980. The awards can be seen as recognition of the contributions made to the preparation of the ‘renewel’ by some of its key figures. It may also be surmised that Gierek’s departure from the scene was envisaged at this stage. He doubtless had good reason for saying, shortly after his dismissal, that ‘proper appraisal of the Polish developments in the 1970s could only be made from a certain distance in time.”

“All of the foregoing evidence points to the conclusion that a major development in Poland, the ‘renewal,’ was planned thoroughly, and well in advance, by the Polish Communist Party in cooperation with its Communist allies and with a view to furthering the Communist strategy for Europe. The conclusion is further supported by the evidence of the Polish Communist Party’s involvement in the formation and functioning of Solidarity.”

Page 334: “The creation of Solidarity and the initial period of its activity as a trade union may be regarded as the experimental first phase of the Polish ‘renewal.’ The appointment of Jaruzelski, the imposition of martial law, and the suspension of Solidarity represent the second phase, intended to bring the movement under firm control and provide a period of political consolidation. In the third phase it may be expected that a coalition government will be formed, comprising representatives of the Communist Party, a revived Solidarity movement, and of the church. A few so-called liberals might also be included. A new-style government of this sort in Eastern Europe would be well equipped to promote Communist strategy by campaigning for disarmament, for nuclear-free zones in Europe, perhaps for a revival of the Rapacki Plan, for the simultaneous dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and ultimately for the establishment of a neutral, socialist Europe. The revival of other elements of Communist strategy for Europe [such as human rights negotiations] would be timed to coincide with the emergence of such a government.”

Page 335: “A coalition government in Poland would in fact be totalitarianism under a new, deceptive and more dangerous guise. Accepted as the spontaneous emergence of a new form of multi-party, semi-democratic regime, it would serve to undermine resistance to Communism inside and outside the Communist Bloc. The need for massive defense expenditure would increasingly be questioned in the West. New possibilities would arise for splitting Western Europe away from the United States, of neutralizing Germany, and destroying NATO.”

Enter Walesa

Then in 1980, the people of Poland rose up like never before and united under the banner of Solidarnosc (Solidarity). But the communists, always prepared for rebellion, were ready with the next big lie, delivered masterfully by their agent Lech Walesa.

The showdown in Gdansk was sparked by the dismissal of Anna Walentynowicz, who was trying to organize workers in a non-communist free labor union. When the strike began in the summer of 1980, Lech Walesa was not even present; he only came a few days later, after the initial confrontation was over and the gates to the shipyard had been reopened. Walesa then could have walked through the gates, and did not need to jump over the fence to join the strike as he claims he did.

Lech Walesa, in fact, did everything possible to minimize the strike's damage to the communist's position of power. Although not one of the founders of the Solidarity movement, Walesa rose quickly to the forefront of its leadership, the result of a few scattered supporters among the strikers (the workers had never organized in such numbers before, so there was a leadership vacuum) and because he had won some support (which turned out to be short-lived) from the founders of the non-communist Free Trade Unions.

Walesa's worker background and "promise-them-everything" style seemed to make him the perfect hero for the thousands of Polish workers in need of a leader. What most of the workers didn't know about Lech Walesa, they soon found out. The result: Of the 10 million original members of Solidarity, only about one million remain (In 1982 British historian Norman Davies recorded that one million Communist Party members joined Solidarity after it was established, and it was from this group that Walesa found his present leadership); and in the last presidential election run by the communists in Poland, only 38 percent of the electorate voted for Walesa (50 percent didn't vote at all, and 12 percent voted for an unknown candidate who came literally out of nowhere). Of the 38 percent who voted for Walesa, one-fourth were communists themselves -- communists who now call themselves "former" communists. And part of that 38 percent represents those Poles who still had a small hope in their hearts that Walesa's words of support for the communists and his actions in their interest did not represent his true colors. However, even this group has become disillusioned. A closer look at Lech Walesa's past may help to explain why his popular support has faded.

Communist Spokesman

Walesa began his public life in 1970, when in December of that year a confrontation took place in Gdansk between communist security forces and Gdansk laborers. Hundreds of workers were shot dead by the security force and thousands were hospitalized (official communist estimates were 45 dead and over one thousand hospitalized).

Strangely enough, when the 1970 protests at the Gdansk shipyards began, Lech Walesa was absent, just as he was at the start of the 1980 protest. However, Walesa did show up for two very important confrontations where the communist forces were stoned and burned out of their buildings by protesters furious that the communists had shot and killed unarmed citizens. Walesa acted as spokesman for the communist security forces.

Standing in the third floor window of their stronghold with a loudspeaker given to him by the communist security forces leadership, Walesa tried unsuccessfully to prevent the people of Gdansk from attacking the security force s and destroying their building. Walesa was called a pig and a traitor by the crowd, and was stoned along with the communists. Later that same week Walesa was again the communist spokesman, again with similar results.

The New American July 30, 1991

From Vladimir Bukovskiy:

SO WHAT? And who cares? After any plane crash, train derailment, or industrial accident, experts conduct analyses and seek to determine the culpability of anyone who had the slightest connection with what occurred. Likewise with crime: in a lawful society, even petty offenses are subject to investigation, judgment, and punishment, and serious offenses all the more so. War crimes? The embers in Bosnia had not yet cooled before an international tribunal was established to look into the atrocities committed in that conflict.
Only the USSR has been given a special dispensation. What happened there was a catastrophe that affected practically every country in the world, wasted hundreds of billions of dollars, took scores of millions of lives, and nearly brought about global destruction, and yet no one, no one, has been brought to account. Communism has collapsed, but the man (for example) who was in charge of executing thousands of captive Polish officers in the Katyn forest during World War II is in Moscow, living out his years on a pension. Similarly alive and well are Daniil Kopelyansky, the state-security officer who interrogated Raoul Wallenberg, and General Pavel Sudoplatov, the organizer of Trotsky’s assassination in Mexico.
Three criminals: neither Poland, nor Sweden, nor Mexico has sought the extradition of any of them.
On his own admission, former KGB general Oleg Kalugin planned the murder, by poisoned umbrella, of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London in 1978. Kalugin even wrote about the incident not long ago in the Mail on Sunday, a popular British tabloid, under the provocative headline, "I Organized Markov’s Execution." Yet, although Kalugin travels frequently abroad, promotes his memoirs, and gives interviews to the press, and although the Markov case is still open, it seems never to have entered anyone’s head to prosecute him. (In 1994, it is true, he was detained at London’s Heathrow airport and questioned; it is also true that he was released the following day.)
The thousands of thugs all round the world who received KGB "special training" are likewise still at large, as are those, both in the former Soviet Union and abroad, who broke laws-whether by assisting in the preparation of acts of terrorism or simply by receiving secret funds from a foreign party. And so on down the line, from the largest to the smallest fry.
WHAT IS going on here? In the aftermath of World War II, the leading Nazis were tried at Nuremberg. The trials were not beyond criticism, but their accomplishment was immense. At a time of madness and terror, they reminded a shattered world of the basic principles of our civilization, affirming the simple truth that neither the opinion of the majority, nor an order from a superior, nor even a threat to our own life releases us from personal responsibility for our conduct. Today, in direct contrast to the example set at Nuremberg, we have refused even to investigate the greatest evil of our time.
Might it be because we already know, and do not wish to face, what such an investigation would tell us-not about them, the criminals, but about ourselves? After all, Western politicians and academics, Western intellectuals and churchmen, Western businessman and journalists encouraged relations with the Soviet bloc-that is to say, with cut-throats and the puppets of cut-throats. Some of them signed agreements for "cultural exchanges," "scientific cooperation," and "human contacts," knowing full well that the KGB would be choosing the candidates for such contacts, and that they were in fact buttressing its power over society. Others apologized for Soviet actions around the globe, or denied Soviet complicity in those actions, often by impugning anyone who tried to resist or thwart them. Many understood what was going on but, in thrall to the golden dream of socialism, remained silent, sacrificing conscience, reason, innocent people, and entire countries in the process.
Now Communism has crashed, the iron curtain has fallen, exposing a vista of indigence and devastation. The evil deeds of the Soviet Union can be scrutinized, incriminating papers in hand. But, unlike in the aftermath of Nazism, no one has the stomach to look. This may be the most terrible secret suggested by the Central Committee documents lying on my desk.

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