Memories & reflections
Adam Michnik
Poland: the first to fall
Solidarity flags and St. Peter's Square in Rome, symbols of Poland's trade union movement and the Roman Catholic Church, which together brought down Poland's Communist regime. It was the shipyard strikes and opposition rallies organized by Solidarity in the 1980s and the concessions that the union and the Church eventually forced the regime to make that began the tide of change in Eastern Europe. (Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press)
One of the most prominent figures of the 1989 revolution and subsequent post-Communist transition in Eastern Europe, Adam Michnik is a former dissident and leader of the pro-democracy movement in Poland. He was a key member of the Solidarity labour movement of the 1980s that eventually brought down the Communist regime in Poland and inspired moves toward reform in other East Bloc countries. Jailed for several years for his opposition activities, Michnik was the architect of the historic "Round Table" talks between Solidarity and the Communist regime. Those talks resulted in the first (partially) free elections in the East Bloc in June 1989, which saw Michnik elected to the new parliament, where he served until 1991.
Michnik also helped found Poland's first independent newspaper of the post-Communist era, Gazeta Wyborcza, in spring 1989. He has been the editor in chief of the influential paper, whose reputation extends throughout Central Europe, ever since. He has won numerous prizes, including the Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and has honorary degrees from the New School for Social Research in New York, the University of Michigan and others.
Known for his humuour, warmth and unpretentious intellect, Michnik is much loved and respected throughout Central Europe, as well as among expatriates and followers of the region abroad. When he recently visited Toronto to deliver a lecture at the University of Toronto, students, professors and members of Toronto's Polish community packed a small, stifling room on campus to hear him speak and lined up long afterwards to shake his hand. His talk, entitled Twenty Years After the Miracle: Poland's Return to Europe after 1989, was given in Polish and simultaneously translated by Kasia Kietlinska of Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. Excerpts, compiled by CBC News producer Jennifer Clibbon, from the talk appear below.
Yearnings from behind the Iron Curtain
Twenty five years ago, East Europeans made three clear appeals to God [about their future]: to free all the political prisoners [and there were many of them]; to end censorship and open the borders to democracy; and for Soviet troops to leave and the Soviet Union fall apart. God listened to all three appeals. So, we should be really happy today. But instead, we're mad. Why are we so angry?
The first step: Solidarity
The first big step towards delegitimizing Communism was the huge wave of strikes in 1980 [by the Solidarity movement] in Poland. I was in prison at the time, but in my spirit, I was with those on strike.
Polish trade unionist Lech Walesa spurred a mass workers' movement when he led a strike of dockyard workers in Gdansk in 1980 under the banner of the Solidarity union. Although the Communist regime tried to crush the movement by imposing martial law in the country a year later, Solidarity survived and eventually helped oust the Communist government in June 1989. Walesa became the first freely elected president of Poland in December 1990. (Jacques Langevin/Associated Press)
Communism used to say about itself that it was a dictatorship of the proletariat. But in August 1980, the proletariat said it didn't want that dictatorship. With this, the whole ideological construct of Communism was broken. Naked power was the only thing the Communists had left.
What had happened in Poland was crucial. Martial law [which the Communist Party imposed to crush the strikes] didn't destroy Solidarity. It weakened it. But Solidarity survived as an underground structure. It also survived as an idea. And also it survived as a symbol in the movement's leader, Lech Walesa.
Gorbachev opens door to change
In 1986, the international constellation changed. Communism started collapsing in its very heart, the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev thought it was possible to reform and improve socialism. But socialism was unreformable. It was doomed to death because of its economic inadequacy. Any attempt at reforming Communism would lead to its destruction. But Gorbachev, through his policies, opened up a certain space for changes … for broadening of the margin of freedom that led to change in Poland.
The great compromise
[In 1989], Poland was in a stalemate situation. The government was too weak to destroy the opposition, and the opposition was too weak to overthrow the government. This double weakness gave birth to the great compromise that was known as the Round Table. … Poland's transformation had two faces: one face was that of the Solidarity opposition, and the second face was that of the Communist Party. The guarantee of a compromise between the two was provided by the Catholic Church. John Paul II, a Pole, was the Pope and was the greatest authority for the Polish people at that point. He gave his blessing to this Polish compromise.
Bumpy transition period
If today, after 20 years, we say that we are furious [about the way things evolved], we also have to say that these have been the best 20 years in Polish history.
[Anger] is a psychological state specific to post-Communism. Our societies were suddenly thrown into a different reality. Every transformation has its winners and losers. But when you listen to people in Poland, you'd think everybody is a loser.
Workers' paradox
In Poland [before 1989], the power of the opposition was based on the workers in the big factories… And that is the paradox: the workers were the first to fall victim to these [post-Communist] changes. That's because they worked for factories that could not compete [in the free market]. Modernization involved layoffs … Let us imagine a factory that produced busts of Lenin. During Communism, there was a market for them. Every factory director, every party secretary, every county deputy was obliged to have a bust of Lenin on his desk.
After 1989, the market was over for Lenin, and these workers were hurt. They didn't work any less hard. It just happened that their hard work wasn't needed by anybody … This is the starting point to understanding why people felt like losers. On the other hand, they could now go out and start their own businesses and make real money. They lost as workers but won as people.
Burden of freedom
Poland and all the other Communist countries were used to the idea that a human being was owned by the state. The state would take care of him or her. It gave them employment, a place to live, health care. His or her only duty was to be obedient. [In 1989], the people didn't want to be obedient. They wanted freedom. But this freedom quickly showed another face. The market did not have a human face … The transformation was happening without a guidebook. Poland faced a new challenge every day. Prices were now real. For pensioners, this meant material degradation. Censorship ended, but there was no longer money for new films or theatres.
Prisoner syndrome
We couldn't cope well with the new reality … We saw increasingly a return of the political traditions that we had considered dangerous. There was a nostalgia for Communism. I call it prisoner syndrome. As long as he is in jail, [the prisoner] dreams of freedom. And then this beautiful day comes, and he leaves prison. He is enchanted by everything. He has no place to sleep, but he is free. But after a while, he sees he has no food, and he has no place to sleep. And suddenly, he is longing for that time in prison. He doesn't remember that it was prison, just that it was a place to eat for free and get some rest.
Return of nationalism and xenophobia
Political traditions in our country were frozen like in a refrigerator for many years. But at some point, the refrigerator stopped working — and all the produce in it started stinking. When you opened it, there was a really bad stench. It was like that in all the post-Communist countries. The political traditions of 1939 and 1945, which had been temporarily suppressed, were revived. In this region, this meant authoritarian traditions, nationalistic traditions, anti-Semitic traditions. They were revived in all of these countries.
Catholic Church as a lapsed leader
We saw the changing role of the Catholic Church. During the years of Communism, the church had been a [place of] asylum, a great place of freedom. It was the only place where human speech was not defiled. It was a state within a state; an independent sovereign state in an unsovereign state. The churches had been full in Poland. Religion provided a sense of dignity and power.…
[But after 1989], evangelical language was substituted for the language of political propaganda and turned into an instrument of political struggle…. The homilies were not about sin or God but about what parties people should vote for and what parties people should never vote for.
Flawed democracy is still democracy
After 20 years, we really have a right to feel pride. These have been very good years. In spite of the tragic curse in the heart of Europe, there was no Balkanization. If we look back and remember the history of this region, the dramatic, bloody conflicts between Poles and Ukrainians, and you look at it today, you can say that Poland prevailed over its own history. [But] no victory is ever final. And luckily no failure is definitive either. These threats happen all the time. Democracy is a daily referendum on whether we want to defend it.
A sinful democracy is better than an unsinful dictatorship. The future depends on ourselves. And I believe that these last 20 years show that despite stumbling and making mistakes, we can defend democracy. Our big chance is belonging to the European Union. This is our anchor. The anchor that prevents our own [Vladimir] Putins from instituting their own version of "sovereign democracy."
Polish journalist Adam Michnik is one of the leading intellectuals in Eastern Europe. Along with Vaclav Havel in what was then Czechoslovakia and fellow Pole Lech Walesa, he was a major figure of the Communist-era opposition in the region and assumed a leading role in the post-Communist transition. He served in Poland's first free parliament and today is editor in chief of the region's largest daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, which he helped found in 1989.
