The leader of the Solidarity movement and first president of post-Soviet Poland says Ukraine and its allies must fight politically as well as militarily.
What does he, as the president who forced Russian troops to leave Polish soil, think as he watches Russian troops attack Ukraine? “I know very well how it might be looking if Poland had not succeeded in joining NATO in time. Then definitely Russia would be invading Poland, not Ukraine,” he said. “I’m doing my best to help Ukraine now because, in a way, they are fighting instead of us.”
Walesa greatly admires Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Both Zelensky and me, we are not politicians; we are practical people, and that’s why we tend to succeed,” he said. But Walesa worries what will come next for the comedian-turned-statesman. “Up until now, Zelensky is doing great,” he said, “but the real problem starts at the moment when you have to turn toward peaceful solutions. Whether he will be able to find that peaceful solution.
Asked about his central role in communism’s collapse, he was humble. “Up to the moment of the election of Pope John Paul II, I was organizing people to fight the communists. Over 20 years, I was able to organize justthose 10 … I had two [secret police] agents. But when … John Paul II became the pope, out of the blue I had 10 million people.” When the pope came to Poland in 1979, Walesa said, even members of the secret police attended the pope’s Masses and gatherings with the Polish people.
“Without the pope,” he said, “communism would have lasted much longer. … The Holy Father actually [sped] up the process of the collapse of communism … [and] played an important role in making that last moment of communism bloodless and nonviolent.”How does Walesa want to be remembered? “I don’t care so much about it, I have done the best I could, whatever was possible for me to do,” he said. “I gave all I could, and I was doing it in an honest and simple way without any manipulation.
He then turned to my children, ages 17, 20 and 21: “That’s why I really care that your generation succeeds, because only your success will somehow guarantee my success, the success of Solidarity. … If you succeed, people will praise me. If you don’t succeed, they might curse me! So, my heritage, in a way, depends on your success.
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