In recent years, one democratic country after another has been tempted – sometimes fatefully so – by the allure of authoritarian populists promising to defend voters’ economic security and “traditional” values. Since its general election in October, Poland has moved in the opposite direction, though restoring the rule of law and reinvigorating liberal democracy after eight years of right-wing populist misrule is unlikely to be a straightforward process.
Irena Grudzińska Gross: With the arrival of 2024, Poland has a new coalition government, but the ousted Law and Justice party (PiS) doesn’t seem to have come to terms with their loss. Why?
Adam Michnik: It’s very difficult to admit defeat when you are convinced that you will be in power until the end of the world. The arrogance, megalomania, and lack of imagination of the PiS leadership is in full view again. PiS had a very good electoral result – over 35% of the vote. After what they did while in power, they shouldn’t have had a fifth of those votes. But the result of this election is transparent – they got a red card. They were unable to form a government.
Yet this is just the beginning of the ride, because PiS will try to rock the boat as much as possible in an effort to overturn the new government. Now everything depends on the extent to which the new government can change Poland and attract some of the PiS electorate. It can be said that the worst is behind us but the toughest lies ahead.
IGG: How different is the current political change from the exit from communism in 1989?
AM: Radically different. Back then, the regime was collapsing; it was a constitutional, historical moment. The dictatorship was headed by people who knew that the project of socialism or communism had lost. They wondered how to find a place for themselves in the new reality and were ready to respect the rules of the game.
President [Wojciech] Jaruzelski at the time was fully loyal to [Tadeusz] Mazowiecki’s non-communist government. By contrast, [current President Andrzej] Duda, or, rather, [PiS leader Jarosław] Kaczyński, is fully disloyal to the new government, even though it has a political mandate. In 1989, they wanted an agreement, and today, they don’t. In 1989, those who served the old regime wanted to participate in the new reality; their counterparts today are contesting it. They wish it to be as it was.
IGG: Please explain what “the toughest lies ahead” means concretely.
AM: Kaczyński’s camp had two scenarios. The first was that they would win re-election and everything would go their way. The second, if they lost, was to mine the political terrain in such a way that the winners could not rule, namely by retaining control over the public media, the judiciary, the special services, and the financial authorities. They changed the legislation and have their own president. The Constitutional Tribunal is completely in PiS hands.
In this situation, the new government must avoid Duda’s veto power. Any change has to circumvent current legislation, though this does not mean violating it. For example, all appointments to European institutions are to be made by the president, so the new government says: We can’t nominate a new ambassador, but we can recall the current ambassador to Warsaw for consultations and appoint an “acting” ambassador. There is no other choice. It is clear that this will be a very important year of reclaiming institutions and the state for democracy.
IGG: How firmly will Duda obstruct the work of the new government?
AM: I am one of those who do not take Duda seriously. I share the attitude of his university thesis supervisor, Jan Zimmermann: skeptical-ironic. As long as Kaczyński is the undisputed leader of PiS, Duda, in my opinion, will do what Kaczyński wants.
His interventions in defense of the old team in charge of state television were not serious, since you can already compare how the news looks now to how it looked under PiS. We now see honest news programs, not pro-government propaganda – at times, Stalinist-Goebbels-like propaganda that was impossible to watch.
Duda’s support for former deputies Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik is also frivolous. They were sentenced in December to two years in prison by a lawful court. Duda had pardoned them in 2015, but he did so before their convictions were final. It was like giving someone a divorce before they got married. When the courts ruled that pre-emptive pardon null and void, PiS hoped the new government would be soft: “they got a sentence, but they won’t put them away after all.” When imprisonment began to look likely, Duda sheltered the two men in the presidential palace, where he assumed the police would not enter. But the police did enter and took them to jail in accordance with the law. It showed that in Poland the law applies to everybody.
IGG: Does the new government have a chance for stability? After all, the parties in the coalition differ, for example, in their attitudes toward abortion or the role of the Catholic Church.
AM: There is no simple answer to the question of stability. The paradox is that the more stable PiS’s popular support is, the greater the internal stability of the ruling coalition will be. For the time being, the coalition is not making significant mistakes, they have understood that they are condemned to be bound together, so that if one wants to trip the other, he will trip himself.
The traditional notions of left and right matter when it comes to the vision of the world. But in this election, there was no dispute about taxes or social benefits. For all members of the coalition, it was a contest about the shape of the Polish state and the related issue of Poland’s place in Europe. The republic is in crisis, and now it is being defended.
Abortion is not a topic contained in the coalition agreement, and it does not fundamentally divide the new government. There is a thread of anti-PiS moral conservatism in the coalition: primarily the PSL [Polish People’s Party] and a part of the Third Way. Prime Minister Donald Tusk believes that the abortion law needs to be relaxed, and his party will prepare a draft and present it in parliament. Whether it will pass remains to be seen, but Tusk will honor his election commitments. If it does not pass, PSL will agree to a referendum on the matter. Though PiS claims that legislation involving moral values should be submitted to a referendum, this is not about values but about legal solutions. In any case, real social progress is being made; the government coalition is already in favor of civil unions, which is something new in Poland.
IGG: Are there any other shared positions in the government coalition?
AM: Government policy under PiS was almost identical to that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, differing only in its policy toward Ukraine. The surprise for me was that in Poland all parties except the far right are pro-Ukrainian. The entire force of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s propaganda is directed against Ukraine, and the slogan of the Polish far right – “stop the Ukrainization of Poland” – is a carbon copy of Putin’s rhetoric. And yet, Poles’ ingrained anti-Russian resentments have proved stronger than their anti-Ukrainian complex. There is unanimity in this matter, but when it comes to everything else, the government’s position is just starting to cohere.
As for the economy, Tusk’s Civic Platform [which, together with the Nowoczesna (Modern) party, forms the Civic Coalition, the senior coalition partner] now understands that hardline market liberalism leads to electoral defeat. On social issues, there is a big push, especially from younger generations, for a pro-European, pro-Western, and liberal-leaning option on abortion, marijuana, and other issues. Here, too, there are differences in the ruling coalition between leftists and conservative-Catholic groups, but even for these people, the resistance against PiS’s devastation of the rule of law is more important than the warnings of many a bishop that a vote for the coalition is a vote for depravity. For now, there are grounds for cautious optimism.
IGG: Speaking of bishops, what was the role of the Church in the October election?
AM: None. The Church has been very cautious. Already burned by politics, its authority is not what it once was. Of course, in the provinces, sympathies for PiS prevailed in the Church, but there was not a clear call to vote for it. The Church was divided.
IGG: What is the role and situation of the state media and your newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza?
AM: At Gazeta Wyborcza, we had a very clear position: we were anti-PiS. We don’t have a clear political platform, and our journalists certainly do not vote the same way. But one goal was common: we defend the republic. This political line has prevailed in Poland today, it can be heard in what the prime minister and his ministers say. This is the language of democracy we all share.
IGG: Will Gazeta Wyborcza’s economic situation improve now? After all, the advertising boycott by state institutions will end.
AM: I don’t know if it will improve. The boycott will end, and so will the subsidies to small pro-PiS newspapers, and we won’t have as many court cases as we have had until now. But the role of newspapers will diminish, which is true everywhere as the internet becomes people’s primary source of information. A lot also depends on what the situation in the world will be, what will happen in the East, in other European countries, how the European elections will turn out, and finally what worries us incredibly, what the future will be in Russia and the United States. Because if [former US President Donald] Trump wins, he will turn the world upside down. All of this could affect newspapers’ economic prospects in unforeseeable ways.
IGG: Poland recently experienced a series of public anti-Semitic acts. I am referring to the incident in the parliament building where MP Grzegorz Braun extinguished the candles of a Hanukkah menorah. In Gazeta Wyborcza, journalist Witold Mrozek wrote that thanks to, among other things, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk’s consistent activities, anti-Semitism has gone from the margins to the mainstream in Poland.
AM: I wouldn’t say that. If anti-Semitism ever moved into the mainstream, it was a few years ago. Given what happened with Braun, and before that during the independence march in Kalisz in 2021 [which featured violently anti-Semitic speeches], it would be nonsense to claim that there is no anti-Semitism in Poland. But the fact is that this was the first Polish election since 1989 in which the anti-Semitism card – branding political opponents as Jews – was not in play. That card had always appeared; this time, it was not even in the deck. The [far-right] Confederation hid Braun for the elections and spotlighted young, intelligent candidates who talked about taxes. Their approach seemed to be: anti-Germanism, yes, but anti-Semitism, no – at least not aloud.
I think that anti-Semitism in general will cease to be important, except for the fringe that believes Jews rule the world. If we experience a deep crisis, it may turn out that the scapegoat is not the Jews, but liberals who, the populists will say, tell us to eat worms instead of meat and teach children how to masturbate. But that is not important today.
Stupidity is immortal, but when I read some of Trump’s speeches, I have no anxiety about Poland. A Polish presidential candidate who said such stupid things would not stand a chance.
IGG: There is a danger of right-wing domination after the next European Parliament elections. What then?
AM: If this happens, we will talk about other topics and from another place. But there is no denying that the problem exists. Elections went badly in Slovakia and the Netherlands; populists in Europe, once marginal, have become mainstream.
The Polish elections have enormous value at this moment because they halted the Putinization of Poland: the creeping implementation of an authoritarian model, of “democrature,” or Potemkin democracy, that changes the essence of the state. Americans are familiar with this phenomenon under Trump. Poland has shown that it can be stopped, which is particularly important in the European context.
IGG: But Orbán, who you mentioned, is getting stronger. Now he’s an important European player.
AM: As a blocker, because there is still a veto right in the EU. But yes, his case is terrible. I don’t know who to compare him with, maybe Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. To go from a favorite of liberals to crypto-fascism! But what is interesting is that he has no room for anti-Semitism.
IGG: But he keeps talking about [George] Soros as a Jew ruling the world!
AM: Orbán is not bothered by a Jew if the Jew is in favor of Orbán. He is bothered by a liberal. He does not practice anti-Semitic policies, there are no moves in Hungary that discriminate against Jews. The rehabilitation of [Admiral Miklós Horthy, Hungary’s WWII dictator], the reference to the old right of the war years is a sign to the old electorate, a hallmark of the right. This comes into play when showing off one’s own right-wing identity. In this respect Orbán is similar to Kaczyński, this is a cynical game.
IGG: So, do you separate Orbán’s personal attitude from his politics? Does it matter whether anti-Semitic politics is rooted in cynicism or conviction?
AM: Orbán’s politics rehabilitates the tradition of the Hungarian right, which has elements of anti-Semitism. For Hungarian Jews, who have in their memory what Hungarian anti-Semitism did during the war, this is traumatic, and the same is true in Poland. But there is no institutional expression of anti-Semitism in Hungary today, no campaign against Jews as Jews. It is a campaign against liberals. From this point of view, if Soros were a “pure” Hungarian, he would be just as much a Jew.
Now this is clearly seen in the Gaza issue. One doesn’t have to be anti-Semitic to criticize [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu and be a philo-Semite to condemn Hamas. The two can go hand in hand, but they don’t have to.
IGG: Yes, Netanyahu is in alliance with anti-Semites like Orbán and Kaczyński.
AM: Kaczyński is not an anti-Semite either, and never was. He was against liberalism in the broadest sense, and in that he saw a threat to Polish identity. But [Polish-Jewish writer] Bronisław Wildstein, for example, works very well in these circles, and he’s not the only one. This is not anti-Semitism, this is anti-liberalism, anti-intellectualism. And from this point of view, it is all the same to Kaczyński whether he is dealing with Jacek Kuroń or Adam Michnik; for him, we are one devil, although we have different origins.
IGG: Were the elections in Poland, while so important, a reversal of the right-wing trend we see in the world?
AM: No, a halt, not a reversal, which are not the same thing. Poland is divided. A new generation has arrived, the issue of women’s rights has been put sharply, which explains the high turnout, 13 percentage points higher than in the previous election. Nobody expected this, including PiS, which assumed that turnout would be lower, easing their path to victory.
Add here the election result of the Third Way, today a member of the ruling coalition. I was afraid that they would not clear the 8% threshold, which could have enabled PiS to form a government. In the event, they received more than 14%. But the populist trend was stopped, not reversed. As I said, the hardest work lies ahead.
IGG: And how do you see the future of the war in Ukraine?
AM: It is difficult to predict what will happen. Everything depends on the American conservatives. It’s unclear whether they’re more concerned with kicking Russia or [US President Joe] Biden. As long as it was conservatives in the mold of George W. Bush, John McCain, or Mitt Romney, although I didn’t agree with them, I knew we were living in the same house. Trump has possessed the Republican Party. Under his influence, Republicans stopped thinking rationally, stopped trying to understand the world.
Ukraine is an open wound. There is now a stalemate, and the Kremlin wants peace talks that ratify the territorial status quo. But Ukraine has no choice. It is playing for its future, and for our future, and will not back down, because when [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky says they are fighting to defend the world, he is telling the truth. They are also fighting to defend Poland. I have already mentioned that there are groups in Poland who, thanks to Russian money, exploit the past Polish-Ukrainian conflicts, the resentment over Lviv and other formerly Polish cities. But this is not in the mainstream. You can’t announce it, just like with anti-Semitism. What’s in your soul is another matter, but in public there is unanimity.
IGG: Putin is offering talks, but on his terms. And he’s tightening domestic repression, exiling Alexei Navalny to Siberia.
AM: Yes, this is cruel. But I didn’t expect anything else from Putin. He is already approaching the point where he can be called a fascist. Not a Nazi yet, but just as the Nazis ordered Jews to wear a yellow star, today’s critics of the war in Russia are being branded as agents of a foreign state. I have a book by [Russian writer] Dmitry Bykov and on it is printed “innostrainyi agient” [foreign agent]. In comparison, my country is a British democracy!
IGG: And then there is the Israel-Hamas war…
AM: I face this issue completely helpless; I feel powerless. I look at what is happening with horror. I’ve lived too long not to understand what the Hamas invasion of October 7 meant for Israel. I can’t imagine what it would be like if such a horde came to Warsaw, killing left and right.
On the other hand, when I see that Gaza is being treated like Warsaw was by the Germans after the [1944] uprising, I don’t know what to think. I understand the Palestinians’ growing hatred because their loved ones are being killed in front of their eyes – not the hamasniks, but the carpenter, the cobbler, the baker, the pharmacist. Of course, I understand Israelis who ask why have a state if they can be attacked, murdered, raped, and taken hostage. And Iran is ready to fight Israel to the last Palestinian…
Using common sense, obviously not for today, there should be a two-state solution. A joint state is impossible: Israel will never agree to it, at least for the next 50 years. Israelis want a Jewish state, in which case it is not clear what to do, especially since Netanyahu, judging by what he wanted to do with the judiciary, is a Jewish Orbán to me.
IGG: The year is still young. Could you find some grounds for optimism?
AM: In 1989, the year of the great change in Europe, the dominoes started to fall in a democratic direction, beginning with Poland, the first country where the communists sat down to negotiate with the opposition. And then it spread to East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Albania. This was not the only possible scenario. On June 4, 1989, the communists gave up power in Poland. But that wasn’t the first news in the world media.
IGG: Yes, the first news was Tiananmen – the massacre on Beijing’s main square.
AM: That’s right, Tiananmen. So, there were different scenarios, and a good one played out in Poland. But to realize this potential requires getting to work and stubbornly doing your job, refusing to give up. We in Poland have shown what is possible.
About the Authors
Adam Michnik, a leader of Solidarity in 1989 and a participant in the round table talks that ended communist rule in Poland, is Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza.
Irena Grudzińska Gross is a professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences and a 2018 Fellow at the Guggenheim Foundation. Her books include Miłosz and the Long Shadow of War (Pogranicze, 2020), and Czesław Miłosz and Joseph Brodsky: Fellowship of Poets (Yale University Press, 2009).