Lech Walesa turned 80. It has been 43 years since he entered the cards of Polish history, leading the strike in Gdańsk Shipyard.
Today's generation can't look at Wales any another way than through the prism of memes, stupid jokes, his current curiosity statements and parades in bizarre shirts with politically correct subtitles. A image of Wałęsa lying in a bathtub with beer is more to the imagination than a complicated communicative of his life. The problem is, this current Wałęsa has small to do with yesterday.
Z I met with the walęsa twice, after 1989, erstwhile as the National Democratic organization we supported his candidacy for president of the Polish Republic in the 1995 election (for a second term). The first gathering took place in the presidential palace in Otwock, most likely in August 1995,. He was at this meeting—as I remember— Romuald Szeremietiev, Leszek Moczulski and I think Paweł Linkkowski. The conversation afraid the upcoming presidential elections. The second gathering took place at the Namestnikowski Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście. I was there with col. Jack Kamińskito conduct an interview for Polish Thought. At that time I was besides a associate of the Wałęsa electoral staff, which was based in the Soban Palace on Ujazdowski Avenues.
Not that. In my opinion, no of the political camps, both hostile to the PiS and its surroundings, with a mad obsession Jarosław Kaczyński which is the origin of the legend about the “man in the briefcase” and the camp centered around Donald Tusk, for which Wałęsa is an icon of their imagination of past and allies in the fight against Kaczyński – he is incapable to decently measure the function played by Wałęsa in Poland's history. What was the role? Well, from 1980 to 1981 Lech Wałęsa found himself in a situation of a man who had received tremendous power – he could do things with her and the nation would follow him, like in smoke. In those times of national uplifting, 1 slogan cast by Wałęsa may have led to another tragic uprising, with large bloodshed, to another tragedy where martial law is an innocent act. That's erstwhile the bum could have done anything and no 1 would have stopped him. He could have been another Piotr Wysocki, Stefan Bobrowski or Leopold Okulicki in Polish history.
Yet, he did not, and more importantly, proved to be an highly efficient temper pacifier, and took the trigger out of the charge respective times, which they had installed there seemingly smarter than he was. This was in March 1981, erstwhile it was against people like Jacek Kuron or Karol Modzelewski – he brutally stopped the device of the general strike, which would inevitably end in civilian war, martial law or intervention from the east. I am convinced that many to this day cannot forgive him, that we did not have another bloody uprising at the time, that is to say, another crime on the nation committed by madmen and provokers, who have led Poland so many times in our past to the brink and then hit, not to know for what, the monuments.
It doesn't substance why Wałęsa acted like this at the time. Or, as the historians want, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, due to the fact that he was “the man from the briefcase” or due to the fact that he was just listening to the Primate Stefan Wyszynski And he had a proverbial peasant mind. Of course, I trust on the second version. The fact that Wałęsa did not become the second Okulicki or the second Wysocki is his top merit for Poland, due to the fact that in Polish past they were lost, without chances of success of the uprising, which unfortunately broke out, but besides those that did not explode, though they could.
Today, no one, not even Walęsa himself, will justice his role, due to the fact that he himself succumbed to the story of the 1 telling him that he was “failing the commune.” No, Wałęsa did not “object the communes”, he did Mikhail Gorbachev and introduced by him a perestroika. Without this, there would be no "failure of the commune." Solidarity is said to have forced these changes. It's a myth. Moscow didn't gotta do anything, she could, as 1 of the American historians writes, dig in for 20 years and no 1 would do anything. Even America was amazed by the choice Gorbachev made. Anyway, it was a time erstwhile as a nation we could make the incorrect choice, in accordance with the tradition of Polish political romanticism, which is now being pushed forward as the only worthy Polish patriot. It's evidently false. No substance what you say, the tradition didn't fit in. And possibly that's why in many circles it was decided to make it simply a “capus” and put it on the foreground of “Anna Solidarity”, i.e. Anna Valentinovich, which in addition turned out to be Ukrainian with upodish household traditions, which compromises the authors of this curiosity procedure.
Jan Engelgard
photo public domain
