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Post by Jaga on Dec 19, 2021 0:28:52 GMT -7
I watch some news from this TV station everyday. Just yesterday there was a sudden second attack to deprive this station owned by American discovery of license in Poland. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/discovery-condemns-new-polish-media-law-1235064426/Poland passed a controversial law blocking foreign companies from owning a majority in media firms, which could force Discovery to sell part of its stake in commercial broadcaster TVN. BY SCOTT ROXBOROUGH DECEMBER 17, 2021 8:30AM TVN24 Studio in Poland DISCOVERY INCU.S. media giant Discovery has condemned a new media law in Poland, passed by the Polish parliament on Friday, as an “attack” on freedom of speech and a threat to the future of independent media in the country. The controversial legislation would block companies from outside the European Economic Area from holding a controlling stake in local media companies. Critics have argued that the law was designed to target Discovery, which owns Polish TV firm TVN Group, which includes TVN24, Poland’s most watched news channel and a network whose reporters have often been critical of the country’s conservative ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. TVN was bought by Scripps Networks Interactive in 2015, with ownership then transferring to Discovery in 2018 when it acquired Scripps. But TVN’s license is due for renewal. Some see the law as the first step toward a takeover of TVN by a state-controlled company that would be friendlier to PiS. This would not be unprecedented. Regional newspaper group Polska Press was recently bought by Poland’s state-owned energy company PKN Orlen. Denmark Moves to Shut Theaters, Restaurants Amid Omicron Surge In a joint statement, Discovery and TVN said: “TVN/Discovery is extremely concerned about the result of the vote in the Sejm of the Republic of Poland on the amendment to the Broadcasting Act, but remains resolute in its defense of the rights of the Polish people and the TVN business. The act as adopted is an attack on core democratic principles of freedom of speech, the independence of the media and is directly discriminatory against TVN and Discovery.” The statement added: “The outcome should also be deeply concerning to any enterprise investing in Poland. Through this vote, Poland directly undermines the values that have connected Poland with Europe, uproots the foundation of the Polish-American relationship. The Polish parliament has opted to restrict the right of Polish viewers to choose and access reliable and independent information.” The companies concluded: “We appeal to the upper house of the Polish parliament – the Senate of the Republic of Poland – and the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, to oppose this project and prevent it from becoming law. Poland’s future as a democratic country in the international arena and its credibility in the eyes of investors depend on this. We remain hopeful that the Sejm of the Republic of Poland will reconsider its vote, should it have the opportunity.” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has defended the new law, saying it does not target TVN in particular. |
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Post by pieter on Dec 19, 2021 3:21:16 GMT -7
Jaga,
Very worrisome. A government which can’t handle a critical research journalist press and media is weak. We have to watch out for authoritarianism, totalitarianism, illiberal democracies and certain branches of conservatism and Patriotism that shift to the far right and National Rightwing Populism.
Why? Because we had a beautiful peaceful Freedom & Democracy, Separation of Powers (Trias Politica), transparency, open societies and tolerance, a subtle and refined balance of power of left, Centre Left (Centrolew), Centre, Centre Right and Right the past seventy years in Western Europe. Since 2001 (911) and before that National Rightwing Populist parties and movements in the late eighties and nineties (Jörg Haider‘s FPÖ party in Austria and Silvio Berlusconi’s Foza Italia) disturb that balance, create discord and inplant hatred into societies and attack the Centre Right, Centre Left and the Left in our Democracies. In the Netherlands Thierry Baudet and Geert Wilders constantly attack the Centre Right Mark Rutte administration and Prime Minister Mark Rutte personally from the far right corner.
In my opinion we have to watch Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Turkey , Belarus, Russia and Turkey close in Europe. These countries have illiberal democracies and could move towards authoritarianism if we don’t watch out. The political divide in Poland has worrisome aspects both domestically and abroad. Enemies like to divide and conquer, stimulate discord and thus division in a nation.
Stabile democracies in Western Europe had Centre Right, Centre left, sometimes Leftwing (Red-Green; Social Democratic and Green Party) and sometime long periods of Conservative Christian Democratic or Rightwing Liberal conservative administrations. The latter for instance in Germany (the Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel CDU-CSU dominated administrations), Italy, France (Centre right governments), Belgium, the UK (the Conservative Tory administrations of Margreet Thatcher, and the prime ministers David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson today) and the Netherlands (the conservative Christian Democratic lead Ruud Lubbers Cabinets from 1982 until 1994 and from 2002 until today the Balkenende and Rutte Cabinets with Christian Democratic and Conservative Liberal prime ministers and thus a Centre right to conservative domination).
The PiS party in Poland is a Ideology National conservative, Right-wing populist, Christian Right and Eurosceptic party from both the perspective of West-European Christian-Democrats and Conservative Liberals, as from the side of the Social Democratic and Social Progressive Liberal Centre Left and the Green Party and Socialist left side.
During its founding the party was dominated by the Kaczyńskis' conservative and law and order agenda. It has embraced economic interventionism while maintaining a cultural and socially conservative stance that moved towards the Catholic Church in 2005; the party's Catholic nationalist wing split off in 2011 to form Solidary Poland but then formed a joint ballot with PiS before the 2015 elections.
After gaining power, PiS gained popularity with transfer payments to families with children, but attracted international criticism and domestic protest movements by dismantling liberal-democratic checks and balances. Political scientists have characterised the party's governance as illiberal or authoritarian.
PiS is a member of the anti-federalist European Conservatives and Reformists Party, having previously been a part of the Alliance for Europe of the Nations and, before that, the European People's Party. Although it has some elements of Christian democracy, it is not a Christian democratic party.
PiS has presented a project for constitutional reform including, among others: allowing the president the right to pass laws by decree (when prompted to do so by the Cabinet), a reduction of the number of members of the Sejm and Senat, and removal of constitutional bodies overseeing the media and monetary policy. PiS advocates increased criminal penalties. It postulates aggressive anti-corruption measures (including creation of an Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), open disclosure of the assets of politicians and important public servants), as well as broad and various measures to smooth the working of public institutions.
PiS is a strong supporter of lustration (lustracja), a verification system created ostensibly to combat the influence of the Communist era security apparatus in Polish society. While current lustration laws require the verification of those who serve in public offices, PiS wants to expand the process to include university professors, lawyers, journalists, managers of large companies, and others performing "public functions". Those found to have collaborated with the security service, according to the party, should be forbidden to practice in their professions.
The party's views on social issues are much more traditionalist than those of social conservative parties in other European countries. PiS has been described to hold right-wing populist views.Nationalism Fatherland Front rally, Austria, 1936Academic research has characterised Law and Justice as a partially nationalist party, but PiS's leadership rejects this label. Both Kaczyńskis look up for inspirations to the pre-war Sanacja movement with its leader Józef Piłsudski, in contrast to the nationalist Endecja that was led by Piłsudski's political archrival, Roman Dmowski. However, parts of the party, especially the faction around Radio Maryja, are inspired by Dmowski's movement. Polish far-right organisations and parties such as National Revival of Poland, National Movement and Autonomous Nationalists regularly criticise PiS's relative ideological moderation and its politicians for "monopolizing" official political scene by playing on the popular patriotic and religious feelings. However, the party does include several overtly nationalist politicians in senior positions, such as Digital Affairs Minister Adam Andruszkiewicz, the former leader of the All-Polish Youth; and deputy PiS leader and former Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz, the founder of the National-Catholic Movement.
We have to watch out in Europe not to return to authoritarian twenties and early thirties. Authorirarian regimes like the Sanacja regime of Józef Piłsudski (1926-1935) in Poland, the authoritarian regime of Miklós Horthy in Hungary (1920-1944) and the Austrofascist regime of the Vaterländische Front (1933-1938) in Austria.
Józef Klemens Piłsudski (5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (1918–1922) and First Marshal of Poland (from 1920). He was considered the de facto leader (1926–35) of the Second Polish Republic as the Minister of Military Affairs.
Miklós Horthy (18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and statesman who served as the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary between the two World Wars and throughout most of World War II - from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944.
Truck with supporters of Schuschnigg (pictured on the posters) campaigning for the independence of Austria, March 1938 (shortly before the Anschluss)
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by pieter on Dec 19, 2021 6:50:00 GMT -7
The Fatherland Front Crutch cross of Bundesstaat Österreich (Ständestaat) 1934-1938The Fatherland Front (German: Vaterländische Front, VF) was the right-wing conservative, nationalist and corporatist ruling political organisation of the Federal State of Austria. It claimed to be a nonpartisan movement, and aimed to unite all the people of Austria, overcoming political and social divisions. Established on 20 May 1933 by Christian Social Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß (4 October 1892 – 25 July 1934) as the only legally permitted party in the country, it was organised along the lines of Italian Fascism, except that the Fatherland Front was fully aligned with the Catholic Church and did not advocate any racial ideology, as later Italian Fascism did. It advocated Austrian nationalism and independence from Germany on the basis of protecting Austria's Catholic religious identity from what they considered a Protestant-dominated German state.
The Fatherland Front, which was strongly linked with Austria's Catholic clergy, absorbed Dollfuss's Christian Social Party, the agrarian Landbund and the right-wing paramilitary Heimwehren, all of which were opposed to socialism, free-market capitalism and liberal democracy. It established an authoritarian and corporatist regime, the Federal State of Austria, which is commonly known in German as the Ständestaat ("corporate state"). According to the Fatherland Front this form of government and society implemented the social teaching of Pope Pius XI's 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno. The Front banned and persecuted all its political opponents, including Communists, Social Democrats—who fought against it in a brief Civil War in February 1934—but also the Austrian Nazis who wanted Austria to join Germany. Chancellor Dollfuss was assassinated by the Nazis in July 1934. He was succeeded as leader of the VF and Chancellor of Austria by Kurt Schuschnigg, who ruled until the invigorated Nazis forced him to resign on 11 March 1938. Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany the next day.
Austrian men of the Heimwehr march in Sankt Pölten, the capital and largest city of the State of Lower Austria in northeast Austria, in 1931. They existed before the Fatherland Front was founded.
The Fatherland Front maintained a cultural and recreational organisation, called "New Life" (Neues Leben), similar to Germany's Strength Through Joy. The "League of Jewish Front Soldiers" (Bund Juedischer Frontsoldaten), the largest of several Jewish defense paramilitaries active in Austria at the time, was incorporated into the Fatherland Front.
The role of the Fatherland Front has been a contentious point in post-War Austrian historiography. While many historians consider it to be the exponent of an Austrian and Catholic-clerical variant of fascism—dubbed "Austrofascism"—and make it responsible for the failure of democracy in Austria, conservative authors stress its credits in defending the country's independence and opposition to Nazism.Poland Poland should avoid going into a direction of a Vaterländische Front kind of Corporatist "Austrofascism", in the form of 'Polofascism' . In Austria that lead to a civil war in the February 1934 uprising (or "Austrian Civil War") and Poland should avoid that on the short or long term. Only internal extremist or Ultra-Nationalist and Ultra-Conservative firebrands and foreign agitators (Belarus & Russia) would promote and stimulate such a direction. Reasonable, pragmatic, moderate, sensible and realistic Poles from the left, centre and right of the Polish political spectrum will avoid such a direction or development. So common sense, diplomacy, negotiations, cooperation, democratic debate, democratic processes, Polish institutions, political parties, unions, universities, journalists, judges, public prosecutors, autorney's, artists, lawyers, priests, bishops, rabbi's, Tartar imams, students, workers, farmers, fishermen and diplomats should do their job properly. Keeping the country united, keeping the economy running, and keeping the Polish health care, Social Security, Defence, international position in order. Poland is still a member of the EU, NATO, the Visegrád Group (Visegrád Four, V4, or European Quartet), the Weimar Triangle, the Council of Europe (CoE; French: Conseil de l'Europe, CdE), the OSCE (the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe), the United Nations and other International organisations. Poland is close to Hungary, Slovenia, Turkey and Russia today in the sense of a government party and political system with a lot of state control and pressure. I hope Poland would move more towards a West-European, American, Canadian and Australian kind of Democracy. Because Poles in their heart are Westerners, Central-Europeans, with Southern-European and Western-European elements in their culture and system, because of all the Poles that went to the West in the past 150 years and went back and brought that Western influence back to Poland. Poles as Western-Slaves, Roman-Catholics and with their Italian Renaissance, Bohemian, German (Prussian), English/American, Dutch (settlers), and Old Polish heritage and influence are different than the Belarussians, Russians and Ukrainians. The West should understand and honour that and realise that the border between West and East lies in Poland at the Kaliningrad-Polish, Belarussian-Polish, and Ukrainian-Polish borders. Even Slovakia which is closer to Russia than Poland is different than Poland. Despite historical tensions and linguistic, cultural, ethnic and political differences Poland should have a strong alliance with Germany next to a strong alliance with the British, Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders. Poland is trying to find a deep Western core or Alliance. It knows that it is left alone in the past in 1939 by the UK and France. Poland should form strong regional alliances next to the Transatlantic ones. And like the Swiss, the Yugoslavs and the Israeli's the Polish people should be an army on itself, a sort of National Guard or armed militia next to the professional Polish army. Poland should realise that it needs the strongest army in Europe, because the thread of Belarus/Russia is a constant threat. And if Ukraine falls, that threat could easily become Belarus/Russia/Ulraine, in a sort of SovietUnion 02. Polish politicians, military historians, historiians, sociologists, military strategists, research journalists, intelligence community people (Foreign Intelligence Agency (Polish: Agencja Wywiadu) and older Poles know this. You have historical patterns, the Polish partitions, the revolution of 1905 ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Russian_Revolution ), the First World War ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I ), the Februari revolution ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_Revolution ), the October revolution ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution ), the Polish Soviet war ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Soviet_War ), the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland ) by the Soviet Red army and the vicious NKVD secret police and their terror regime (1939-1941), and the re-occupation or liberation of Poland in 1945 after the Nazi occupational forces were driven out and the Stalinist terror after that (1945-1953) and the Soviet and KGB presence in Poland from 13 March 1954 until 3 December 1991. The Poles are very aware of the dangers from the East. But also know the challanges and dangers of the West. Organised crime, political differences, economical competitions and old rivalries with Germany, Austria, and their past with France, the UK and the USA. (The Western allies who abandoned them in 1939 and 1945 -delivering them to the Sovjet Zone of Influence, while Poland wanted to be Democratic, Free, Autonomous, Sovereign, Independent-).
The present day Poland is a strange country somewhere in-between the Russian Federation, Hungary, Austria, Turkey and the USA under president Trump. You could say that is the democratic choice of the Poles. But the Poles should also realise that the huge gap and political, cultural, sociologic, financial-economical and mentality differences with the rest of Europe creates a huge divide in the EU. Do the Poles want to move towards Belarus, the Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Hungary, Slovenia, Serbia and Macedonia, or does Poland wants to move towards the UK, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and Denmark? Poland has to make up it's mind. They have the free choice to move towards the West or towards the East. Or be an independent nation in-between the West and East.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by pieter on Dec 20, 2021 12:29:52 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Dec 20, 2021 12:33:57 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Dec 20, 2021 12:36:13 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Dec 20, 2021 12:38:29 GMT -7
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Post by Jaga on Dec 20, 2021 23:39:47 GMT -7
Pieter, people are terribly upset with this situation. There were protesters in many towns. Grandparents tell their grandchildren that they don't want them to go back to communistic or autocratic Poland again. There is a lot of anger and frustration.
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Post by pieter on Dec 21, 2021 9:00:53 GMT -7
Dear Jaga,
By having travelled throught the DDR (GDR, East-Germany) to the Polish Peoples Republic (1947–1989) several times as a child and teenager. West-German/East-German border, DDR-Polish Peoples Republic border and inside the Polish Peoples republic. The presence of the Milicja Obywatelska (MO), the paramilitary-police formations ZOMO (Polish: Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej) and the Polish People's Army (Polish: Ludowe Wojsko Polskie) during the time of Martial law in Poland (13 December 1981 – 22 July 1983) and afer that, I can understand those Polish grandparents who tell their grandchildren that they don't want them to go back to communistic or autocratic Poland again. I remember that Grey Polish Peoples Republic with the tension of the presence of the system everywhere. I remember the Grey blue uniforms of the Milicja Obywatelska and the Grey Green of the soldiers of the Polish People's Army in Poznań when we were there in the summer of 1984. Warsaw was grey and polluted, but exiting for me as a 14 year old kid, due to the huge Palace of Culture with the magnificent Empire state building kind of view over Warsaw from the top, the beautful Pałac Łazienkowski in the Park Łazienkowski (Łazienki Park) or the Royal Baths (Park Łazienki Królewskie) quite exiting. Also because we visited old family and family friends there. I loved the rebuild Old Town (Polish: Stare Miasto and colloquially as Starówka), the Black adn white movie I saw there about Warsaw and the view from there on the the Vistula (Wisła) river there.
Most of the kids I knew back then in Zeeland at the Walcheren Peninsula in the Sea Port of Vlissingen did'nt came from mixed households and never had visited, seen and couldn't imagine how a communist country would look, smell, feel and be like. My sister and I experienced East-Germany (the German Democratic Republic; GDR) by train and car, with border controls and police road blocks on the middle of a East-German highway by the East-German Volkspolizei (Peoples Police, VOPO's), the Iron Curtain (Żelazna kurtyna/Eiserner Vorhang), which we went trough when we entered East-Germany via West-Germany, and the Berlin Wall (Mur Berliński/Berliner Mauer). That experience is important for me, because in East-Germany (GDR) and the Polish Peoples Republic I learned what authoritarianism, totalitarianism, oppression and a dictatorship is. Leaving East-Germany I felt always relieved when entering West-Germany, the Free and Democratic Germany in Western-Europe, the 'Better Germany' in my Point of view. I also felt relieved when we left East-Germany entering Poland. Because in Poland were family, friends, the Polish Roman Catholic Church, polish roots, culture, Art, History and Polish Patriotism. But don't get me wrong, I loved to have the chance to watch and monitor Eastern Germany by driving through this Saxon country and watching at the country, passing farm lands, communist industries, large birch tree forests on the sandy lands, looking at the Central- and Eastern-European communist East-Block cars, trucks, vans, busses and motor bikes and smelling that typical DDR air of forest, heavy industry, two stroke Trabant and Four-stroke engines from old communist truck exhaust gas, burned coal and brown coal. I saw the East German Publicly Owned Enterprise (German: Volkseigener Betrieb; abbreviated VEB) the main legal form of industrial enterprise in East Germany. They were all publicly owned and were formed after mass nationalisation between 1945 and the early 1960s, and the handing back in 1954 of some 33 enterprises previously taken by the Soviet Union as reparations. East-Germany was much more strict than Poland and the Volkspolizei and the Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic (German: Grenztruppen der DDR) in my opinion were more visibly present and dominant and opressing than the Polish ones. Fact of that observations was our relaxation when we left the strict Prussian militarist style communism of East-Germany and entered the slighlty less strict Polish Peoples Republic. Don't get me wrong these terrible Communist Polish border guards with their nomenklatura and apparatchiks mentality, indifference and bluntness were annoying and unpleasent, but they were 'friendly' compared by the aggressive, militarist and very dominant DDR border guards and VOPO police officers inside East-Germany and at the East-German-Polish border and the East-German/West-German border. For Polish people living and working in the Polish Peoples Republic the situation was of course less relaxed and they had to deal with the PZPR (Polish: Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza) administration of these nomenklatura and apparatchiks, the oppression by the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, the secret police in communist Poland, the Soviet presence of the Soviet Ground Forces (Russian: Советские сухопутные войска, romanized: Sovetskiye sukhoputnye voyska, SSV), the KGB and GRU (Soviet military Intelligence) and their henchmen of the Milicja Obywatelska, the ZOMO (Polish: Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej), the ORMO (Polish: Ochotnicza Rezerwa Milicji Obywatelskiej), the Volunteer Reserve of the Citizens' Militia, a paramilitary organization and voluntary support brigade for/of the Milicja Obywatelska, the Internal Military Service, (Polish: Wojskowa Służba Wewnętrzna, WSW. In the 1980s, the Military Internal Service was very much involved in the fight against the democratic opposition Solidarność, etc.), the Union of Socialist Youth (Związek Młodzieży Socjalistycznej), the Polish Socialist Youth Union (Polish: Związek Socjalistycznej Młodzieży Polskiej, ZSMP), the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth or National Renaissance Patriotic Movement (Patriotyczny Ruch Odrodzenia Narodowego; PRON en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_Movement_for_National_Rebirth ), and communist student organisations and communist scouting organisations.
I read in an article about Commmunist Poland, the Polish Peoples Republic, that a lot of concierges of apartment blocs, apartment buildings, where members of the the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, the secret police. I wonder if Poland had a Polish version of the East-German Stasi secret service unofficial collaborators or IM's (German: Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter), or euphemistically informal collaborators (informeller Mitarbeiter) existed? These were informants in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) who delivered private information to the Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit; MfS / Stasi). At the end of the East German government, there was a network of around 189,000 informants, working at every level of society. Were thousands of Poles informal collaborators of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa as well?
Members of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa in the Polish Peoples Republic
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Military_Service
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojskowa_S%C5%82u%C5%BCba_Wewn%C4%99trzna
East German border guard monitors the Berlin Wall
View of Grzybowski Square in the central district of Warsaw. The city is located on the mostly flat Masovian Plain, but the city centre is at a higher elevation than the suburbs.
Fact was that I had a quite distorted, romantic, sentimental and unrealistic view of Poland as just a country with another people, culture, language and history. We were treated well as guests by family and friends, we could afford restaurants, going to the Cinema, museums and Zoo often and enjoyed the Polish, Prussian and Russian past of Poznań and Warszawa in the sense of the Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroc, Rococo, Classist, Jugendstil and modern Polish, German (Prussian) and Russian/Soviet (Palace of Culture) architecture. Also the architecture of the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939) and the Polish People's Republic (1947-1989). Modern Poznań had quite interesting Prussian, Old Polish and Polish Peoples Republic era old and new buildings as a national and international center of trade, sports, education, technology and tourism.
Jaga, we as Western children and teenagers from the Netherlands (my sister Carine and I) didn't saw, experienced and knew about the constant presence of the Ministry of Public Security (Polish: Ministerstwo Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego), commonly known as SB (Służba Bezpieczeństwa), the secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage agency operating in the Polish People's Republic. I knew as a teenager that Communism was a totalitarian and authoritarian ideology with the Democratic centralism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the revolutionary vanguard ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguardism ), Historical materialism, Dialectical materialism (Marxist dialectic), the dominance of the worker and peasant nomenklatura category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in the bureaucracy, running all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the communist party of each country or region. These nomenklatura were assisted by apparatchiks, full-time, professional functionaries of Polish United Workers' Party (Polish: Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza) and the Polish Peoples republics state organisations, institutions, regions and muncipalities, people who hold any position of bureaucratic or political responsibility in the time of Polish communism. Last but not least I want to mention the devastating results of the Class struggle enforced by the PZPR nomenklatura and apparatchiks (destroying the lives and careers of many people of the Polish bourgeois Middle classes and upper classes, because the affirmative action that prefered workers and peasents in the best governent positions, jobs and professions in society, the economy, universities and institutions) which created the rather primitive society of the Polish Peoples Republic, because the old elites were put asside and persecuted and not replaced by an new responsible, knowledgeable, experienced and sensible elite. Of course civilization, sophistication, humanity and common sense was kept in the Polish Peoples Republics withing families (family cultures, family networks, family life, the Roman Catholic church community and charity), social networks of friends, colleagues, sport organisations, cultural life, the Underground Dissident movements (KOR/Solidarność/Samizdat [Underground dissident] press) and the black market which competed with the official planned state economy of state companies, state firms, state shops and state super markets. There was a huge black market.
The Security Service (Służba Bezpieczeństwa, SB). The repressions of political opponents were revived following the 1968 Polish political crisis. With the emergence of the Solidarity movement in 1980, Lech Wałęsa was under constant SB surveillance. Throughout the martial law (1981-1983), SB played a key role in wiretapping telephones in public areas and institutions. It also participated in infiltrating Solidarity's committees and gatherings.
According to professor Andrzej Paczkowski, in 1953, there was one UB officer for every 800 Polish citizens. Never again, in the 45-year-old history of the People's Republic of Poland, were its special services' formations so large in numbers. I wonder how much UB officers were there for every 800 Polish citizens in the seventies and eighties when I was in Poland? For sure the telephone conversations of my mother in the Netherlands with my babcia (Polish grandmother) in Poznań were tapped. Arranging visa's for us for Poland in the blunt embassy of the Polish Poeples Republic in The Hague was always an unpleasant but necessary encounter for my mother. Of course Post packes and letters from the Netherlands to Poland were opened and checked, and so where the letters and packages from Poland to the West.
In 1953, in the field, there were 17 Voivode Offices of Public Security (WUBP ; Wojewódzki Urząd Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego), and 2 Regional Offices of Public Security on the order of WUBP. There were 268 District Offices of Public Security (PUBP) and 5 City Offices of Public Security (MUBP), which operated as District Offices of Public Security (PUBP). Together, they employed 33,200 permanent officers, of which 7,500 were stationed in their Warsaw headquarters. The Ministry of Interior was responsible for the supervision of local governments, the Milicja Obywatelska (Citizens' Militia, MO) police force, correctional facilities, fire and rescue forces, and the border guard.
Jaga, these Polish Grandparents don't want to go back to the Communist Polish Peoples Republic or autocratic Poland of the Sanacja regime (1926-1939) again and that is quite understandable. They want a better present and future for their children and their grandchildren. They want Freedom and Democracy, security, a liberal democracy, a Western democracy for their children. Not the state socialism, ultra-nationalism, totalitarianism and oppression of the past authoritarian regimes. That is what their generation struggled for with the Workers' Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników; KOR), Solidarność and the Samizdat press, culture and opposition.
How would a today Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice; PiS) version of the PZPR Pro-government Communism, Patriotism and Left-wing nationalism work? Does Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice; PiS) has it's own Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth or National Renaissance Patriotic Movement (Patriotyczny Ruch Odrodzenia Narodowego [PRON])? Does the present day PiS looks like the Natolin faction (The "Partisan" faction) within the leadership of the communist Polish United Workers' Party (Polish: PZPR). The "Partisan" faction used Polish nationalism to gain support.
Who are the Bolesław Bierut's (1892-1956), Władysław Gomułka's (1905 – 1982), Wojciech Jaruzelski's (1923–2014), Czesław Kiszczak's (1925 – 2015; In 1981 Kiszczak played a key role in imposing martial law and suppression of the Solidarity movement in Poland), Mirosław Milewski's (1928-2008), Jerzy Urban's (born August 3, 1933 in Łódź; Polish Peoples Republic governments spokesperson From August 1981 to April 1989), Jakub Berman's (1901–1984), Stanisław Radkiewicz's (1903–1987; Radkiewicz was the head of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa or UB) between 1944 and 1954, he was one of the chief organisers of Stalinist terror in Poland), Edward Ochab's (1906 – 1989), Aleksander Zawadzki's (1899–1964), Roman Romkowski's (1907–1965), Anatol Fejgin's (1909–2002), Józef Różański's (1907-1981), Julia Brystiger's (1902-1975), Helena Wolińska-Brus's (1919–2008), Marshal Michał Rola-Żymierski's (1890 – 1989), Józef Cyrankiewicz's (1911 – 1989; Cyrankiewicz served Communist prime minister of the Polish People's Republic between 1947 and 1952, and again for 16 years between 1954 and 1970. He refused an appeal of a death sentence by Witold Pilecki and suggested that Pilecki be treated "harshly, as an enemy of the state"), Mieczysław Moczar's (1913 – 1986), Franciszek Jóźwiak's (1895 - 1966), Wiktor Kłosiewicz's (1907-1992), Władysław Kruczek's (1910-2003), Zenon Nowak's (1905-1980), Aleksander Zawadzki's (1899-1964), Władysław Dworakowski's (1908-1976), Hilary Chełchowski's (1908-1983), Kazimierz Mijal's (1910-2010), Franciszek Mazur's (1895-1975), Bolesław Rumiński's (1907-1971), Stanisław Łapot's (1914-1972) and Piotr Śmietański's (1899 – 23 February 1950; Polish non-commissioned officer and communist functionary in the Ministry of Public Security and executioner at Mokotów Prison) of today's Law and Justice, Porozumienie, Solidarna Polska, Stowarzyszenie „Republikanie” government coalition and Front of Rightwing political parties? Is the present day Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego (ABW) (Internal Security Agency (ISA), Poland's domestic counter-intelligence agency the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa (1945–1954) or Służba Bezpieczeństwa (1956-1990) of today?
Congress of the the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth (1982-1989)
Is the present day Patriotyczny Ruch Odrodzenia Narodowego (PRON, English: Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth or National Renaissance Patriotic Movement) a Polish popular front that rules the Third Polish Republic (Polish: III Rzeczpospolita Polska), the Republic of Poland (Rzeczpospolita Polska) and contains Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość ), United Poland (Solidarna Polska), the Republican Party (Poland) (Polish: Stowarzyszenie „Republikanie”/Partia Republikańska), the United Right (Polish: Zjednoczona Prawica, ZP), National Movement (Polish: Ruch Narodowy), the All-Polish Youth (Polish: Młodzież Wszechpolska), the National-Catholic Movement (Polish: Ruch Katolicko-Narodowy), Poland Together (Polish: Polska Razem, PR or PRZP), KORWiN, the rightwing populist Kukiz'15, Piast Faction (Polish: Stronnictwo Piast, SP), The Congress of the New Right (Polish: Kongres Nowej Prawicy, Nowa Prawica or just KNP), Confederation Liberty and Independence (Polish: Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość), Porozumienie Polskie (English: Polish Agreement or Polish Alliance), the Right Wing of the Republic (Polish: Prawica Rzeczypospolitej), and probably some government supporting Solidarność Union members and branches of the Roman Catholic church (some priests and Bishops) comparable to the historical Patriotyczny Ruch Odrodzenia Narodowego (PRON which existed from 20 July 1982 until 8 November 1989? ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_Movement_for_National_Rebirth / pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotyczny_Ruch_Odrodzenia_Narodowego )
Logo of the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth (1982-1989)
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by pieter on Dec 21, 2021 15:58:46 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Dec 21, 2021 16:32:19 GMT -7
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Post by Jaga on Dec 21, 2021 22:32:39 GMT -7
It is getting really bad in Poland with limiting peoples rights. We also have an education minister who is en idiot and he is trying to indoctrinate children with pro-PIS politics instead of teaching them a real knowledge.
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Post by pieter on Dec 22, 2021 4:03:43 GMT -7
Jaga, The heads of 79 universities in Poland released a joint statement criticizing the Law and Justifice (PiS) Minister of Education and Science Przemysław Czarnek (11 June 1977) proposed reforms, arguing that they infringed on the autonomy of the universities and obstructed academic freedom, while allowing pseudoscientific views to be taught in universities. Among the signatories are professors from the Polish Academy of Sciences – a leading research institution – as well as from some of Poland’s top universities. “In the statements of Dr Czarnek, there is a glaring lack of respect for people with different views, [as well as] Ukrainophobia, antisemitism, dehumanisation of non-heteronormative people, misogyny and praising corporal punishment of children,” reads their letter, quoted by Polsat News. Cheers, Pieter Source: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przemysław_Czarneknotesfrompoland.com/2020/11/06/hundreds-of-academics-call-for-antisemitic-misogynist-polish-education-minister-to-be-fired/ |
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Post by pieter on Dec 22, 2021 5:27:18 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Dec 22, 2021 5:42:07 GMT -7
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