Matthew Kaminski: From Solidarity to Democracy (on Adam Michnik and the end of the Cold War)
[Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal's editorial board.]
'Fantastyczne!"
That's the word Adam Michnik, the man who played one of the starring roles in bringing the Cold War to an end, exclaims in Polish as he thinks back over the two decades since the Berlin Wall fell that Nov. 9 evening. He repeats it in rapid fire, each time flawlessly, with no hint of his trademark stutter.
"Fantastic! Fantastic! Poland has not had such 20 years in its last 400 years, 300 years. We are on the side of the West. We are sovereign. We have all possible civil rights. Democratic elections. Open borders. No censorship. That is simply a fantastic change."
So too is the story of his own transformation.
Mr. Michnick was born into the communist establishment. His father, a Polish Jew, was a leader of the illegal pre-war Communist Party. As a teenager, Mr. Michnik took part in leftist discussion groups with names like the "Crooked Circle" or the "Seekers of Contradiction." A believer, he wanted to reform communism. At 18, he was arrested for the first time for writing a protest letter to the government. And in 1968, he was jailed for a year after student protests in Warsaw.
The experience thrust him firmly into the opposition. The next two decades were spent publishing samizdat, advocating for worker's rights and then helping lead, from its founding in 1980, Solidarity, the trade union that morphed into a national movement...
... Can Russia move toward political openness? His answer: "The threat to Russia isn't liberal Europe or America. It is nonliberal Islam and nonliberal China. Russia has to change. It can't be otherwise. It will take time. You have to be patient."
Mr. Michnik seems to understate the threat to Poland and the region, I offer, and the readiness of the West to meet the challenge. Europe's weak response to Russia's energy shenanigans and the Obama administration's "restart" were hardly encouraging. On Sept. 17—a different sort of anniversary in Poland, that of the 1939 invasion by the Soviet Union under the secret terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact—the U.S. dropped plans for missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in deference to Mr. Putin.
The timing of the announcement was "scandalous" and "idiotic," Mr. Michnik says, but he notes that most Poles won't miss the shield. As for himself, he considers "Obama and America the best chance the world has today."
Mr. Michnik argues for a living, so I press again on whether a West that so often betrays his region, starting with Yalta in 1945, has enough moral mettle today. He sounds impatient. "I am a Pole. Poland's history is the digging out from under rubble. I have that in my genes. Of course I see it. From the one side you are right that the view of the West is often naïve, overly optimistic. But your point is also Manichean. Putin is not Stalin. He is different. To see him as a Stalin hinders rational thought about what is happening in those countries."...
Read entire article at WSJ
'Fantastyczne!"
That's the word Adam Michnik, the man who played one of the starring roles in bringing the Cold War to an end, exclaims in Polish as he thinks back over the two decades since the Berlin Wall fell that Nov. 9 evening. He repeats it in rapid fire, each time flawlessly, with no hint of his trademark stutter.
"Fantastic! Fantastic! Poland has not had such 20 years in its last 400 years, 300 years. We are on the side of the West. We are sovereign. We have all possible civil rights. Democratic elections. Open borders. No censorship. That is simply a fantastic change."
So too is the story of his own transformation.
Mr. Michnick was born into the communist establishment. His father, a Polish Jew, was a leader of the illegal pre-war Communist Party. As a teenager, Mr. Michnik took part in leftist discussion groups with names like the "Crooked Circle" or the "Seekers of Contradiction." A believer, he wanted to reform communism. At 18, he was arrested for the first time for writing a protest letter to the government. And in 1968, he was jailed for a year after student protests in Warsaw.
The experience thrust him firmly into the opposition. The next two decades were spent publishing samizdat, advocating for worker's rights and then helping lead, from its founding in 1980, Solidarity, the trade union that morphed into a national movement...
... Can Russia move toward political openness? His answer: "The threat to Russia isn't liberal Europe or America. It is nonliberal Islam and nonliberal China. Russia has to change. It can't be otherwise. It will take time. You have to be patient."
Mr. Michnik seems to understate the threat to Poland and the region, I offer, and the readiness of the West to meet the challenge. Europe's weak response to Russia's energy shenanigans and the Obama administration's "restart" were hardly encouraging. On Sept. 17—a different sort of anniversary in Poland, that of the 1939 invasion by the Soviet Union under the secret terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact—the U.S. dropped plans for missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in deference to Mr. Putin.
The timing of the announcement was "scandalous" and "idiotic," Mr. Michnik says, but he notes that most Poles won't miss the shield. As for himself, he considers "Obama and America the best chance the world has today."
Mr. Michnik argues for a living, so I press again on whether a West that so often betrays his region, starting with Yalta in 1945, has enough moral mettle today. He sounds impatient. "I am a Pole. Poland's history is the digging out from under rubble. I have that in my genes. Of course I see it. From the one side you are right that the view of the West is often naïve, overly optimistic. But your point is also Manichean. Putin is not Stalin. He is different. To see him as a Stalin hinders rational thought about what is happening in those countries."...