Polish revolution hero Walesa comes under attack

Ségolène — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:44:15 +0200

The cover of Time Magazine in December 1980.

Poland's political community has been thrown into turmoil over allegations that the country's former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa collaborated with the Communist-era secret police and spent years trying to cover it up.

The accusations emerged last month in a limited edition, 780-page book published by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). The authors claim that Walesa worked with the brutal "SB" service; Poland's answer to the KGB, between 1970 and 1976. The authors explain that Walesa, while still an electrician and union leader, had provided information to the SB, under the codename "Bolek", about strike organisers in the early seventies. Walesa did admit to having signed documents that were handed over to the political police following interrogations, but he categorically denies that the name "Bolek" was ever used.

What makes the news so shocking is that Walesa was an anti-communist and pro-human rights activist who founded the country's first independent trade union, Solidarity. He is considered a heroic figure in leading the country to independence in the 1989 revolution and someone who fought against the political repression of the communist regime, not alongside it. While some are ready to send him to the gallows, others have dismissed the news as sensationalist and recycled rubbish. Our Observers on both sides tell us why they're right.

This post was compiled with the help of one of our Observers in Poland, Marcin Smietana.

politics

Polish revolution hero Walesa comes under attack