“One of our friends active in another times... with peculiar services visited the office of the upcoming organization Change at any point and asked me, ‘Do you have a concession?’
Mateusz Piskorski
"The last prisoner of Rakowiecka" is the title of the river intelligence conducted by Tomasz Jankowski with Mateusz Piskorski. However, not only the celebrated prison for political enemies of subsequent just right regimes and “state rations” and not only Poland are its subject.
Separate chapters occupy global affairs. The presence in specified a number of places at a time erstwhile historical events took place, the cognition of specified a number of their heroes in fresh decades could enviate Matthew Piskorski many of the old journalistic dates of the planet agency, in addition to being endowed with intuition, which allows him to choose the most crucial things. Crimea, Donbas, dead on fresh Georgian South Ossetia shellings, Libya during western bombings, Syria, trips to Russia and China, talks with charismatic leaders of the Donbasian Irredents, with influential officials in Vladimir Putin's administration, or with thinkers of Alexander Dugin's format is simply a blend which the description itself would suffice for material for respective books. And here we receive a large deal of reflection, conclusions and assessments from both of the interviewers.
However, the full thing begins in a very individual climate, erstwhile we meet Matthew as a boy powerfully embedded in the circumstantial climate of Szczecin and Polish lands recovered, as well as a typical biography of parents gathering on the occasion of 1 of the large PRL buildings, then working on a contract in Sudan, where their boy attended school, learned the culturally diverse environment and learned English at an express rate. After returning to Poland, we accompany our hero at the phase of extremist fascinations in the transmission of parareligious and musical subcultures. For individual like me raised in completely different climates, this is an interesting and knowledge-provider description of another side of the time of a kind of anti-system storm and force that took place in the past of Poland in 1990. Unfortunately, she was suppressed or died in youth.
Then our paths crossed for a moment. Then, in the life of M. Piskorski, politics begins through the increasing p. First, they are national and identity-oriented smaller formations to yet jump into deep political waters thanks to Andrzej Lepper and Self-defense. In the final phase of this chapter, Matthew became an MP and 1 of the more crucial figures of the organization and movement. After a political failure in 2007, the time came for a doctorate and respective years of intellectual work besides in a broad global dimension, (the footnotes show interesting titles, and virtually unknown works on the economy of Belarus and the situation of arabian countries) to respective years after the unexplained death of A. Leppera continues to fight for a better Poland and return to politics, this time on his own account. This effort was brutally interrupted by political police officers, who, despite the “failment of communism” rapidly returned to their erstwhile role.
For Mateusz Piskorski, the period of extended “temporary” detention began, and in Polish realities, a kind of mass torture and a process that has been going on for nearly 10 years. Its task is to break out all thought and hope of breaking out of political and intellectual enslavement through how in a sense the associate of the PZPR correctly put it and the “impacting on the public” which was the most serious crime of the state by the minister Anna Karlińska. Finally, the last period is simply a return to intellectual work in the framework of the task Against censorship and in the pages of Polish Thought, in which he worked for the first 4th of a century earlier, but besides for public activity in the wide sovereign-reformist front. So much in the top summary of the biography that has been closed to just over 200 pages and whose density makes it besides read like an adventure novel, in addition to being well edited and bearing interesting footnotes.
However, there are equally interesting conclusions and assessments made by both people. In mistakes and failures, 1 learns, or at least should, so questions about the causes of self-defence failure – the largest political task in which Piskorski participated so far and the most loud effort to break the post-circular monopoly of power written into voices occupy quite a few space in the book. On a political level, both agree that it was a mistake to enter self-defense into a common government with the Law and Justice. Self-defense lost its anti-system image and failed in subsequent elections. For J. Kaczyński, eliminating the anti-systemic component from the power structure proved to be more crucial than changing roles in political theatre and moving to its opposition segment. The methods utilized for this intent are an example of banditism not only political. However, of course, there was another question about the reason for this mistake.
I will not betray what institutions have pressed for self-defense and what arguments they have used, but 1 reason is worth revealing, due to the fact that it is much deeper, more common in character and it is inactive valid. This is something that could be called the state of human resources, and 1 step further the moral and intellectual condition of the Polish society from which these people came. When, as a sympathiser, I watched self-defense candidates in 2005, I frequently asked myself: God, who are these people? How did the president I met come up with them? Why does an intelligent patriot let individuals to appear on electoral lists absolutely undeservedly? Mr Piskorski gives sad answers to this question: they were traded on lists, and the mountain could not control it, as a result, the equivalent of the 1997 AWS of the TKM was overwhelming among specified elected MPs: “it is se se, k... we will set up”. During the reading, I was reminded of the conversation in which I signaled specified impressions to the President, A. Lepper asked me why I didn't run myself; it wasn't bad irony, it was grief and bitterness.
The answer to that question is simply a subject for separate consideration. possibly the better quality of the seismic representation allowed us to defy temptations or not to let ourselves to be dominated by a stronger coalition that controlled safety and which importantly kept the coalitions in absolute separation from abroad affairs, torpedoing any effort to normalize relations with Russia and Belarus, besides at the expense of Polish farmers and the remainder of the economy. Let the lesson M writes about. Piskorski will be an chance to draw conclusions, for detailed intelligence, strict selection and formation. But it besides concerns working on the minds and morals of the general Polish society, which makes specified and not another choices of its representatives and possibly that is why many valuable people do not want to participate in the election ritual.
Similar impressions about the state of Polish society can be made by reading the description of subsequent decisions of Polish judges and prosecutors, who, contrary to law and justice, sentenced Matthew to another 3 months in prison, a full of 12 times. It is hard to agree with Mr Piskorski, who explains them with the request to repay loans and fear of moving to a distant location. T. Jankowski rightly questions specified justifications. Judges, and above all justice – due to the fact that in Poland it is simply a profession with a uncommon degree of feminisation in the world, is an example of the general decline of professional ethos both morally and professionally. Conspiracy of silence, deficiency of civilian courage, disregard for responsibilities and escape from work are diseases that have plagued us for centuries.
The passage of the book that I have chosen for the motto already shows a more political and encompassing full West reason for our enslavement. We live in a strategy in which a democratic game is allowed only within the framework outlined by the centres of power, which nobody chooses. The case of M. Piskorski is highly drastic, has a nationwide dimension and in a sense international, but political gangsterism is increasingly common in Poland today. In the fresh election of president Krakow, “unknown perpetrators” broke into the home of the main father of the counter-candidate of the ruling arrangement, and well-known developers covered the city with slanderous posters outside of all the rules of the election campaign, in fact where PKW could collect millions of grants for 1 poorly documented banner.
The police and the D.A. showed absolute inactivity and the election was won by the 1 who was to win them. As Andrzej Gajcy and Wojciech Mucha compose – authors of the book entitled “Campania. How to win elections and not get caught.” all this reminds them of the situation described by a group of armed individuals during a visit to Sicily. In a fewer minutes, the gentleman explained rather briefly that the real power was not in town hall or parliament. There are no politicians, but people who let these politicians become politicians and win more elections. erstwhile asked if it was like this in Poland, he smiled under his nose and stated that not only it was like this, but it happens constantly. Only forms and methods of supporting these or another politicians change, but the rule whether it concerns elections in a tiny town, in a large city or at national level remains unchanged: "the arrangement" must survive." I do not know if the book I am discussing will change the arrangement, but it should surely become a media event, or even a beginning of a national debate and an object of interest to everyone who wants to realize how the strategy works in the IIIrd Polish Republic.
Olaf Swolkień
Last prisoner of Rakowicki – Tomasz Jankowski talks to Mateusz Piskorski, Wydawnictwo Dom Przemyśl Polska, Warszawa 2025.
Think Poland, No. 1-2 (4-11.01.2026)
