On 15 October, Poland goes to the polls. The Polish people must choose between two narratives for the country, each inspired by a different era of history. For the ruling Law and Justice party, the Second World War has become a key theme of its parliamentary election campaign. This came about after the question of German reparations was revived by an exhibition on Polish war losses presented in the British parliament last month. Discussing a recent Polish radio poll which revealed that 58 per cent of Poles support war reparations, Arkadiusz Mularczyk, the Polish Secretary of State for Europe maintained that Germany, the aggressor, was ‘given the privilege to choose to which victim states they provide compensation and how much’.
The topic cropped up again a week later following the controversy caused by two standing ovations given to the Waffen-SS ‘Galizien’ veteran Yaroslav Hunka in the Canadian House of Commons. Hunka was invited to attend Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to the parliament in recognition of his fighting ‘for Ukrainian independence against the Russians’. The incident led to the resignation of the Canadian Speaker of the House, and the opening of an investigation into a possible extradition request by Poland’s Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek.
The Polish people face a decision between being leaders or followers on a continent at war
This interest in the Second World War reflects Law and Justice’s focus on questions of national sovereignty, security, and cultural cohesion ahead of the election, which coincides with a nationwide referendum on illegal immigration. In the opinion of the party, led by prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland under the government of their current main opponent Donald Tusk and his ruling Civic Platform party between 2007 and 2014, was a country under the influence of Germany and Russia. Remembering the war as a period when both of these countries stabbed Poland in the back is no accidental campaign strategy.
Civic Platform looks to the past for campaign inspiration just as much as the governing party does. The party is the largest in an alliance, called the Civic Coalition, going up against Law and Justice at the election. Its chosen period is one of post-communist hopes for Poland’s inclusion in the liberal consensus of the 1990s – a geopolitical and economic order which is no longer a reality for Europe, much less the rest of the world.
The Civic Platform campaign harks back to the Solidarity Union movement of the 1980s and the campaign to join and integrate with the EU in the 2000s. It is led by Tusk, and vocally supported by the formerly disgraced Speaker Radosław Sikorski, of ‘Polish Tapegate’ fame, now back on the campaign trail from semi-retirement in the lecture halls of Harvard. Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski has emerged as another key figurehead of the party, hosting a series of liberal-leaning youth political discussions dubbed ‘Campus Poland of the Future’ and leading the ‘March of a Million Hearts’ protest in Warsaw to coincide with the Law and Justice party convention in Katowice at the end of last month.
Law and Justice is seeking to show continuity with pre-1939 Poland, both through its cultural policy and realpolitik. The opening of the new Polish History Museum at the Warsaw Citadel on 29 September underscored the message that Poland’s ruling party can get big, patriotic projects over the line. Despite work on the museum only taking off between 2016 and 2018, the idea was originally floated in 2006 under the previous Law and Justice government led by Jarosław Kaczyński. The excavation and rebuilding of the Saxon Palace, destroyed by the Wehrmacht in 1944 as retaliation for the Warsaw Uprising, is another element of the cultural quest to restore Poland to what the country might have looked like had the Second World War not taken place.
Law and Justice’s focus on Poland’s historical existential struggles, often demonised by Western commentators as out of touch with the present, is, however, allowing the country to prepare for a key strategic role in the new Cold War and hotter wars to come. A recent Law and Justice campaign video criticised Donald Tusk’s government for a now long-obsolete Polish defence strategy which foresaw troops falling back from Poland’s eastern border to conduct territorial defence from the line of the Vistula river. Such defence-focused campaign messaging and appeals to regional loyalty are sure to resonate with the more conservative-voting eastern half of the country – which would have been left undefended in the event of an attack from Russia under Tusk’s plan.
Law and Justice’s campaign video has been informally cited as one of the reasons behind Tuesday’s controversial resignation of two of Poland’s most senior army generals, Chief of the General Staff Gen Rajmund Andrzejczak and Operational Commander Lt Gen Tomasz Piotrowski, just days before the election. No formal explanation has been given, but the opposition has been quick to hint that the timing wasn’t accidental, stemming from disagreements with government officials over attempts to bring the military into political campaigning.
Morawiecki’s ambition is to equip the country with the largest army in mainland Europe within the next two years. Taking advantage of the strategic opportunities offered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict presents a tangible path to achieving this transformation. Last week, British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps announced that the UK is sending RAF Typhoon fighter jets to Poland as part of an exercise to strengthen defences on Nato’s eastern flank. The move comes amidst concerns from the alliance over potential foreign exploitation of any disruption during Poland’s election period.
In addition to defence, illegal immigration has become a key issue in the campaign. Poland has come under increasing pressure from human traffickers attempting to cross the Belarusian border with the blessings of the Lukashenko and Putin regimes. Against this backdrop, the EU has introduced a poorly-timed pact on migration and asylum, which will require member states to take in quotas of refugees. The European People’s party, which Tusk led until last year, is a strong supporter. Law and Justice, on the other hand, has dubbed it the ‘EU’s enforced migration mechanism’; the Polish government boasts of having initially thwarted it in Brussels in 2018.
The referendum on immigration that will coincide with the Polish election will include questions on both the future of the Belarusian border wall, and the acceptance of the EU-mandated refugee quota. While separate, the two issues are often conflated in the government’s focus on cultural cohesion.
The Civic Coalition alliance foresees a defence policy closely coordinated with the EU, including participation in the European sky shield initiative, but isn’t clear on what Poland’s role in it should be. It also aims to purchase a ‘significant number of new helicopters’ but has not elaborated on specifics, or explained how this pledge differs from the government’s existing promise to purchase 96 new Apache helicopters alone.
Only six of the 100 campaign pledges put forward by Civic Coalition for their first 100 days in power relate to defence. The opposition seems more interested in spending the next half-decade helping Poland ideologically ‘catch up’ with the West – an approach which risks leaving the country a politically correct limbo mired in parliamentary gridlock over an outdated culture war while an actual guns and steel war rages on its doorstep.
Poland’s location on the borderlands of a Belarusian dictatorship and Russian aggressor state puts it in a unique position to shape the fate of Europe. Looking to the future, with this election, the Polish people face a decision between being leaders or followers on a continent at war.
The world has moved on from the politics of liberal consensus to a realpolitik of hard-power strategic advantage. Russia and China already know this – and Europe needs to catch up, or risk being left behind. Law and Justice understand this too and are prepared to lead the continent into this new reality – kicking and screaming or otherwise.
Comments