Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

Discussion of the real ideological sources of pre-war communism
is impossible. The country’s right considers such matters to relate
solely to the activities of Soviet agents. A prominent nationalist historian
and high-ranking employee of the Institute of National Remembrance
recently made light of the fact that communists had
been tortured in a pre-war jail, even though similar crimes committed
during the Stalinist period are still being investigated. Another
young historian with a similar political background justified the political
murder of senior officers of the Polish underground in 1944
on the grounds that, according to the historian concerned, their
left-wing views meant that they would have become communist
collaborators after the war. Their murder was therefore considered
to be a legitimate preventive measure. Views of this nature are
probably aired in every country. In Poland, however, expressed in
the influential press, they were not countered as they should have
been. Whenever the pre-war, wartime or post-war past is considered,
right-wing groups are presented as the only truly patriotic
movements. All efforts to settle accounts with the traditions of rightwing
totalitarianism and anti-Semitism are countered or rejected
indignantly. This happened, for example, in the case of the important
debate across Poland at the beginning of this decade
concerning the murders in Jedwabne. The nationalists and the rightwing
were united in their resistance to accept the truth about Poles’
responsibility for these murders. They formed a united front in opposition
to the so-called liberal left-wing elite groups.
One of the main indicators of the ideological divide in Poland is the
particular interpretation of history espoused, especially with regard
to the history of the 1940s. The right has a single vision of Poland
during that period: it is of a country subjugated, where suffering
and murder were inflicted on the people. The right is reluctant to recall
the ideological and political differences that existed in Polish society
at the time. It endeavours to create a picture of a
homogeneous nation, a nation that suffered and fought first against
the Germans and then against the communists. This nation is perceived
as having close ties with the Catholic Church and being
steadfast in its resistance to communism. According to this interpretation
of history, the left, even if it had fought against the Nazis,
largely sought to reach a compromise with the communists after
the war, thus surrendering all its patriotic credentials. This
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