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

have developed a historical theory that Solidarność was seduced
by Wałęsa and by the communist secret police. The transition of
1989, according to that theory, was a compromise, an orchestrated
arrangement whereby communists would essentially maintain
power and privileges behind the scenes. The communists and their
friends would take over big business and the banks and Wałęsa
would become president. Honest Poles like Kaczyński, who were
fighting for the freedom of Poland, were led astray by Wałęsa and
would be sidelined. It’s a load of total rubbish. The Kaczyńskis controlled
the public media for a time and pursued a very active policy
they called historical politics, making out that they were the true
heroes and trying to undermine Wałęsa. They seem to have failed.
Usually I keep silent on current politics. But I couldn’t stand it anymore,
so I made fun of the whole thing in a speech at Wałęsa’s
birthday. I think it had a very salutary effect.
The Kaczyńskis set up the Institute of National Memory. They have
been using this institute for their campaign. It has a mixed record,
in fact. They are very professional historians and some of the things
they do are necessary and very praiseworthy. They have done a lot
of good work documenting the killings that went on after the war:
judicial murders in which a lot of émigré Poles who returned were
killed. That’s all very good, but this same Institute of National Memory
is also being used to dig dirt on Wałęsa in a very scurrilous way.
Q: Is Poland, apart from the Kaczyński brothers, getting more at
ease with its own past?
I think they are. They look around Europe and see a lot of other
countries who had difficulties about their own past. One big problem,
namely the Jewish question, remains. Most Jews in the world,
about eighty percent, came from Poland. Because the mission of
Zionism was to take people from Europe and to bring them to
Palestine, that meant taking them mainly from Poland. Therefore,
Zionists, who are actually stronger in America than in Israel, stick to
an interpretation of Polish anti-Semitism. Poland was the Babylon
where the Jews suffered. If you say, as I would, that before the war
Poland had good relations with most Jews, bad relations with some
Jews, and a lot of indifference that is no good for the Zionists. The
Jewish socialists in Poland, the Bundists, didn’t want to migrate to
Palestine. They wanted to have a common society in Poland,
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