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

epresents one more step in the broader effort of discrediting the
patriotic and democratic core of Polish socialism.
Investigation, also known as lustration, was an important part of this
process. The regime-change model adopted in 1989 aimed to create
a state for all citizens, focusing on the establishment of a democratic
system, overcoming the economic crisis and taking Poland
into the European Union and NATO. These aims were deemed to
take precedence over the settling of pre-1989 accounts. It was
considered more important to develop consensus around such
general aims than to encourage the internal divisions that would inevitably
follow a process of settling accounts. This approach was
criticised as a result of the Round Table. The emerging right-wing
demanded investigation and de-communisation. The Night of the
Files in June 1992 and the fall of the government that had prepared
the operation to unmask informants amongst parliamentarians and
individuals holding high national office, were interpreted as acts in
defence of informants. This interpretation of events still holds sway
today.
For the right-wing circles in question, investigation became the key
that would reveal the truth about the lack of genuine democratic
opposition in the 1970s and 1980s, its two-faced leaders, and alleged
deals and secret conversations between the police and opposition
leaders. The outcome would be to undermine and even
compromise the widely-held version of events, reveal the so-called
secret arrangements and thus throw light on the reasons why the
Reds and the Pinks reached agreement at the Round Table. Police
records were made available to researchers at the Institute of National
Remembrance, established in 1999. No evidence was found
to confirm such a vision of the past and yet its proponents were
not downcast, arguing that the documents had been destroyed. It
is true that in 1989 and 1990 a significant proportion of the records
had been destroyed. The scale of the destruction, however, was
not sufficient to eliminate all traces of actual collaboration with the
secret services of the People’s Republic of Poland. Another way of
countering the lack of documentary evidence was to maintain that
no records had been kept on the main informants. It was also hoped
that military service records would reveal what was claimed to be
the truth. So far the hoped-for true story has not been realised.
111 Andrzej Friszke