Anna M. Grzymala-Busse and Joshua A. Tucker: The Unlikely Triumph of Polish Democracy
[Anna M. Grzymala-Busse is an associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan. Joshua A. Tucker is an associate professor of politics at New York University, a National Security Fellow at the Truman National Security Project, and a co-author of the political science and policy blog The Monkey Cage.]
One of the worst days for Poland is rapidly becoming one of its greatest.
The country's president, its armed forces' chiefs of staff, and its National Bank President, along with many more high state officials--the core members of Poland's governing elite--lost their lives on Saturday morning. Much of the media attention has been on the destination of the presidential visit: the commemoration of the Katyn massacre in 1940. On Stalin’s orders the Soviet NKVD executed nearly 20,000 Polish Army officers (who were also key members of the educational, professional, and administrative elite). The Soviets long denied their responsibility for the massacres, and the issue had long been a major obstacle in Polish-Russian relations. And just as these relations were experiencing a period of warming and mutual concessions, Katyn has claimed more Polish losses. In an obscene irony, family members of Katyn victims were among those killed Saturday, as was Anna Walentynowicz, the crane operator whose firing led to the mobilization of Solidarity in 1980, and the eventual collapse of the communist regime in Poland in 1989. This has led to rampant speculation as to the effect of the crash on Polish-Russian relations (see here, here, and here).
Yet the focus on history, however horrific, misses a central point: The tragedy is rapidly becoming a triumph of Polish democracy. First, the political institutions work. The army leadership has been immediately replaced by committees in place for this contingency; the Marshal of the Parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski, is now president ex officio; and new presidential elections are being announced for June. There has been no talk of coups, colonels, or emergency measures. Instead, army spokesmen have explicitly denounced the possibility of emergency powers for the military or heightened security stances....
Read entire article at The New Republic
One of the worst days for Poland is rapidly becoming one of its greatest.
The country's president, its armed forces' chiefs of staff, and its National Bank President, along with many more high state officials--the core members of Poland's governing elite--lost their lives on Saturday morning. Much of the media attention has been on the destination of the presidential visit: the commemoration of the Katyn massacre in 1940. On Stalin’s orders the Soviet NKVD executed nearly 20,000 Polish Army officers (who were also key members of the educational, professional, and administrative elite). The Soviets long denied their responsibility for the massacres, and the issue had long been a major obstacle in Polish-Russian relations. And just as these relations were experiencing a period of warming and mutual concessions, Katyn has claimed more Polish losses. In an obscene irony, family members of Katyn victims were among those killed Saturday, as was Anna Walentynowicz, the crane operator whose firing led to the mobilization of Solidarity in 1980, and the eventual collapse of the communist regime in Poland in 1989. This has led to rampant speculation as to the effect of the crash on Polish-Russian relations (see here, here, and here).
Yet the focus on history, however horrific, misses a central point: The tragedy is rapidly becoming a triumph of Polish democracy. First, the political institutions work. The army leadership has been immediately replaced by committees in place for this contingency; the Marshal of the Parliament, Bronislaw Komorowski, is now president ex officio; and new presidential elections are being announced for June. There has been no talk of coups, colonels, or emergency measures. Instead, army spokesmen have explicitly denounced the possibility of emergency powers for the military or heightened security stances....