With baking on my face as a very young man, I read Teresa Toranska's interviews in the book “They”. I was curious about what the most crucial people of the Stalinism period – Berman, Chajn, Ochab, but besides Mincov's wife – had to say in the first years of the 3rd Polish Republic.
Of course I identified with another tradition of People's Poland and my sympathy was on the side Władysław Gomulku, Jan Mithragi or Gen. Zygmunt Berling. However, Toran's book and her later works have always left me with interest in what they gotta say to my case's adversaries. Thanks to me being distant and having a somewhat looser calendar, I read the editor's latest book calmly. Paweł Dybicz “Goodbye to People’s Poland”. It's worth reading even for kind reasons. It is an old journalism school, where the expertise, honesty and culture of speech were valued. The author can listen, learn. He's not mean and intrusive, but inquisitive. It besides has the ability to direct the conversation in this direction, so that it is revealing and not schematic. Not quite a few people are interviewing in specified depth today.
It's not gonna be easy these days. This is not a reading for the supporters of the present radicalisms, scandals, insults, escalating private matters and questioning 1 or the another time of our statehood. This position is barely today, but very crucial for the future. due to the fact that 1 of the most crucial things for our nation is the continuity of the state and our history. And I am certain that in the future many historians will be reaching for Paul Dybich’s book.
I hope that the author will not be offended by me, but he is besides very small today. Centered, seeking compromise, honest in historical assessments, uncontaminated, respectful of the opponent, a supporter of dialog and listening to the another party's right. 1 thing is certain – there would be no place for Paul Dybich on the political phase of 2026. However, I am convinced that the author is not in pain. Therefore, with large surprise and large disgust I observed a fewer weeks ago abusive and lying allegations about the author on any gadzin television.
Back to the book. The speakers of editor Paul Dybic are not random. This is surviving among the main actors of the political scene of the breakthrough time. Editor Dybicz talks to his guests about the end of the Polish People's Republic and the beginning of the 3rd Republic. As for most characters of the Toran book, the end of Stalinism was the end of a political career, so in the case of heroes of “Goodbye ...”, the end of the PRL was not the end of their political careers. frequently the other was true. Therefore, I have always insisted for many years that 1956 is much more crucial than 1989. Just as the people of Stalinism have frequently become apologets of the opposition of the NRA, so organization activists have become supporters of democratic change. I think it's a natural past process.
Let us be honest that the full III of Poland is not a kid of Solidarity, Reagan and John Paul II, as many would like to see. The decision to end the socialist strategy in our part of Europe was made not in Gdańsk Shipyard, but in Moscow and Washington. III of the Republic of Poland is simply a kid of the decision of the powers, while the legal meaning of the continuation and heiress of the People's Poland. Its main architects in our country with all the pluses and cons must be considered generals Wojciech Jaruzelski and Czesław Kiszczak.
I will not hide that this reading was not easy for me. Coming from the Endec tradition and increasing up in contrari to the geopolitical direction chosen by the subsequent authorities in III of Poland, I read these interviews with the baggage of any emotions. I especially missed the younger generation of self-criticism politicians. I do not hide that any of the interviewers do not have peculiar political sympathy, e.g. the president Aleksandra Kwasniewski. This is not amazing to those with whom I talk about politics.
After many years – without changing its political orientation and critical assessment of the course of transformation – I believe that from the beginning our endemic opposition to the binding of the fresh Poland to the Euro-Atlantic structures was doomed. There was no chance of what our older colleagues called the non-communist prophetic option. The shift to the West was exaggerated. Politicians from the Polish United Workers' organization were mostly simply realists. The right was associated with the right-wing nation today. Prof. Bogusław Wolniewicz“ The 1 who survives the enemy wins. That's what I learned from my quarter-century internship in the Polish United Workers' Party, which, in addition to everyone else, was a large school of political thinking.” We became active with the fewer surviving national democrats who lived to a large degree in disputes of the Second Poland and post-war. We were in relation to the PZPR, but besides Solidarity and Appetizers like a territory league to the Champions League.
For years, we have practically learned the basics of political realism connected with the tradition of endection. due to the fact that the end of the 3rd Republic was flushed out of the Endek thinking. He was the first to announcement that 1 of the characters of this book was Prof. Andrzej Werblan. present – after many years I justice the actions completely differently Józef Oleksi, Jerzy Jaskiernia, Maria Berna or Leszek Miller. Looking at today's left, they awaken more than sympathy.
It is simply a pity that the book was created so late – due to the fact that there is simply a large deficiency of conversation with Mieczysław Rakowski, Kazimierz Barcikowski, Mieczysław Wilczek, Stanisław Ciosk, Czesław Kiszczak Or inactive a mystery to me Stefan Olszowski. He does not compose about General Wojciech Jaruzelski here, due to the fact that he himself wrote a lot and was happy to talk to journalists. So we're practically clear on him. The choice of callers was, of course, limited by biology.
The protagonists of the book, in my opinion, mostly talk sincerely about their participation in the fall of socialist Poland and entering the track to build capitalist Poland. They can afford this, most of the interviewees no longer plan any political career – at last Prof. Andrzej Werblan is 102 years old, Prof. Andrzej Karpiński 98, Prof. Janusz Reykowski 97 years old, and Prof. Jerzy Wind 95 years old. It always allows for a more relaxed space for memories. Besides, prof. Werblan wrote straight what he thought since the late 1990s, which he gained my large sympathy. The book is diverse, and the reflections of individual speakers are completely different.
This item is not a textbook on the end of People's Poland, and the beginning of the IIIrd Republic of Poland. This is not an impartial description. It is simply a congregation of reflective conversations and an individual view of the past of their lives of ed callers. Dibic. People from a peculiar political environment. However, the speakers do not repeat the same punctuated formulas. The book aroused my emotions due to the fact that I am politicized – both good and bad.
What in peculiar deserves to be read? For me, for sure, an interview with the surviving encyclopedia of People's Poland Prof. Andrzej Werblan "I considered the circular Table to be a sham". Mandatory reading – as always accurately, curiously and rationally. The prof. interviews should besides be read with attention: Reykowski [Freedom took on a neoliberal costume], Wind [You could cancel the election] or Karpiński [The price of the change was exceptionally high]. I highly appreciate the conversation with the younger 1 almost a decade from prof. Jerzy Wind Prof. Ewa Łętowska. In the interview, she said, “Party is simply a organization – I thought more of categories of state structure.” That conviction is very crucial to me. due to the fact that the PZPR during the transformation was not any communist or socialist formation. She was a organization of power, whose honest staff were not wisely utilized in the 3rd Republic by the suppression of the solidarity side. But that's a different story.
I justice interviews with the younger generation more strictly. Prime Minister Leszek Miller, whom I have been enthusiastic about in fresh months, due to Ukrainian issues – fair but politically correct. another participants of this event spoke much more about the last PZPR convention – Minister Jan Mitrzyga, Minister Kazimierz Kąkol or Bohdan Poręba. Besides, in our environment, we have respective participants in this convention who have seen it far different from Prime Minister Miller. But it is known that you can talk about the kitchen area of politics rather honestly in pure vodka, and it is best if the interviewer exceeds 90.
I didn't like what Aleksander Kwasniewski said. In general, erstwhile I perceive to him, I feel that he is very seldom honest. Thus, president Kwasniewski says: “Mazowiecki has no thought of economics, there is simply a tense search for individual who could come up with a plan and do something. And abruptly it turns out that in this marketplace candidacy is Leszek Balcerowicz, who prepared any plan (...) If prof. Tadeusz Kowalik had come up with a plan at the time, we would most likely have a improvement of Kowalik."
Oh, no. That's not good. Books like this Paul Dybicz read at least a small cognition of politics. No 1 will believe Leszek Balcerovich's randomness.. After all, he was already working in the Institute of Basic Problems of Marxism-Leninism at the KC PZPR and was preparing to introduce capitalism in Poland. Minister Jan Mitrzyga spoke straight about this, that no 1 in this group believed Charles Marx and Oskar Lange anymore due to the fact that they were all included in the photocopied writings Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. So he couldn't have just happened to be there. Professor Tadeusz Kowalik, Stefan Kurowski, Witold Kiezuń or Józef Balcerek. However, the dishonesty of at least 3 of the interviewers does not origin the indifference of the interview itself.
I believe this is simply a very crucial marketplace position. And anyone curious in politics and the latest past should get to know it. It is 1 of those positions to which it will return to complete its cognition or callback a circumstantial event from the time of transformation. It's a useful book, interesting and unusual. I urge it.
Łukasz Jastrzeżski
Paweł Dybicz, “Good-bye to the People's Poland – talks about the decline of the Polish People's Republic and the birth of the 3rd Poland” [Andrzej Werblan, Janusz Reykowski, Jerzy Wind, Andrzej Karpiński, Andrzej Barcikowski, Stanisław Gabrielski, Andrzej Gdula, Krzysztof Janik, Aleksander Kwasniewski, Ewa Łętowska, Leszek Miller, Zbigniew Siemiątkowski, Marcin Święcicki, Danuta Waniek and Sławomir Wind] Iskry Publishing House, Warsaw 2026. ps. 394.
Think Poland, No. 31-32 (2-9.08.2026)
