Presidents of Poland

"You can’t change the facts with your lies, allegations and counterfeits"

"Freedom must be gained step by step, slowly. Freedom is a food which must be carefully administered when people are too hungry for it."

"Na zmęczeniu, goryczy, uczuciu bezsilności nie można budować."

"Aresztowano mnie wiele razy. Za pierwszym razem, w grudniu 1970 roku, podpisałem 3 albo 4 dokumenty. Podpisałbym prawdopodobnie wtedy wszystko, oprócz zgody na zdradę Boga i Ojczyzny, by wyjść i móc walczyć. Nigdy mnie nie złamano i nigdy nie zdradziłem ideałów ani kolegów."

"Można powiedzieć, że byłem gdzieś niezręczny, może nawet kogoś wsypałem, ale nie to, że byłem agentem. Nie to, że chciałem kogoś zdradzić (...) Przysięgam i niech mnie szlag trafi, jeśli kłamię."

"I am convinced that Germany has drawn conclusions [from World War II] and Europe has drawn conclusions as well. And I can say an unpopular thing. If once again Germany should risk destabilizing Europe, then there would be no division of Germany — it would simply be blown off the map of Europe. With the kind of technology that exists, with the kind of experiences we have had, there can be no other way — and the Germans know it."

"If once again Germany destabilizes Europe, then Germany will be not be divided again, but wiped off the map. East and West have the necessary technology in order to enforce this verdict. If Germany begins again, there is no other solution."

"Dobrze się stało, że źle się stało."

"Dodatnie i ujemne plusy."

"Dokonałem zwrotu o 360 stopni."

"I am for, and even against."

"(About the defeat of communism) Interviewer: Can it be said that the Pope brought the forces of the free world together?"

"The weakness of the Eastern European regimes was demonstrated anew in Poland, both by the activities of underground Solidarity and by the serious strikes that began in April 1988. The government had grudgingly sought to widen its support by negotiating with other elements, but it wished to exclude Solidarity. The Catholic Church, however, refused to create a co-operative Christian labour movement as the government wanted, preferring to leave the more intransigent Solidarity as the key body for negotiations. The Communists were opposed to trade union pluralism, but, as a sign of movement on the government’s part, the amnesty of 1986 had freed political prisoners. The 1988 strikes discouraged the Party leadership and demonstrated its failure to find a solution to Poland’s problems. Combined with Gorbachev’s renunciation of intervention on behalf of Communism, this failure encouraged the leadership to move toward yielding its monopoly of power. On 30 November 1988, there was a televised debate between Lech Walesa and Alfred Miodowicz, the head of the official trade union federation and a member of the Politburo. This was a highly significant step as the television served as a means of controlling the dissemination of opinion. On 6 February 1989, Round Table talks between government and the technically illegal opposition began, with the Church, an institution of great prestige in Poland, playing an important mediatory role. Under an agreement, signed on 5 April 1989, reached against a background of widespread strikes, elections were held in Poland on 4 June. Only 35 per cent of the seats in the lower house, the Sejm, were awarded on the basis of the free vote, the remainder going to the Communists and their allies, but all of these seats were won by Solidarity. This expression of the public will was a dramatic blow to the old order. Communist cohesion collapsed, not least with the Communist Party being abandoned by its hitherto pliant allies. Strikes and other protests meanwhile continued. The new government was headed by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a member of Solidarity and a Catholic intellectual. He became the first non-Communist Prime Minister behind the Iron Curtain. There was, however, to be a major division between those who endorsed the ‘Round Table’ political settlement of 1989 as a way to avoid bloodshed, and those who criticised it as, allegedly, a compromise providing subsequent cover for ex-Communists to pillage the state."

"Moreover, Catholicism was the driving force behind the new Polish independent trade union, baptized Solidarity, which began to function in the Gdansk shipyard in June 1980, achieved reluctant legal recognition from the regime two months later, and, under its fervent Catholic leader, Lech Walesa, gradually undermined the regime during the decade. A further eight-year legal ban, imposed in 1981, was finally ended in April 1989, when Communist authority began to collapse. Four months later, on 24 August, Poland became the first country in the Soviet bloc to appoint a non-Communist government, with Walesa’s colleague, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, editor of a Catholic newspaper, as Prime Minister. The destruction of Communism was completed in 1990–91, when Walesa himself became President, and all remaining religious restraints were removed. This largely peaceful change of regime showed how powerful the alliance between the human longing for personal freedom and the force of religious belief could be."

"Piss off, lout! (Spieprzaj, dziadu)"

"The politician has a right to defend his dignity. I ignored the first wave of invectives, but the second one was too much, I couldn't have handled it and I had said in hard (but for the street - where I was - soft) words that he should go."

"I haven't been wounded, but I can still feel that hit. I will not tolerate such behaviour."

"The promotion of homosexuality may lead to the eventual destruction of the human race."

"It is necessary to restore the dignity of the presidential office and cut it off decisively from non-transparent connections... For the first time in many years, I see a chance in Poland for major change. The presidential office can guarantee that these changes are carried out without undermining the social equilibrium."

"What we want is a moral revolution, not one that people associate with street riots and the disorganisation of life. A transformation of attitudes that will introduce a normal, moral order in the functioning of the state. An order whereby honesty is a positive value, and dishonesty a negative one."

"I'm opposed to the idea of a flat-rate tax, and I doubt I'd sign it. Attempts to introduce a liberal utopia need to be opposed. The presidential office should oppose such ideas and care for social equilibrium to be maintained."

"The Polish society is not composed solely of entrepreneurial and energetic young people. I can't image pensioners who get ZL600 or ZL800 a month getting even less than that. That'd be immoral."

"It sets a path towards the elimination of nation states and the emergence of a European state in the strictest sense of the word. I'm definitely opposed to it."

"The EU isn't a loving family of European nations where everyone altruistically cares for everyone else. Various interests clash on various issues, and all kinds of coalitions are struck to push through specific solutions. I have no inhibitions here whatsoever. We can cooperate with France and Germany on some issues, and argue with, say, Spain and the UK. Realistically, however, we have to collaborate above all with those countries that want more autonomy within the EU, such as the UK or Denmark."

"The US is a difficult partner, but an indispensable one. Everyone who have had to do with US politicians and diplomats knows they aren't easy to deal with. That is because of their immense sense of power. But an alliance with the US is absolutely necessary because of our relations with, on the one hand, Germany and France, and, on the other, Russia."

"The Russians can be expected to carry out policies aimed at regaining their influence in Poland... I'm talking here about gas, oil, and so on. The Russians want this to be their zone of influence again, though of course on a different basis than in the past. They don't want full domination but rather an ability to exert substantial influence."

"We have to oppose the widespread view that if the Russians are provoking us, we shouldn't react because that could be perceived as a confirmation of Poland's alleged russophobia. Let's remember that Russia is not only provoking us but also checking how far it can go. Recently it went definitely too far. We must react when we have to do with obvious nonsense, like the Russian foreign ministry's recent statement that Yalta resulted in a strong, free, and democratic Poland."

"I was particularly keen to do what little I could to help your country after the collapse of Communism, having for so long held a combination of profound admiration and heartfelt sympathy for the appalling suffering of the Polish people."

"I was raised in a family that has always been Catholic, for generations. That's the type of family I grew up in. This connection to the Church, to the Catholic Christian community, was always a fact, from the beginning of my life."

"Poland is stable politically. The opposition is making it impossible for parliament to work."

"I always say that as a President of my country, President of Poland, I would like to have the best relations with all our neighbors."

"I will never agree with statements that Poles as a nation participated in the Holocaust or Poland participated in the Holocaust. It humiliates us and hurts us. In my own family, there were people murdered by the Germans, and first and foremost [to say the contrary] waters down what really happened."

"This is not why my parents’ generation for 40 years struggled to expel communist ideology from schools, so that it could not be foisted on children, could not brainwash and indoctrinate them. They did not fight so that we would now accept that another ideology, even more destructive to man, would come along, an ideology which under the clichés of respect and tolerance hides deep intolerance."

"Peace and law - two words, without which co-existence of nations, ethnic groups or those whose religions are different, is unimaginable. Peace and law - terms that are beautiful, important, but very brittle, that need to be taken care of, than need to be - without any interruptions - treated well. We, the Poles, know it perfectly, that peace cannot be taken for granted."

"I wanted Poland to be, right from the start, a country of solidarity, a country not guided by the rule: the weaker has to die. Therefore, we tried to protect each and every life with the same commitment. Therefore, whenever we could, we tried to show solidarity with other nations who needed assistance at a given time."

"If someone is undertaking aggressive military activities in Ukraine and Syria, if someone is bolstering his military presence near his neighbors ... then we have an unequivocal answer regarding who wants to start a new Cold War. Certainly, it is not Poland or the NATO alliance."

"My main message will be that perhaps the United Nations should be reformed to make the institution capable of addressing the threats that really exist today. I think blocking the Security Council on Ukraine is a token, a symptom, of the general weakness of the U.N."

"Everybody knows that voters dislike pay increases for politicians, and they enjoy it when money is taken away from politicians."

"We need to think how not to respond only to the crisis in Ukraine, not to extinguish the political, economic and military fire, but to start systematically support the modernization of Ukraine, to help it and itself to realize national goals."

"Poland seeks European solidarity notably by the deepening of the integration process and among other things by the deepening of the principle of solidarity between nations."

"We do not want to diminish the achievements of others, but we want (...) others to remember that freedom began in Poland."

"Communism finished in Poland 25 years ago, on 4th June 1989. We tore down the Iron Curtain of propaganda and lies to be able to live in the truth. We tore down the Iron Curtain which the authorities of the People’s Republic used to hide behind, in order to build a democracy, a system where authorities are held responsible before the citizens. On that day, for the first time, elections were no propagandist fiction but the making of a real choice."

"The wish for freedom is contagious, that's why all tyrants fear it. Freedom seen from close up inspires human strivings. Its triumphant march began in Poland."

"If in so many places we are witness to conflicts that entail the death of thousands of people and humanitarian dramas, this happens as a rule due to a failure to observe fundamental human rights. Entire communities and nations are denied influence over political decisions. Power without control is in most cases, corrupt and self-loving, incapable of lifting countries out of underdevelopment and poverty."

"We are witnessing the rebirth of nationalist ideology which violates human rights and international law under the cover of humanitarian slogans about protecting minorities. We recognize this all too well from the 1930s."

"The times of the peace dividend following the end of the Cold War are over."

"We mustn’t let our hands be bound by commitments to third parties who do not meet their own obligations."

"I think, for me, the first important thing is that the West should have a common policy toward Russia. So the unity of the European Union and the United States is a precondition for good talks and good relationships with Russia."

"In the old Belarusian society, women’s stories—however important—were silenced. The crucial change we observe now is that women are not only organising to survive but they are leading the fight. That is indeed incredibly inspirational!"

"I understand that if someone asks me to be part of some project it’s not only because I’m so good, it’s also because I am Kwasniewski and I am a former president of Poland. And this is all inter-connected. No-names are a nobody."

"Six years ago, I didn’t hope, I didn’t dream that in 1995 I would win the presidential election. But the situation in Poland changed very fast, and became totally unpredictable. Poland is going on this democratic way faster than we thought before."

"Poland really started to change in 1989. Since then, we have achieved our main goals: we are in the European Union, we are in NATO, and we finally have democracy after almost fifty years of communist rule. We have a full-fledged free-market economy."

"Ukraine is not an ideal country, nor will it be one for a long time to come. But we have the opportunity to introduce it to our standards. If we don't do that, Kiev will follow the Russian and the Belarusian model. Ukraine was strongly under Russia's influence for centuries, and its people experienced a very brutal form of communism."

"Today there is no communism in Europe, no Warsaw Pact, no balance of fear. We, Poles, have a great satisfaction that the cause of the construction of better, united and secure Europe of free people began in Poland and has achieved the present phase here, in Rome."

"The Cold War walls have come down. They have set free the spirits of freedom and democracy, but also unleashed the demons of new threats to security. Among those threats are unconventional capabilities of the so-called "states of concern.""

"We have become aware of the responsibility for our attitude towards the dark pages in our history. We have understood that bad service is done to the nation by those who are impelling to renounce that past. Such attitude leads to a moral self-destruction."

"The transformations in the Polish economy continue. We are slowly approaching the completion of the privatisation of enterprises and banks. We have built a securities and financial instruments market from scratch. The private sector, employing almost 70 per cent of the entire working population, is growing dynamically."

"I've gotten to know this man well over the years. He is a leader, he understands that people need to lead their country towards peace and freedom and prosperity. And President Kwasniewski is doing just that. He's making a mark on the continent of Europe through his leadership. He stands strong. In every conversation I've had with him, he has a deep love for the Polish people. He expresses his desire for close relations, because he understands close relations between our countries is in the people's interest. And Mr. President, I'm so glad you're back. I appreciate your friendship, I appreciate your strength."

"Ex-communists frequently did well out of the ‘transition to the market’. This was a phenomenon common to several states in the region but not in Poland, the Czech Republic or the abolished German Democratic Republic, where communists were flung out of positions of influence. Nearly everywhere the communist parties adopted fresh names, new leaders and a programme of ideas close to social-democracy rather than communism. This was usually not enough to earn them popular trust. But they were not disgraced in elections and in 1995 the ex-communist Alexander Kwasniewski won the Polish presidency and served two full terms. This had been barely imaginable in the heady years of Solidarity’s supremacy. Yet capitalism had not been kind to many people in Poland and elsewhere in the 1990s. Mass unemployment, shoddy welfare facilities and a widening of the gap between rich and poor gave communists a second chance in politics. They had to adjust their appeal by wrapping themselves in the national flag, throwing Marxism to the winds and identifying themselves with the needs of downtrodden electors. Electoral victory did not come easily or often. Kwasniewski had done better than the candidates put up by communist parties in western Europe."

"Poland is not situated in a territorial vacuum on some uninhabited island. Indeed, the opposite is true. It lies in the most geostrategically sensitive part of Europe. In those recent years, Europe and the world were divided into two opposing political and military blocks. That meant that all internal conflicts inevitably led to external repercussions, reflecting on the climate of relations and the pattern of international forces."

"The introduction of martial law was the most dramatic decision I had ever taken. And life had treated me harshly. I experienced my country's tragedy in 1939."

"I had to face up to many a dangers, often looking death in the face. Later, in the decades which ensued, I often had to resolve complex dilemmas. But that dilemma of 1981 was of a quite different dimension and of the very greatest specific weight since I bore the responsibility for the fate of the nation and country."

"The most important thing is to hit the bull's-eye at the historically most appropriate moment. Which is why all opportunist dilatory foot-dragging is intolerable. But any historical false starts and voluntaristic acceleration are also dangerous. Grain and fruit and also society must have time to ripen, especially the home politicus."

"I am saying this to avoid any suspicion that I want to defend, at no matter what price, the decisions I took. Martial law was an evil which resulted in various human vexations and sufferings which I very much regret. But even so, they were a lesser evil than the multidimensional catastrophe which faced us as a very real danger."

"Were it not for the declaration of martial law, the substantiation of that announcement in mid-winter would have signified not only economic but also biological catastrophe. No grand issues and dilemmas may be studied without their historical backgrounds in separation from the realities of a given moment. A historian seated in the tranquility of archives and libraries can allow his thoughts to wander in various directions. Basing on continually supplemented sources, he knows today what took place in the past. But a politician active at that time knew only what was happening at a given moment. And he also had to take into account that which could take place. A historian enjoys the comfort of delivering evaluations which have no practical effects."

"A politician has to bear the weight of decisions whose effects are often enormous. And those decisions have to be taken. A controversial decision is better than no decision or waiving it, since it permits a situation to be brought under control while allowing it to be reined in with the possibility of correction."

"The absence of a decision could result in an impetuous, dangerous development of a situation which has got out of any control. There is no ideal solution in such circumstances. The only thing is to find the optimal solution, "a lesser evil.""

"Citizens of the Polish People’s Republic. I turn to you today as a soldier and as the head of the Polish Government. I turn to you in matters of supreme importance. Our country has found itself at the edge of an abyss. The achievements of many generations, the house erected from Polish ashes, is being ruined. The structures of the state are ceasing to function. New blows are being struck every day at the dying economy."

"The nation has come to the end of its psychological endurance. Many people are beginning to despair. Now it is not days but hours that separate us from a national catastrophe. Honesty compels one to ask the question: Did things have to come to this?"

"The self-preservation instinct of the nation must be heard. Adventurists must have their hands tied before they push the homeland into the abyss of fratricide."

"Citizens. Great is the burden of responsibility that falls on me at this dramatic moment in Polish history. It is my duty to take this responsibility. Poland’s future is at stake-the future for which my generation fought and for which it gave the best years of its life."

"It cannot be said that we didn't show good will, moderation, patience, sometimes there probably was too much of it ... the initiative of the great national understanding was backed by millions of Poles."

"Citizens of Poland, very heavy is the burden of responsibility which lies upon me at the very dramatic moment in Polish history. But it is my duty to take it, accept it, because it concerns the future of Poland, for which we of my generation fought on all the fronts of World War II and gave the best years of our lives. I declare that today, the army council of national salvation, has been constituted. The council of state, obeying the constitution, declared a state of war (at midnight) on the territory of Poland."

"Our soldier's hands are clean; he knows his hard service ... and has no other aim but the good of the nation."

"We wish a great Poland, great with its achievements, culture, forms of social life, its position in Europe. The only way to gain this is by socialism accepted by society, constantly enriched by the everyday life experience."

"The steps taken today serve to preserve the basic features of socialist renewal. All the reforms will be continued in an atmosphere of order, businesslike discussion and discipline, also economic reform."

"To make tomorrow better we must realize tough realities today, to understand the necessity for renunciation."

"We are a sovereign country so we must get out from this crisis by ourselves. We must draw away danger with our own hands. History would never forgive the present generation for wasting this chance."

"Citizens of the Polish People's Republic, Difficult years are behind us. Hard times had rolled over the Polish lands. They had produced internal splits and dangerously weakened that bond that throughout centuries was uniting Poles in the face of the greatest dangers. I will not recall those pre-December days. We all remember them. Nothing can conceal the merciless meaning of the then facts. It is only facts that truly count in politics, in the life of nations."

"Exactly one year ago martial law was introduced. The year that has passed was a great test. We have passed it. It has been passed by the party, by the people's authority and all the citizens. But there is the only winner: the Polish nation. This is the shortest-put truth about the past year."

"The rigors of martial law were applied by us sparingly. We started easing and lifting them almost right away, from the very start. Observance of law and order is getting ever stronger. That allows to positively answer the appeal of the patriotic movement of national rebirth, as well as the other social initiatives aiming at a similar direction."

"The suspension of martial law means that its basic rigors will cease to function before the end of this year. Only such regulations should be binding either in full or limited dimension, which directly protect the basic interests of the state, create the shield for the economy and strengthen the personal security of citizens."

"I do not make any promises. But I do promise one thing - anarchy will not be allowed into Poland. Let no one in Poland or outside cherish any illusions that the present decisions will allow for another round."

"We have survived the boycott, restrictions and the barrage of instigatory propaganda. The Government of the United States and some of its customers can see for themselves the bankruptcy of attempts to interfere in Polish internal affairs."

"I think, however, that it is better when we solve the Polish matters realistically, with prudence, when we discuss them calmly, normally."

"General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Minister of Defence since 1968 and thus a major Warsaw Pact figure, became Prime Minister in February 1981 and First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party in October 1981. Jaruzelski had taken part in operations against anti-Communist resistance fighters in the late 1940s, had led Poland’s contribution to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and had been in command when Polish troops shot striking shipyard workers in 1970. Jaruzelski claimed he had opposed the last operation and he sought a peaceful settlement with Solidarity, but serious economic problems continued to create discontent in Poland and to lead to criticism of the government. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union pressed Jaruzelski to come out in defence of Communism. This pressure indicated that any meaningful change in the Soviet bloc would have to come from Moscow, and thus underlined the subsequent importance of Gorbachev’s stance."

"In 1996, Jaruzelski was to comment ‘I always considered myself a Polish soldier and a Polish patriot first’. He possibly thought of himself as another Józef Piłsudski, who had taken over the Polish government in 1926 and instituted a benign, quasi-military dictatorship. As Prime Minister, Jaruzelski downgraded the role of the highly unpopular Polish Communist Party and sought to play off Solidarity against the Soviet Union in order to gain concessions from each – stability and aid respectively. However, temperamentally, Jaruzelski found uncertainty difficult. In an effort to end political unrest and strikes, he declared martial law on 13 December 1981, arresting Solidarity’s leaders and thousands of others without trial (scores were killed), and appointing a military council to govern Poland. On that day, with American attention riveted on Poland, Menachem Begin, the Israeli Prime Minister, annexed the occupied Golan Heights. Martial law remained in place in Poland until July 1983 and indicated the strength and weakness of the Communist system: it could maintain order, but could not provide the economic growth or popular support that made order much more than a matter of coercion and indoctrination. Opposition in Poland remained at a far greater scale and was far more popular than the left-wing terrorist movements in the West such as November 17 in Greece, FP-25 in Portugal, and the Cellules Communistes Combattantes in Belgium."

"Brezhnev and the Politburo demanded a change in personnel in the Polish United Workers’ Party and the stabilisation of the communist order. They turned to a military man, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who became Prime Minister in February 1981 and then Party First Secretary in October. Jaruzelski introduced martial law in December 1981. He did this as much to pre-empt a Warsaw Pact invasion as to reimpose order in Poland. In fact the Soviet Politburo had decided not to intervene militarily even if Solidarity were to edge its way to power; but Jaruzelski was not privy to this information. Solidarity was outlawed and more of its militants were taken into custody. Yet the strikes and demonstrations were not abated. The network of Solidarity groups and agencies survived the police onslaught; its presses produced pamphlets, postcards and audiocassettes. Graffiti-artists sprayed slogans on walls such as ‘The winter is yours but the spring will be ours’. The Catholic priesthood gave uncompromising sermons on the need for religious faith and patriotism."

"Jaruzelski himself was reluctant to use any more force than was absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the state order. He had an impossible task. The communist party and the institutions it sponsored – trade unions, youth associations and cultural clubs – attracted popular contempt. The result was chronic stalemate: although Jaruzelski succeeded in restoring a degree of calm, he could not liquidate Solidarity and Solidarity could not supplant his military administration. Poland was like an insect trapped in amber. No fundamental political and economic development was possible for the country. No end to martial law appeared in sight."