Lech Walesa, Communist Collaborator? #
The Economist’s Europe.view column considers the recently reinfused question of whether Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement that brought an end to Communism in Poland, had ever collaborated with the Communist government.
Some believe that Mr Walesa’s seemingly erratic behaviour and poor choice of advisers as president from 1990-95 was the result of blackmail (he strongly denies this too). That goes straight to the most divisive question in modern Polish politics.
For a large chunk of Polish opinion, the “PRL”, as the Polish People’s Republic is known, was fundamentally illegitimate. Everything that happened—including much so-called “dissident” activity—was a sham and a fraud, orchestrated by Polish or Soviet secret police. Others see the PRL as a pragmatic response to Poland’s impossible position after 1945. Surely it was better to live as best as one could than to die senselessly in the forests or rot in jail.