The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak

Weren't you just hawking this yesterday How many times do they show it?

No wonder the ratings for TVP are tanking.

It's not a quesiton of who was hawking and when, but are personally familiar with the film?

why would I want to be? special challenge: answer without using the words "coup" "roundtable" "clique" "informer/informant" "communist" "backroom" or "deal". These are all tremendously boring and cause me to want to stop reading/listening.... immediately.

And yet the nocna zmiana film yesterday and the discussion before and after have been very interesting. Irrespectively of what the politics looks like at the moment, the film shows plain historical facts as recorded on an VHS tape during the meeting of the 4th of June 1992. I have seen it for the first time. Remembering well the fuss of 1992 about the government of Jan Olszewski, many facts were shocking to me, especially those about preperaing the deal with the Russians which Olszewski put an end to.

The comments of Jarosław Kaczyński who took part in the panel were rather balanced and not at all agressive towards Lech Wałęsa. The Dear Leader sounded very much as a historian rather than a politician. Also, the info from the film that the status of someone being TW can be found not only in a single file, but in some other 10 dossiers makes the claim of any revealed agent to have been mistakenly registered in one dossier irrelevant.

It was said that the original list of TWs of 1992 was later confirmed in the Milczanowski list for all of them except three two years later when the Olszewski government was already the song of the past.

Not everyone can handle historical. Some prefer a more palatable, sugar-coated, short-cut version. I can mimic it too: Wałęsa's 10-million-strong Solidarność teamed up with Poland's intellectual community to peacefully overthrow the communist regime and....they all lived happily ever after.....

No friction, no cross-currents, no confllcting pressures, no interest groups, no antagonisms....everything is clear-cut, balck & white, peachy keen and hunky-dory!

I can handle historical, I just can't handle blindly ideological. Even if everything you say about the fall of the Olszewski government was true, then so what? It would be possible for a small group of post-communists to hold onto power and rob the country blind, just as you say. But if that had happened then Poland would now look much more like Venezuela or Nigeria than what it actually looks like. The basic premise: The majority of Poles have been impoverished by a small clique of anti-Polish.... whatever fails the first test of face validity.

Let's try a different version. Back in 1992 no one had the benefit of hindsight. They were still headed into new socio-political territory and there were many known and unknown dangers. Lots of mistakes were being made because.... this wasn't a video game that can be restarted but life in real time. Poland was not anywhere near ready (in terms of social stability and political maturity) for a round of wildcat unsubstantiated "lustration" which requires a kind of distance that literally no one had in 1992. That and lots of other factors made the government very unstable and destabilizing for a fragile political and economic system that was still finding its footing.

Of course there were lots of backroom meetings and nefarious talk, the only difference was that some of them were filmed in this case. I'm sure that if JK and accomplices were candidly filmed your whole world would be crushed - remember the old saying about sausage and politics... It's too bad that AM's plans to stage a military coup were not caught on camera or were they? I might watch that.

In the meantime, JK has latched onto these events to build a mythos to comfort his hardcore supporters - the 25 % or so that would never be able to adapt to or thrive in a capitalists environment. It's not their fault they've done badly, it's the system! I have it on film! You're not miserable failures, but noble people who've been betrayed!

Pass (unless, as I said, AM's coup plans happened to be caught on tape).

Wałęsa is actually quite a tragic figure -- a hostage of his own past which continues to haunt him. When it is brought up, he goes ballistic and himself becomes quite aggressive. Together with Komorowski (who said opponents should be whacked with a board) Wałęsa has called (rhetorically so far) for physical attacks on his antagonists, eg helping them jump out of upper-storey windows. That in turn provokes aggression against him. There are those like Olechowski (one of the three tenors until Tusk booted him out) and Boni who have admitted their past and it has been largely accepted. Wałęsa wavered, once admitting it, later denying it probably at the advice of éminence grise SB plant Wachowski. Wałęsa by virtue of being in the right palce at the right time (jumping over the shipyard fence) did become a hero and by hobnobbing with real politicians as well as foreign diplomats and statesmen polished his act. Initially he opposed to roundtable clique and even declared a "war at the top" ot loosen their grip on the Polish body politic, but faced by the Bolek business in 1992, and advised by Kuroń and other KOR-ites, switched sides.Many people feel, he threw in with the wrong side, but in Realpolitik terms it was the winning side until, that is, October 2015. And that's it in a nutshell!

What an excellent description of First Secretary of the Party, Jarek Kaczynski; although of course it's not only his past that haunts him, there is also the present situation which he has to keep silent about and demand all around him do too.


What a disgusting thing to say about arguably the greatest living Pole. His actions over a long period of time are what made him a hero, not simply one act (or course you're not telling the truth about him jumping a fence). I fear that jealousy may be getting the better of you.

The nomenklatura plus their families, social circles and assorted fellow travellers were not a small group. The leftist-dissident KOR was initially a small group but when Wałęsa gave Michnik Gazeta Wyborcza, they became the most influential intellectual force. Both groups were mutually suppportive to a large extent and both were skilled in the PR/propaganda field. That is why their narrative lasted a quarter-century. Those who stayed in Poland did not rob Poland blind by taking it all out of the county, the hefty kickbacks from foreign-interest groups went into their private pockets, much of which was spent in Poland. So in a skewed way, their internal consumption fuelled the economy. I used to call it RP III myself until more and more previously hidden facts came to light. You don't like RT clique, fair enough. So they can be called the post-communist outfit (Capone's term), system, establishment, arrangement, club, coterie...take your pick. More accurate would be post-communist/leftist dissident group (KOR+PZPR) estblishment, etc., but that is a bit unwieldy, wouldn't you say?

I forgot mafia -- that's what some Poles called it: postkomunstyczna mafia. Obiviously the members of that in-group do not call it that.

Care to explain why you're so familiar with who was and was not in that group? And perhaps you could also tell us why a certain First Secretary of the Party and other people who we won't name either lived under the commies in multi-billion zloty villas in leafy suburbs?

Someone disucsses oranges and you compare them to apples. Always taking the discourse off-thread.
Wałęsa lucked out. That one occurrence set off a series of events which often worked in his favour. He wanted to end the shipyard strike but his workmates were against it. If at that point he had said: "Continue your strike, I'm taking my marbles and going home" -- the world may have never heard of Wałęsa. But he went along with his workmates, displayed leadership qualities and, as peasant-rooted workers go, had the gift of the gab and the rest is history. But that hsitory is riddled with various elements. His presidential chancellery was populated by SB snitches -- not amateurish ones like himself in the 1970s, but hard-core, heavy-duty ones.You don't send amateurs to advise the president of a country! His éminence grise Wachowski, also a TW, represented the post-PZPR/post-KOR establishement, advised Wałęsa accordingly and remains a shadowy figure to this day.

The greatest living Pole? With the passing of JP2, one thing is certain: he is now the best-known living Pole.

Anyone who knows anything about Polish history and politics is fmailair with the workigns of the nomenklatura. In every captive nation or Soviet satellite all decision-making and managerial posts were reserved for that group who controlled the government, economy, media, education, culture and most other fields of endeavour.

Kiszczak, was top nomenklatura and together with Michnik (his dad was but he wasn't) created the roundtable to enable a smooth transiton for the commies into post-communist Poland. Anyway, this will give you the basics:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatura

You claim that Walesa has a past which haunts him, so I pointed out that there is another politician who very clearly has a past that haunts him. And so it should: if no Pole had ever volunteered to prosecute the enemies of the Party, no amount of informers could have led to convictions. And then there's the other bit of the First Secretary's past that haunts him and clearly shows that either the IPN's files are next to worthless because they have been so well edited or that the IPN doesn't release files it has: the fact that the IPN apparently does not have even a single document in which anybody even suggests that it might be worth checking out why the now First Secretary of the Party is never seen in female company.


Walesa was a hero. No amount of lies from the likes of you, Radio Maybach, TVPiS or IPN staff will ever change that.

There are many politicans, pharmacists, lawyers, priests and shopkeepers whose past haunts them. So what? What does that prove? You can ignore Wałęsa's biography and his self-admitted paid SB informer status and call him a hero. No law against that. And we all know why you think so. He has become the darling and patron of the losers' club with which you identify. Not surprising!

But you're a well-kown f*g-lover, homophile or whatever it's called. so if your insinuation about JK is true, then you should be all for him, n'est-ce pas? But we were not discussing anyone except Walęsa, so focus on him, his virtues and vices as well. The complete man. Also the bluster and waffling and how his fame has gone to his head and how he would get rid of anyone who was cleverer than him... And his unkrept promsies. He said he would send the commies off in nothing more than the socks on their feet. Instead the nomenklatura flourished and thrived on the fat of the land. Only now they are huffing and puffing when their undeserved pensions are being trimmed down to size.

Maybe you aren't.....


I don't care if he's gay or not (probably is, big deal). I only care that he's such a hypocrite about it.

It's nothing to be proud of, is it? But rememebr, being a homo itslef is not a sin, it's an affliciton one is born with. Only the abominablre practice is sinful. Maybe he's reformed (once again assuming the insinuation is true). Everyone has free will and the opportuntiy to repent or (if you prefer) clean up their act.


Word 'truth' dropped out. Should have read: historical truth.

So they should make peace with themselves and society about their past misdeeds while they still can. I'm sure that if they, and the First Secretary of the Party, simply confessed their mistakes in the past and worked to make up for those, society would forgive them. It is more than possible to make up for past misdeeds, that's why Poles think so highly of Lech Walesa to this day. Even if what the PiSlamic State claim was true, what Walesa achieved after his supposed collaboration has more than made up for it. Poland today is a free country and won that freedom with remarkably little bloodshed; without Walesa it is very probable that there would have been a lot more bloodshed and quite possibly a lot less freedom too.


This thread is about the IPN and what its documents supposedly say, so discussing the fact that the IPN claims not to have even a single piece of paper in which anybody even mentions the First Secretary of the Party, Jarek Kaczynski, not being seen with women much or why that might be is very much to the point. Why is it that the IPN should be able to be 100% certain on one thing but to have 0% knowledge about another?


Yes, it is a pity that Walesa never seized the multi-million zloty villas in leafy suburbs from the former collaborators who'd got those properties by selling out the people of Poland, but I suppose it was in the end for the greater good.

The truth: I'm glad communism ended. There were many mistakes made in the transition (partly because no one had tried anything of the sort before) but nothing like the organized exploitation ring that the post communist losers' club likes to blame their unhappy lot on.

Dwelling incessantly on a single, incompetent government failing a no-confidence vote is the sure sign of loserdom. But PiS's base is all about making losers feel better (though even their narrative: 20 some odd years to win an election, is pretty loserish).

Stay back with the losers mired in the past if you want, I'm more interested in building a better tomorrow.

Wałęsa's digs have been posh and palatial, haven't they? He's not exactly languishing in some cramped flat in a ramshackle block. Why not get ylour PO buddies ot raise the issue of JK's sexuality in the Sejm? You seem fixated on the subject so go for it, otherwise stul pysk.


In that short time Olszewski stopped Wałęsa signing a deal with Moscow to turn ex-Soviet bases into "joint-ventures" meaning the Russians would have had a permanetn presence in Poland. He would have also stopped Balcerite robber-baron privatisaiton on which the nomenklatura got rich. He was toppled not due to incompetnece but because the dirty secrets and dodgy interests of an ad hoc political clique were threatened.

That is easy to say and I agree it fit nicely into somebody else myth and narrative. Doesn't necessarily is accurate.
In fact is just a fairly tale for suckers and an excuse for scum.


It didn't end. It transformed. It has been so called 'transformation', change the shape and the essence remained the same.

Communism collapsed in June 1989. It resurfaced as post-communism in June 1992, and soon thereafter PZPR Poitburo Member Miller and his comrades were back in office and another PZPR VIP Kwaśneiwski became president. They provided the proper protection for post-nomenklatura circles to prosper while the average Pole suffered poverty.

You've convinced me! Poland is a country of the biggest losers on the planet, who can't even get rid of the communists with no communist government around and who take, what? 25 years to elect a non-communist government (tricked into voting for communists for 20 years, what losers!) and despite all the cultural and economic advantages of being in Europe the average loser Pole still lives in poverty? Like a loser?

What a loser country!

You're 100% right up till October 2015. After the Kiszczak-Wałęźsa-Michnik faction won the June 1992 stand-off, the post-nomeklatura faction got a new lease of life and would enjoy disproportionate advantages under various governng parties, except PiS, for the next two decades. The Tusk government did slightly reduce the fat-cat pensions of SB OAPs, but only the PiS government reduced them to average level. To this day, SB colonels and other other unsavory PRL hold-overs flock to PO-led demonstrations ina bid to retian their undeserved privileges. But it's all in vain -- the reduction of their pensions to average level is due to commence in October.

Poland is still a poor countrycomapred to the top EU economies, but all the economic indicators have improved markedly.(As a hard-nosed pro-capitalist even you cannot deny that.) And for the first time in 30 years, more people are immigrating to Poland than emigrating. Of the immigrants, 75% are repatriates, job-seeking émigrés who had moved to the West, esp. British Isles and Germany, after Poland joined the EU.

If it makes you feel better to believe that. Just remember that not everybody here believes in the bandersnatch of the post RT clique. Competent people (which includes those sensitive to changing realities) tend to do well in any system. Disproportionae advantages quickly go to nothing in the hands of the incompetent so you're basically arguing for the competence of post 1989 governments....


If I were an economic illiterate (like many supporters of the PiS losers support club), I would assume that a government could turn around an economy in ruins (per PiS campaign boilerplate) to booming in two years. Since I'm not an economic illiterate I recognize that PiS is largely taking the credit for years of hard work by their enemies including PO and the EU) to build the country up.

Who said nomenklatura were incompetent? They or their families were on-the-ball survivors who had made it through successive purges (1956, l968, 1970s, martial law), so they readily adapted to capitalism. And if the monarchy had been restored, they would have likewise wormed their way into positions of power and privilege. Already in the mid-1980s (coinciding with Gorbachev's perestroika), they began entitling themselves (uwłaszczenie nomenklatury) with chunks of the eocnomy. Even earlier, when Gierek announced so-called Polonian firms (1970s), it were nkimenkjlatgura who got in on the ground floor. But is being crafty, cunning and clever all that counts, as you seem to repeatedly indicate? If so, you should admire the Nazi who came up with Cyklon B, because it was far more cost-effective than petrol exhaust fumes. Justice also exists, so the nomenklatura should have been penalised, not rewarded, for serving Soviet occupation forces and sharing in the spoils for so many years. Too bad there was no pro-Polish Mateusz Morawiecki in the early 1990s. Instead Poland got Soros/Sachs disciple Balcerowicz.

you've just manifested Godwin's law - you lose

Who the hell was Godwin?* Don't tell me, I know. His law is something someone can invoke when they are lost for words and lose an argument. It saved you from having to deny the well-known role of the nomenklatura in Poland's communist and post-communist era. But you cannot deny that (on the basis of countless posts to that effect) you represent an ultra-pragamatic, super-cost-efffective and mega-GDP-minded obsession as extreme as Crow's claim that Serbia is the centre of the universe.

Actually... "For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned Hitler has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law


I'm pragmatic and interested in truth, and overblown claims about Polish poverty sound.. neither truthful nor are the proposed solutions (wrecking the rule of law and appointing incompetent boobs to key positions) going to be effective for long.

I just don't see the evidence of massive looting of the Polish economy by ex-commies (of course there has been corruption on various sides). So I don't buy the fairytales about how such a state came to be.... because it didn't. It's all feelgood just so stories for the feckless.