Lustracja - should Polish 'collaborating traitors' be allowed to hold positions of power?

So - a very simple question.

What should be done with all of the collaborating traitors who rose to high ranking, high profile positions during the PRL era?

And more interestingly, should their children ever be allowed to hold positions of power/influence?

Don't you think you are asking this question 20 years too late?

this is hardly a case of lustracja - lustracja is screening for former secret cooperators/informators of various secret services rather than dealing with those who openly held positions of power in communist era - the proper term would be dekomunizacja - dekomunizacja was done in Czech Republic and Germany as far as I know - I don't know mcuh of the fate of the offsprings of PRL aparatchiks - there were a couple generations of aparatchiks - Adam Michnik and Marek Borowski are for example offspring of prominent communist figures of the early PRL (so was Jacek Kuroń) - incidentally they are all of Jewish ancestry - in Poland there is now no actual need for dekomunizacja - perhaps there once was but I am not really convinced (the only areas where 'decommunization' should have been surely proceeded with were some branches of secret services with people like Marek Dukaczewski with GRU background running WSI ('military intelligence') until the end of its existence in 2006 (or seven - can't remember the detailed dates)

They should be striped from all monies, and should be allowed to vote forever!
They kids shouldn't hold right to become candidates in any level of elections!
The same goes for Commies!
Nor should that be able working in military, police or mass-media!

Saying that delph, you do realize of-curse that would cut down number of PO MPs and members for about 80%, not to mention your friends from GW - about 99%!Including their infamous boss!

Do not delete it! Here goes the untranslatable speech of the first secretary of the communist party about lustracja and dekomunizacja, previously also known as purges:

Lustracja i dekomunizacja są trwałymi elementami dziedzictwa socjalistycznego, które to dziedzictwo może utrwalać i wzmacniać gmach naszej kapitalistycznej ojczyzny na wieki wieków amen.

Indeed, and it would decimate many of the heroes of Solidarity and no doubt cause a lot of trouble for PiS MP's as well. In fact, the impact would be brutal - Polish political life would more or less start again from nothing. The only reason that it worked in Germany was because the West replaced the Eastern elite.

Might not be a bad thing actually. Getting rid of the Communist/Solidarity dinosaurs on which Polish political life is based is no bad thing for the future of the country. I mean, this whole Tusk/Kaczynski nonsense has been going on for 20 years now - enough!


Not a bad idea either, given that their parents may be able to influence them negatively.


Aha, linguistic issue - we use lustration to describe the process.

But in all reality, wouldn't anyone who rose to the top in a sensitive position be almost certainly some sort of collaborator?

Yes, indeed, in most cases anyway !
There was always place for some rare specialists.

I got a question for you, what make you to start this thread, you always seemed to support current establishment !?

Unfortunately there is no easy answer to that question. It is very easy to argue that General Jaruzelski was actually doing what he genuinely thought to be best for Poland at that time and that his knowledge was fuller than ours is (unless we actually make an effort to read what Czech army officers have to say about the planned invasion of Poland). In the same way, is a policeman from the 1970s or 1980s in anyway a collaborating traitor? I'd say he is not: Poland needed law enforcement officers during communism just as it needs them during democracy. Again the argument 'I was doing what was in sum best for Poland' can validly be made.

The other problem now is that the records have been thoroughly corrupted. We now have no idea what is real and what is fake, what was there at the time and what has been planted since. The fact that the records supposedly contain not a single word about a certain former PM's sexuality shows (if true) that the records are now far from complete. In short they are pretty much useless. Sad but true.

As for the children of traitors, well they aren't always going to be bad people and won't always be directed by their collaborating parents. Look at Adam Michnik: he went one way but his brother went completely the opposite way. However, if the child of a traitor also becomes a traitor, we should act to make sure that they can not harm Poland. I'm a firm believer in ending the jus sanguinis right to a Polish passport (although I do favour lex sanguinis rights) and even more firmly believe that Article 1 of the 1951 Polish citizenship needs to be reintroduced (although in a modified form).

Complicated one. Not every person outside the party in a relatively high position was a communist, and likewise not every communist-non party, was a Bolshevist or Russophile. Distinguishing between the different categories can be quite tricky.

Equally by the same token some communists actually believed in communism, and did not seek to profit from their positions(minority), picking out the blatantly corrupt communists would make far greater sense. In any case in this situation the fact that Justice has been delayed means that it has been denied, with no possibility of going back. 20 years is too long a time to separate the wheat from the chaff.

It's not only the corrupt ones which need to be picked out: people who were just in it for the money and who were not actually corrupt but still made it their business to profit from the regime also need to be identified and brought to book. This is especially true for the (very few) Poles who not only propped up the regime here but also went to other commie states and worked there to prop up similarly oppressive regimes, just for the money.


Sadly I have to agree. However, hopefully Poland can learn from this mess: the Poles who tried to serve the USSR and Poland at the same time were a disgrace to Poland. Poland needs to make sure that never again do its citizens have divided loyalties: people must be either 100% Polish or not Polish at all!

I'm guessing that Poland never had a Truth and Reconcilliation Commision ala South Africa?

No it did not, it could have been a good idea.

a good idea would be to shoot the bastards

Nope. Not a good idea. It solves nothing. Only fuels more vengence-seeking.

Solves a lot, vengeance ? only traitor would wanted to avenge traitors, they should be shot too.