Poland: the road to tyranny

 by Konrad Rękas

Some scholars describe Poland's current political system as “illiberal”, i.e. as preserving the external appearances of neo-liberal parliamentary democracy, but with a limited level of human and civil rights. This analysis seems incomplete. Poland is not an exception to the Western system, some relic of an own authoritarian past or a freak of local populist authoritarianism. On the contrary, the example of Poland can be used to trace the evolution that will almost certainly be shared by other countries subject to the neo-liberal domination of the United States and the UK.

Dismantling the last vestiges of parliamentarism and the rule of law is an inherent feature of the present stage of imperialism. They become redundant, as historically they only secured the smooth functioning of capitalist mass production, which is no longer needed today in the realities of global financialised capitalism. The ruling class now has no need for social consensus or the acceptance of left-wing parties and trade unions that give a certain scope of freedom of expression and organisation.

Poland shows that in the next phase of imperialism there will be an attempt to strengthen it through authoritarianism – a mono-party system (now poorly concealed by the false division into ‘ruling party / parliamentary opposition’) and possible references to populist and outright fascist content, while of course maintaining neo-liberal slogans and phraseology.

Nazism

In Poland, these processes have been accelerated, especially as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war, when surveillance, censorship and repression are carried out under the pretext of “fighting against Russian influence”. The Polish prosecutor's office and courts willingly refer to the law penalising “incitement to hatred on the basis of national, ethnic and racial differences” while recognising that it prohibits also criticising the Banderite ideology, which is only the Ukrainian form of Nazism.

These days the Polish courts regard “Banderite” as synonymous with “Ukrainian”. People are prosecuted for recalling the Volhynian Massacre (the mass genocide perpetrated by the Ukrainian Nazis on Poles, Jews and Ukrainian anti-fascists during the Second World War). They include Katarzyna Sokołowska and Andrzej Łukawski, who have been campaigning to commemorate the victims of Nazi crimes. Four residents on the Polish-Ukrainian borderland were arrested for trying to organise civic patrols to protect neighbours from attacks of aggressive Ukrainian immigrants bearing Nazi symbols. Although formally Nazi signs are prohibited in Poland, neither the courts nor the police react to their increasing presence, claiming that they are currently “justified by the Ukrainian defence against Russian aggression”. Protesting Poles face up to two years in prison.

peace prohibited

“Praising Russian aggression against Ukraine” now considered a crime in Poland and it’s used to stifle the anti-war campaigners like Henryk Mikietyn a 72-year-old pensioner and one of the former leaders of the Communist Party of Poland (KPP).

The KPP is banned in Poland, and the mere use of communist emblems can be punished. Groups referring to the heritage of communist Poland have taken part in anti-war actions under the banner the Polish Left Movement (PRL). This probably prompted the Court in Legnica to sentence Comrade Mikietyn to three months imprisonment conditionally suspended for a probationary period of two years. His mobile phone was confiscated as a “crime tool”. And under the supervision of a probation officer Mikietyn has to now do six months “voluntary service” in “an entity providing assistance to residents of Ukraine affected by the effects of the war”.

The blogger Najjjka was sentenced to five months restriction of freedom (ordered to do unpaid social work by the Court) for saying, quoting the Bible, that she would not allow Ukrainian Nazis into her home.

Similar judgments have been handed down in other cases in Krakow, Wrocław, Świdnica and in many other Polish cities. The prosecutor's office is now focusing on activists of the Polish Anti-War Movement (PRA), such as Piotr Panasiuk from Lublin, who describing the alleged “Bucha Massacre” as a Ukrainian hoax.

In addition to the police and the prosecutor's office, critics of Poland's unilateral involvement in the Ukrainian conflict are pursued by numerous non-governmental organisations, mostly financed by the Polish government and its Western sponsors.

Neither Amnesty International nor the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights took any action to defend those convicted and detained for criticising Nazism. On the contrary, the Helsinki Foundation publicly praised the new practice of the Polish Government as an example of the "fight against hate speech”!

the fight intensifies

Mateusz Piskorski PhD, a former MP and then founder and leader of the anti-imperialist, left-wing CHANGE party was arrested in 2016 and for three years he was held in prison without trial on charges of “cooperation with the Russian and Chinese intelligence”. He was released after intervention of the United Nations Working Group, which investigated the lack of rule of law in Poland. To this day, however, Piskorski is under strict police surveillance, he cannot leave the country, and his court case is pending.

Janusz Niedźwiecki, a human rights activist, has been in prison for the last two years accused of “espionage for China”.

Further amendments to the Polish Penal Code are on the cards including introducing criminal liability for the “unintentional form of espionage” (up to five years in prison), as well as for the crime of “disinformation involving the dissemination of false or misleading information” (up to eight years in jail). The scope of the Internal Security Agency (ABW), a branch of the secret police, will be significantly expanded.

It can therefore be assumed that the number of political prisoners in Poland can only increase in the coming months.