Shedding light on the privileges of former Communist bosses

In Poland, it used to be taboo to talk about former communist bosses and the special privileges they enjoy. Eighteen years after the fall of communism, the Polish government is taking steps to change that. From Polish Radio External Service, Joanna Najfeld reports.

Now the functionaries of the oppressive formations are about to be deprived of special privileges, including five times higher than average pensions that they now receive. They are also to be banned from public offices and their names are to be published for everyone to see. Deputy head of the ruling Law and Justice party, Kazimierz Michał Ujazdowski explains the rationale behind the project:

“Simple moves based on the rules of justice such as banning these people from public offices, lowering their gigantic old age pensions to the level of the minimum pension in Poland - these steps are in full agreement with the constitutional order, because those people who were destroying society cannot now expect special privileges from the community.”

In June 1989, part of the opposition calling themselves 'democratic opposition' as opposed to the opposition which was openly anti-communist, reached an agreement with the communists, allowing them to retain their position and privileges in exchange for some power. That agreement went down in history as the round table deal. Opposition member Adam Michnik, today the influential Editor in Chief of the liberal daily "Gazeta Wyborcza" and Czesław Kiszczak, now a retired communist secret service general, represented the sides of the round table deal. Media pundit Rafał Ziemkiewicz who has written and commented extensively on the problem of communist influence on the present political situation in Poland, thinks it's high time to cut the ties that have hampered the public life since the controversial round table deal with the communists 18 years ago:

“The idea is good. There is no doubt that the connections between the communist secret services exist until this day. They have also had a very bad influence on the "Third Republic", that is the post-communist transformation period. We can now hear in the public debate that the basis for the "Third Republic" was a pact that guaranteed immunity to communists. That was what the symbolic pact between Czesław Kiszczak and Adam Michnik was about. The awareness of these facts in society is growing.”

Opponents of the project of taking away privileges for those responsible for communist time oppression include the post-communists themselves as well as the opposition Civil Platform politicians. They do not like the idea of collective responsibility and taking away pensions from old people. Media pundit Rafał Ziemkiewicz responds that the pensions are not taken, but lowered so that they are not several times higher than the average. He also thinks collective responsibility in this case is very much in place.

“We applied collective responsibility to members of the SS and other formations that were judged to be criminal. People who joined the Służba Bezpieczeństwa communist secret police knew very well what they would be required to do, they agreed to that and did that willingly.”

According to the project authors, if everything goes well, it might be implemented even in the first quarter of this year.

Listen to the report:

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