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Poland's Transformation: A Work in Progress

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In this anthology, Roszkowski recounts how former US President Reagan had been a friend of freedom and friend of Poland. How diametrically opposite was Reagan from Roosevelt, who habitually dismissed the Poles as an irritating nuisance and who cultivated a hear-no-evil-see-no-evil mindset towards the Soviets! Radzilowski reviews the ?Polish Revolution? that began with the election of John Paul II, as well as the under appreciated Polish entrepreneurial acumen that circumvented the stifling Communist policies, and subsequently expanded after 1989. One of the ironies of the Soviet yoke had been the ?They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work? economic farce.

In looking towards the future, Radzilowski (pp. 216-217) stresses the need for all Soviet archives to be opened, all Soviet mass graves to be identified, and all artwork stolen from Poland to be returned. Radzilowski makes a perceptive point about the role reversal that took place between the early 17th and late 20th centuries: During the former, it was ?superpower? Poland versus weak Russia. Were it that way today! Today?s talk among Russians about Russia being ?between empires? isn?t exactly encouraging.

While Poland?s EU membership is considered (Howard), Polish fears of being bought out by wealthier neighbors are compared with westerners? fears of cheap Polish labor. This parallelism is dubious, as western nations have much greater capabilities for dealing with cheap Polish labor (?The Mexicans of Europe??) than Poles have for resisting buy-outs. In fact, Western European nations are now reluctant to hire cheap Polish labor.

In common with others, Holzer justifies Poland?s EU membership by claiming that, without it, Poland would be isolated. I beg to differ. Poland can always form political, economic, and cultural relationships with other nations of the world?on her own terms, not that of some bureaucrat in Brussels or Berlin. Holzer paints the EU as an organization whose power is diffused, whose values are pluralistic, and (unlike the situation that would exist if Poland wasn?t a member) where Poland has a voice. The reality is rather different. Power in the EU is disproportionately German, secularist, and left wing. What good is it that Poland ?has a voice? when this voice can so easily be drowned out or disregarded by powerful political and economic interests? And what realistic options does Poland have to leave the EU if her membership proves excessively corrosive to her sovereignty?

The question of property settlements, raised by Chodakiewicz and Currell, needs to be expanded and analyzed in the context of Poland?s EU membership. For the longest time, Holocaust films have painted such a uniformly inaccurate negative portrayal of Polish wartime conduct that many Poles have concluded that there is an agenda to sway uninformed western public opinion through the blackening of Poland?s reputation. As also pointed out by the courageous Jewish author Norman Finkelstein, the real issue is money. There are Jewish groups going as far as attempting to eventually force Poland to pay for everything that once belonged to Polish Jews, even though, by law, private property passes to the state when there are no heirs, and German Holocaust reparations payments are supposed to cover Jewish property losses as well as, symbolically, the incalculable loss of Jewish lives. To what extent can these, and other groups with similar intentions, use the EU as leverage against Poland?

Some authors touch on the role of Germany. Why was Germany one of the main ?shakers and movers? in getting Poland into the EU? To what degree will Germany?s pre-eminent position in the EU enable her to gradually impose her will on Poland? It is said that German revanchism was and is a marginal phenomenon. But will it always be thus? The revival of interest in ?Expellees? is not an encouraging sign. Neither is what looks like the recent attempt by Germans to transform their grandparents from the perpetrators to the victims of Nazism. The re-emergence of German sorrow over losses from Allied bombing is disturbingly reminiscent of the German selective memory and self-pity directed at the Versailles accords. Eventually, selective memory and self-pity changed to vindictiveness, and vindictiveness became expressed as renewed aggression.

Left-wing ideologues have always relied on a top-down approach to impose their will upon the people. In the US, this has taken the form of unelected judges abandoning their constitutional role of interpreting the Constitution in favor of ruling from the bench and disregarding established rights (e. g. private gun ownership) while inventing new ?human rights? out of thin air. International organizations (e. g. the UN) have also been used for this purpose. I do not share the Pope?s optimism about Poland being able to ?Christianize? the EU. Much more likely, the reverse will happen. What is to prevent the secularists that dominate the EU from using Poland?s membership to force her to legalize all prenatal infanticide (abortion) and same-sex marriage, and to silence traditionalist voices such as Radio Maria? Commonly repeated Orwellian language could always be used as a cover (?evolving standards of internationally-recognized human rights?, ?reproductive rights?, ?sexual minorities?, ?protecting the vulnerable from hate speech?, etc.). The final question to ponder in the light of topics covered by this book is the following: To what extent is Poland?s membership in the EU a new Targowica, wherein current Polish leaders have sold Polish sovereignty in exchange for personal benefit?

Chodakiewicz, in one of his articles, provides an excellent summary of Polish history from 1918 to the present. It is interesting to learn that, during the first years of Soviet-imposed and western-acquiesced Communist rule (1944-1956), Polish history ignored the contributions of the AK and NSZ (pp. 236-238). Reminiscent of the approach that later became virtually universal in the western world, Jewish actions under the Nazis were glorified while non-Communist Polish ones were either denigrated or more commonly swept under the rug. In this light, it is doubly ironic to hear complaints about current Polish education being excessively Polonocentric.

For anyone studying Poland's transition from communism to democracy, this collection of essays is a must-read. I am not alone in holding this view. This book has received endorsements from top-level scholars:

"Poland's Transformation provides a comprehensive as well as incisive overview of the extraordinarily difficult and historically unprecedented process of transforming an increasingly corrupt and decayed totalitarian system into a modern democracy."
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Councelor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Professor of American Foreign Policy, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

"This extremely useful volume explains the essential elements of the post-communist political transition in Poland. Its authors convey not only the basic necessary information of recent history but more importantly the cultural and ideological underpinnings that can be captured only by authorities who have developed over a lifetime that special sixth sense for detecting the elusive and unquantifiable soul of a country."
John Lenczowski, Director, The Insitute of World Politics

"Defying the stereotypes of their national character, Poles carried out two peaceful revolutions in the span of one generation: first, the self-limiting movement of Solidarity, which undermined the legitimacy of Communism, and then a negotiated transfer of power from Communism to free-market democracy. Today, while Poland is seen as a success story and is joining political and economic clubs of the democratic West, Poles themselves seem downcast. Is social anomie a price worth paying for a successful transformation? In making moral compromises with an outgoing tyranny, can you avoid cynicism and disappointment with democracy? We should be grateful to the authors and editors of this thoughtful volume for asking questions which remain relevant for the uncomfortably large part of humanity that still lives under totalitarian or authoritarian regimes."
Radek Sikorski, Executive Director, New Atlantic Initiative, American Enterprise Institute; Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Poland, 1998-2000; Former Deputy Defense Minister of Poland, 1992.