Poland’s new right-wing leaders are using fresh allegations about Solidarity hero Lech Walesa to revive conspiracy theories that the communist-era regime staged its own demise in 1989 to hold onto power behind the scenes, reports AFP.
In claims that Polish EU leader Donald Tusk lamented as “unfortunate” for the country’s image abroad, newly-released police files allege that Nobel Peace prize winner Walesa was in fact a paid communist spy.
Walesa is renowned worldwide for negotiating a bloodless end to communism in Poland in 1989. The move triggered the country’s first democratic elections since World War II, ushering Walesa into the presidency a year later.
But right-wing politicians like Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the powerful leader of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, have long argued that Walesa was a regime spy and puppet whom communists used as a political fig-leaf while they held on to key military and economic sectors.
Centrists and liberals have repeatedly ridiculed the idea, arguing that Kaczynski—who was also a communist-era dissident—is being vengeful after falling out with Walesa during his presidency.