On Wednesday evening, the news website Onet.pl reported that the Polish Military Police detained three soldiers who fired warning shots at the advancing refugees. At the turn of March and April, near the town of Dubicze Cerkiewne, Polish soldiers fired warning shots when a group of migrants crossed the fence. Three servicemen were detained. Two of them were charged with creating a threat to bystanders.
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Adolf Warski, (born Adolf Jerzy Warszawski, 1868-1937) was one most important activist and theoreticians of Polish workers’ movement. In the article below, Warski engages in a polemic with the social democratic critics of the dictatorship of the proletariat and defends of Marxist theory of the state.
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The following collection contains writings (proclamations, orders, correspondence) written by Jarosław Dąbrowski (November 13, 1836 – May 23, 1871), an outstanding Polish revolutionary-internationalist and hero of the Paris Commune.
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The Polish state is known for its harassment of communists, which became particularly intense during the rule of the populist-conservative PiS party. It was during this period that members of the legally registered Communist Party of Poland or the Trotskyist portal “Władza Rad”, among others, were persecuted. The victims of these repressions were accused of promoting “other totalitarian system of state”. These actions remained unsuccessful (in a legal sense), because the persecuted nowhere called for the use of methods considered “totalitarian”. Spurious legal basis for these attacks reveal their political nature.
Below we have a glimpse into worldview of people behind these repressions. The article by Piotr Strębski, originally published on the website of the Association of Polish Marxists, analyzes an “historical presentation” published in the official organ of the ABW (Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Węwnętrznego, ABW; Polish counterintelligence agency) “exposing” the nature of Marxism. We learn that ABW endorsed the “cultural Marxism”/Frankfurt School conspiracy theory; it turns out that a conspiracy theory expoused by neo-Nazis and right-wing crackpots is also a semi-official ideology of the Polish state.
The same government also updated the Penal Code, making “communist propaganda” explicitly illegal. As of now this ban remains in force. So at least in this respect there exists continuity between the previous “authoritarian” government and the current “liberal-democratic” one.
The document presented here is a peculiar one. And that is for two reasons. Firstly, because of its context; it is an analysis and critique of so-called “really existing socialism” written in 1989 as that system was collapsing. Secondly, because of its author, Wsiewołod Wołczew (1929-1993)*, who first came into public consciousness in the early 1980s as one of that system’s most rabid defenders.
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Polish parliamentary elections were held on October 15. With a record turnout of 74%, the ruling right-authoritarian Law and Justice (PiS) won 36% of the vote (and 194 Sejm mandates of 460), neoliberal center-right Citizen Coalition (KO) – 31% (157 mandates), neoliberal- “populist” Third Way – 14% (65 seats), the (nominal) Left – 9% (26 seats) and the far-right Confederation – 7% (18 seats). KO, Third Way and Left declared the formation of a coalition after the announcement of the ext poll favorable to them. This means PiS will be removed from power.
In the first-past-the-post Senate KO got the plurality of the seats despite PiS getting the plurality of the votes.
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Europe is sinking into authoritarianism. Bourgeois governments are inciting the escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Militarism is accompanied by tightening border regimes. The burden of the chronic crisis of capitalism falls on the broad masses of the people.
READ MOREAugust 1 is solemnly celebrated in Poland as the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The anniversary is included in the official „historical policy”, in which the tragic fate of the uprising is presented as the effect of the „Soviet stab in the back” of the heroic Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK). To deal with this reactionary posing of the question, it is necessary to put it in a broader historical perspective.
Read MoreOn August 4, the opposition-controlled Polish Senate rejected the government’s amendment to the Penal Code. The bill is now returning to the Sejm, where the government coalition has the necessary majority to nullify the Senate’s veto. The amendment, which increases criminal penalties and the repressive nature of the state, largely duplicates the solutions proposed in the government’s draft of the Code from 2019. The bill was then declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal for procedural reasons (the bill was pushed through the Sejm in 2 days).
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VOLLHANDFRÜHLING 