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Home , Democratic Left Alliance, Leszek Miller, Marek Belka, Polish Left, Rywin affair, Your Movement

The Landscape After a Disaster and Even Two: On the Genealogy of the

Leszek Koczanowicz (Wroczlaw)

2015: At the bottom elections showed how deeply the Polish Left was dispersed and disoriented. Of he Polish parliamentary elections course, -wing political parties Tin October 2015 marked the first and organizations had made a lot of time after the fall of communism in foolish tactical errors. The beginning 1989 that the Left proved unable to win of the catastrophe could be traced back seats in parliament. The results of the to the presidential elections earlier the same year. The leader of the (SLD) , himself a very experienced politician who had started his career in Communist and had survived the most ferocious political storms, decided to put a very strange presidential candidate. His surprising pick was Dr. Magdalena Ogórek, a 36-year-old historian who had hardly any political experience and was not even Old (Leftist?) Boys Network a party member. Her political and Leszek Miller views were an enigma as she © Kocio (GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2) kept saying that she would

Page 87 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) The Landscape After a Disaster and Even Two: On the Genealogy of the Polish Left reveal her agenda in due time. It is the SLD, but for some small groups such little wonder that she got only 2.38 collaboration seemed to offer attractive per cent of the votes, which was the prospects as the party’s well-established worst result ever for the party. After the structures, wide network of contacts elections, she cut off all ties with the and considerable funds, all promised Left and embarked on a new career as at least some seats in parliament. a right-wing journalist in TV and press. Nevertheless, these groupings did not want to be identified too closely with ollowing the disaster of the the SLD, so they formed a coalition. Fpresidential elections, the Democratic According to the Polish law, while Left Alliance decided to assemble as many the electoral threshold for individual small left-wing parties and organizations parties is 5 per cent, it is as much as 8 as possible to augment the chances of per cent for coalitions. Eventually, the the left in the parliamentary elections. Unified Left coalition fell short of the It was never going to be an easy task. threshold, achieving only 7.55 per cent. Emerging from the Communist period, This result gave the right-wing party the Democratic Left Alliance had been a (PiS) an independent hegemon on the left nearly throughout majority in the Polish Parliament. the democratic transition. However, in 2015 the situation changed. New, f course, this catastrophic defeat emerging movements, such as the urban Owas not only caused by the activists, which focus on the local issues, tactical mistakes and ambitions of more often than not preferred keeping various leaders of the left-wing parties their distance from the “discredited” and movements. The main reason party. This was especially true about behind it was the ideological weakness Together, a new party founded in May of the Polish Left. The Left, at least its 2015. Initiated by well-educated young dominant party, has never been able to people who were disappointed with the present a consistent social programme economic policies of Poland’s liberal of mitigating the social consequences government, the party was supposed of the transformation which could tell to be a response to the inactivity of the it apart from the variety of the liberal official Left and to promote a radical movements. On the other hand, in order programme of changes not only in to fulfill the demands of its electorate it culture (which by that time had come had to pay lip service to the progressive to be a traditional field of left-wing agenda claiming their involvement into action), but also in labour relationships. working for the diminishing the social Together refused any cooperation with and cultural inequalities. This situation

Page 88 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Leszek Koczanowicz made the Left always, even in the strict separation of church and state, and heydays of its power, ideologically fragile. voiced a very positive attitude to accepting This failing has haunted the Left since migrants. Although eventually Together the beginnings of the transformation did not win any seats in Parliament, it and eventually caused its collapse. got 3 per cent of the vote, which was a great achievement for a new party and s such, the SLD could hardly come also the required minimum for obtaining Aacross as distinct from the ruling public funding. But it was exactly this liberal (PO). Additionally, margin of the vote that caused the defeat the right-wing PiS proposed a very of the Unified Left led by the SLD. comprehensive welfare programme of reducing poverty in Poland. The SLD was 1989-2003: The fall and the glory (at also on the defensive in cultural matters, a price, though) and, again, its programme, which was admittedly more radical than that of the he Round Table talks in 1989 and PO on questions such as abortion, same- Tthe partly free elections in June sex marriage, and the separation between 1989 marked the end of the Communist (the Catholic) church and state, was not regime in Poland. TheCommunist radical enough to attract voters from Party was officially dissolved in 1990, beyond the party’s traditional electorate. but it found its continuation in a new By the same token, the SLD was very organization, called the cautious on the issue of migrants, the of the Republic of Poland (SDRP). The hottest issue of the 2015 campaign. The leaders of the new party hailed from the PiS rejected any idea of taking migrants youngest generation of the old-regime and criticized the PO for complying apparatchiks who tried to save not so with European Commission directives. much the ideology of communism, in The SLD tried to find a “moderate” which they did not believe anyway, as way, which failed to satisfy anybody. the political influence and financial resources of the organisation. he turning point in the election Tcampaign came with the last n the same period, a plethora of various public debate of all the parties, which Ileft-wing organisations emerged was a success for Together’s Adrian as well. Some of them seemed quite Zandberg. He presented a well-balanced promising as they were heralded as a economic programme modeled on the continuation of pre-war, non-bolshevist Scandinavian welfare-state experience, (e.g. the Polish ), took a radical stance on cultural issues for but they proved rather ephemeral Polish standards, especially insisting on a and either disappeared or accepted

Page 89 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) The Landscape After a Disaster and Even Two: On the Genealogy of the Polish Left the hegemonic position of the SDRP, from the Catholic Church, but accepted creating a federation. The ideology of the the concordat with all its consequences, SDRP was rather ambiguous. Of course, including special economic privileges for the leaders endorsed the inevitable socio- the Church (e.g. preferential taxation), economic changes, but promised to religious instruction in schools, and so “soften” the burden of the transition and on. They also spoke with great caution reverse the most onerous consequences of on matters such as abortion (in 1993, what came to be called the shock therapy, Parliament adopted a restrictive anti- that is, a rapid privatisation of the Polish abortion law which allowed only three economy, which saw unemployment exceptions) and same-sex marriages. soar and standards of living plummet for most people almost overnight. apitalising on growing C disappointment with the economic n fact, the SDRP did not have to work results of the transition, the SDRP/ Ihard on its programme; it was enough SLD was able to win the parliamentary that it was simply there. Sociological elections twice: in 1993 and in 2001, research suggests that the main political and was a senior partner in the coalition rift in Poland in the 1990s materialised in which it formed with a a “post-communist divide” (Grabowska by the name of the Polish People’s Party 2004), i.e., a gulf between people who (PSL). Probably, the greatest political (somehow at least) identified with the achievement of the post-communist Left communist regime and people who was the victory in the presidential elections rejected the old system altogether. of its leader Aleksander Kwaśniewski As this divide had shaped the Polish over Lech Wałęsa, one of the historical political scene for over a decade, the founders of Solidarity. The triumph of voters almost automatically supported the former Communist Party apparatchik, either option. Therefore, the agenda of the youngest minister in Poland’s the SDPR and later the SLD (which last Communist cabinet, was highly was founded in 1999 as the federation symbolic. To some extent, it exonerated transformed into a unified party) was the Communist period and it seemed to a strange blend of a nostalgic defence indicate that reconciliation was possible. of the communist past, neoliberal economic policies, and a staunch pro- waśniewski’s success and the American stance combined with an Kpost-communist party’s political equally determined pro-EU attitude, expansion came as a shock for the former which was not contradictory back then. dissidents. Some of them emphasised The SDRP leadership kept their distance in the press that although the SDRP gained a majority, it had no moral

Page 90 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Leszek Koczanowicz legitimisation. However, the leaders of the historical divisions and animosities. the post-communist Left promptly tried to show that their position on a number evertheless, as the agendas and of political matters was very close to Nideologies of former dissidents that of the former dissidents, those at and post-communists came across as least who had turned into liberals in the largely overlapping, the two groups 1990s. During its two terms in power, gradually came to be identified with the Left implemented rather neoliberal each other. This identification had grave economic policies, to the point of consequences, for people started to considering even flat taxation. The look around for a non-neoliberal social Left ushered Poland into the European alternative. Since the Left was unwilling Union, became vigorously engaged in to offer such an alternative, voters NATO, supported the intervention in slowly started to embrace the right-wing , and sent Polish troops there. It is nationalist political orientation. They very likely that the Left-led government could not find such an alternative on the collaborated with the US on setting up left because the post-communist party secret CIA prisons on Polish soil. In the had nearly monopolised this sector of ideological sphere, the liberals and the the political stage. Of course, there were post-communist Left also had a lot in a handful of small and dispersed groups common. Both orientations tried to tame which sought to show that another Left the nationalist tendencies in Poland, and was possible, but they were irrelevant, both envisaged the future of Poland as at least in terms of popular support. closely associated with the West not only his bipolar division of the Polish through economic and military alliances, political scene produced the but also through the adoption of Western T situation which David Ost describes values. Both were also aware that because in his The Defeat of Solidarity (2005). of the specifically Polish ‘right slope’, Workers, who were dissatisfied with i.e., permanent ideological leaning to the effects of the transition and felt the right, this ‘Westernisation’ should be abandoned by the leadership of trade introduced very carefully and without unions and parties, started to back irritating the Catholic Church. But nationalistic, rightwing organisations. despite this affinity of attitudes and the In this way, the historical Solidarity was warm personal relationships that some taken over by the nationalists, and similar former dissidents developed with the political bodies gradually obtained more post-communist party leaders, the first and more significant support. According formal coalition of the two groupings was to Ost, this shift was triggered as established only in 2006, so strong were popular anger was channeled in the

Page 91 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) The Landscape After a Disaster and Even Two: On the Genealogy of the Polish Left ideological form of nationalism while to supplement each other, with the PO foreign elements, such as international more centre-right liberal and the PiS capitalists, former Communists, and rather farther to the right with some the like, were blamed for the desperate nationalistic leanings. Both parties shared situation in which many losers of a slogan of creating the Fourth Republic, the transition had found themselves. a shorthand for radically transforming the political system in place, which they he first warning sign was the accused of being thoroughly corrupted. Telection of 1997, when a newly hatched coalition of conservative he elections of 2001 also saw an and religious parties, called Solidarity Tunexpected rise of a populist party. Electoral Action, allied with the liberal TheSelf-Defence of the Republic of Poland, to form the government, usually called simply the Self-Defence pushing the SLD into opposition. (Samoobrona), was a populist mixture The government launched a batch of of socialist, nationalist, and religious radical reforms, which caused a wave of elements. The party got 10 per cent of the dissatisfaction and eventually hoisted vote and became the third largest political the SLD back into power in 2001. force in Poland. Though technically an But this episode showed that there opposition party, the Self-Defence very was a powerful upsurge of right-wing often supported the SLD in parliament. political sentiments to be reckoned with. radually more and more besieged 2003-2015: The second fall Gfrom both sides of the political stage, the SLD tried to continue its he general elections of 2001 were already tested political course of moderate Ta great success for the SLD, which liberalism and moving Poland closer to got 41 per cent of the vote. However, the EU, which culminated in signing as the election procedure prevented the the accession treaty on 1st May 2004. SLD from forming a cabinet on its own, However, the climate had changed, and the party again entered into a coalition it was hardly possible to stop the surging with the peasant party PSL. Yet, in the demands for fundamental political meantime, the political landscape and its reforms and a greater transparency of ideological background had undergone public life. These demands dovetailed deep changes. Most importantly, parties with a revisionist vision of the transition, had emerged from the debris of the which was increasingly perceived as a plot Solidarity Electoral Action, among them of the dissidents and the communists the Civic Platform (PO) and the Law rather than a real people’s revolt against and Justice (PiS). Initially, they seemed the communist regime. Therefore, the

Page 92 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Leszek Koczanowicz slogan of building the Fourth Republic election, winning merely 11 per cent of was juxtaposed with ever more insistent the vote – less than the Self-Defence (12 calls for completing the transition by per cent) and much less that the two the removing the people linked to the old right-wing parties: the PiS (27 per cent) regime from power and reinforcing the and the PO (24 per cent). Two other left- anti-liberal and anti-leftist character wing parties made an unsuccessful run in of the transformation. The Fourth the same election. They were theSocial Republic thus was to be a return to the Democracy of Poland and the Democratic original programme of Solidarity which Party, both evolving from the SLD after was distorted at the Round Table Talks. the , with the latter being a coalition of former SLD members uch was the atmosphere when what and old anticommunist dissidents, Scame to be called the Rywin affair burst which was a much belated fulfilment out in 2002. Lew Rywin, a well-known of a “historical compromise” between film producer with strong connections the postcommunist left and the former in political circles, approached Adam dissidents united by their common Michnik, a famous former dissident aversion towards right-wing nationalism. and then editor-in-chief of Poland’s largest daily, , to offer he following years were not a good a deal. He said that he acted on behalf Ttime for the Left either politically or of a “group in power” which was ready, in terms of the ideological struggle. After in exchange for an enormous bribe, the elections in 2005, Lech Kaczyński to manipulate the legislation so as to became the and his enable the Gazeta Wyborcza to acquire twin brother Jarosław Kaczyński took the TV station Polsat (Zarycki 2009). the helm of a coalition government of In consequence, a special parliamentary the PiS, the Self-Defence and the extreme commission was established to investigate right-wing League of Polish Families. the case. The commission (and a parallel However, the snap election in 2007 court investigation) never determined changed the political situation again as conclusively whether Rywin was alone in the PO won decisively and formed the his offer or whether he really represented government with the PSL. The Self- a powerful group connected to the Defence and the League of Polish Families government, but the public examination remained outside Parliament. The Left revealed that there actually was a network took part in the election as a coalition of cronies which held power in Poland. of the SLD, the Social Democracy of Poland and the , under he compromised SLD suffered the label of the Ta landslide defeat in the 2005 Page 93 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) The Landscape After a Disaster and Even Two: On the Genealogy of the Polish Left

(LiD). This marked another attempt at support of the shrinking electorate loyal creating a political body which would to it only because of its attitude to the unify the former dissidents and the post- communist past. The party did very communists. The coalition’s programme little to adapt its agenda to the changing combined social demands to improve circumstances and simply looked back people’s living standards and working to the past glory, hoping for its return. conditions with vaguely defined liberal demands of plurality and openness in he election of 2011 had a new political the public sphere. Again, the haphazard Tcontestant in the Palikot Movement and slapdash agenda blew up in the (Ruch Palikota), an organisation Left’s face. The liberal attitude was a founded by an eccentric philosopher signature feature of the PO while even turned millionaire who was an MP of bolder social reforms were proposed by the Civic Platform (PO) at the time. The the PiS. Therefore, it did not come as a programme of the Movement was rather surprise that the coalition got only 13 per vague. While it took a firm position on cent of the vote and was soon dissolved. certain issues, for example embracing a staunch anti-Catholic Church attitude ith that election, the eight years and supporting the LGBT minorities, Wof PO dominance on the Polish its economic agenda was a blend of political scene commenced. The party liberalism (even ) and had governed under the leadership of social democracy. Among the 40 MPs , focusing on ‘hot water in the Palikot Movement introduced to the tap’, as a popular catchphrase had it, Parliament were , probably which meant that efficient administration the first transgender MP in Europe, and rather than ideological discussion was Robert Biedroń, Poland’s first openly gay the top priority. Although for eight man to be elected to Parliament, which years this strategy was quite effective, significantly influenced the perception it probably helped the PiS gradually to of LGBT people in Poland. The Palikot win the ideological hegemony under the Movement (re-named as slogans of national pride and the recovery in 2013) was a colorful organisation, and of social solidarity (Koczanowicz 2016). its founder tended to promote his ideas in non-standard ways, e.g. in quasi-artistic he Left was rather passive in this performances. However, as it never had a Ttussle between modernisers and clear positive programme, it soon started conservatives. The SLD was mainly to be plagued by internal tensions and preoccupied with its intra-party splits, which gradually debilitated the problems, especially with conflicts organisation. Eventually, the remnants of within the leadership, and enjoyed the

Page 94 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Leszek Koczanowicz the Your Movement joined the Unified owever, this progress towards Left coalition and disappeared from the Hrecovery was somehow derailed political stage after its electoral defeat. by the general political situation in Poland. Having seized power, the PiS 2018: After the fall. Three possible launched a series of radical changes in scenarios of recovery political institutions, clearly devised to establish an authoritarian (or at least fter the downfall of 2015, it became illiberal) right-wing regime. Moreover, clear that in order to survive the A the PiS also methodically started to Left had to rethink its strategy. The

A demonstration by the party Together (Razem) with the visible party slogan “Another Politics is Possible” (Inna polityka jest możliwa) in front of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister © Lukasz2 (CC0 1.0)

consolidate the right-wing values years when the SLD enjoyed hegemony through changing school curricula, without giving a serious thought to its influencing artists to produce ‘patriotic’ programme were evidently a thing of works of art, and similar strategies. the past. TheTogether Party started to The idea of renewing the national develop an agenda combining economic community, which had supposedly demands with progressive cultural ideas. degenerated under Communism and The Left also acquired a new asset, the post-communist alliance of the Left namely, urban activism movements and the liberals, was coupled with the which were evolving from strictly local idea of economic solidarity. Accordingly, initiatives into a significant, albeit the PiS also implemented a package of dispersed, political force on the left. social programmes aimed at reducing

Page 95 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) The Landscape After a Disaster and Even Two: On the Genealogy of the Polish Left poverty in Poland. It also reversed the nother solution is to develop an widely criticised pension reform which Aoriginal programme of profound had raised retirement age from 60 for economic and cultural reforms and to take women and 65 for men to 67 for both the risk of being relatively easily defeated sexes. The common popularity of these by the PiS, but at the same time to have policies has confronted the Left and prospects of entering a possible coalition the whole of the opposition with the government as an equal partner. This dilemma of how to fight the PiS without perspective is endorsed by a faction of destroying the reforms it introduced. Together, especially those who feel drawn to Varoufakis’ Diem 25, and by a new n rough lines, there are three possible movement founded by Robert Biedroń. Isolutions to this puzzle, and each of After losing his seat in Parliament, them has some supporters on the left. The Biedroń was elected mayor of the mid- first solution is informed by the notion sized town Słupsk. During his tenure that democracy itself is at stake, and all Słupsk became the model for many social political forces have to work together and cultural enterprises, Biedroń himself to stop the PiS. From this perspective, garnering considerable popularity across the profound differences between the Poland. In 2018, he decided to found Left and the liberals, concerning the a political movement with a view to economy and some cultural ssues (e.g., participating in the European and abortion and same-sex marriages), are parliamentary elections in 2019. The secondary in the face of the threat the PiS movement’s programme is still work in poses to the democratic system. Another progress, but rumour has it that it features variant of this solution is to form a bloc some classic welfare-state ideas, bold of all left-wing organisations, regardless proposals concerning the state-church of differences between them, and to relationship, and liberalisation of the cooperate with an analogous liberal law on abortion and same-sex marriages. bloc in creating a new government. This solution seems now to be most popular he third solution was not conceived on the left side of the . Tby any of the political forces on the It is accepted by both the SLD and Left, but it was outlined in a paper by the majority of Together, which until the left-wing journalist Rafał Woś. Woś recently repudiated any dealings with proposed that the Left should join the the SLD. Either variant assumes a rather PiS, endorsing its pro-social reforms, cautious economic agenda and a more and then work from inside to ‘civilise’ the decisive standpoint on cultural issues. party on issues of democracy. The paper caused indignation on the Left, and

Page 96 Hard Times 103 (1/2019) Leszek Koczanowicz the journalist was fired from the liberal weekly Polityka, but his idea can prove tempting to some left-wing groupings.

t is too early now either to determine Iwhich of these solutions (if any) the Left will adopt or to estimate its chances in the elections of 2019. For now, the Left seems to be rather dispersed politically and ideologically while its ventures are confused and inefficacious. This may reflect a general crisis of the Left in the world, but this is another story.

Works cited

Grabowska, M., Podział postkomunistyczny. Społeczne podstawy polityki w Polsce po 1989 [Postcommunist divide. Social foundations of politics in Poland after 1989], Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar 2004

Ost, D.,The Defeat of Solidarity. Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe, Cornell University Press 2005

Koczanowicz, L., The Polish Case. Community and Democracy under the PiS, New Left Review 102, November- December 2016 pp. 77-96

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