Opening Communist-era archives in Poland

The constitutional court in Poland last week shot down a vetting law aimed at purging ex-communist agents out of public life. The 11-judge panel declared unconstitutional numerous clauses equiring members of certain professions, including journalists, to declare whether they had collaborated with the communist-era secret police. The ruling was a rebuke to President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who campaigned on rooting out communists. Michal Kubicki of Polish Radio’s External Service reports that in reaction to this decision, some in Poland are now looking to open communist police archives to the public.

The verdict of the Constitutional Tribunal appeared to be a setback for the conservative government and the president, and a source of satisfaction for the opposition. But all the main players on Poland’s political scene agreed that the verdict did not put an end to the vetting process and that purging public life of ex-communist agents must not be stopped. After the first round of talks with parliamentary leaders President Lech Kaczynski said agreement was reached on fully opening the secret police archives. This is not to say that they all see eye to eye on all issues. 

“For some it is of primary concern who will have an arbitrary power to delete all sensitive personal details from the files; for others this is of secondary importance – the crucial thing being to ensure that such sensitive information really remains confidential”

The notion of ‘sensitive information’ refers to issues such as sexual orientation and details relating to private life. But is the opening of the files a realistic prospect, if only considering the time factor? I put the question to Robert Strybel, the Warsaw-based correspondent of Western media. 

“It’s realistic. It can be done. It’s feasible but what the result will be is quite doubtful. But  probably the only alternative is either to burn every file or deposit them for 100 or 50 years to be untouched, or open all the files. You can’t selectively open the files because every group will have resentment towards being chosen.”

What appears to be something of a paradox for an outside observer of the Polish scene is that, unlike other post-communist countries Poland has been unable to adopt a good vetting law for so many years. According to most commentators, the problem has its roots in the events of 1989. They were a catalyst for change in the whole of Central Europe, but as Marcin Sobczyk of Interfax Central Europe stresses, the Polish opposition and communist elites agreed at that time to soft transition of power.   

“Former communists became very powerful business people, almost as if they had never done anything wrong, as if the communist era was only a period of democracy or some kind of worse kind of democracy but it was a democracy. For almost 20 years we had two camps that were saying: yes, we should do the moral right and tell the truth about what was happening in Poland, and the other camp was defending the soft transition deal. As the new generations are coming to politics, those who don’t remember communism and that deal, they also stopped honouring it”

It seems certain that the shape of the vetting law will remain at the top of the political agenda in Poland for a long time.

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