Winds of change are blowing in from the steppe
For young people in Poland today, Russia is the focus of, if not indifference, then at the very most, dry amusement at the relative backwardness of a country that is massive geographically but which has a gross domestic product less than that of Holland. Emotions run higher, however, among the older generation, who see Russia through the prism of historical experience in the 20th century, and the years before. For anyone born much before the 1980s, Russia's role was to stymie Polish national aspirations over 200 years, ever since the final partition of Poland between Russia, Prussia, and Austria in the late 18th century. Over the next hundred years, Polish politics - insofar as it could exist under the occupation of those three empires - gradually evolved into a polarization between those Poles who saw Poland's fate as inevitably tied to the Slav nations of the East, and those who looked westward and therefore saw Russia as the strategic enemy of Polish independence.
In the Polish 20th-century mind, Russian imperialism was overlaid by the permanent Soviet aggression against Poland from 1917 onward. Lenin was violently anti-Polish, to the extent of provoking a war between a newly independent Poland and a newly Bolshevik Russia in 1920. Few observers recall that throughout the 20th century, Poland was the only European country to wage war against communist Russia - and win, in 1921, with the dramatic rout of Soviet Russian forces just outside Warsaw. The defeat of Russia in the Bolshevik-Polish conflict of that year, however, was only the beginning of permanent tension between the two countries after World War I. The Soviet Union ruthlessly exploited the weaknesses of interwar Poland, especially its poor relations with its national minorities, to undermine the coherence of the inter-war Republic. By 1939, Stalin's hatred of Poland was such that he could quite happily sign a pact with the Third Reich to carve up the Second Republic with Hitler, and end Polish statehood for 50 years.
Double damage Soviet Russian dominance of Poland under communism was doubly damaging to the country, not just because of the simple mechanisms that allowed the Soviets to wreak untold damage on Poland's freedoms, curtail traditions and economic well being, but also because of deeper prejudices that Soviet power encouraged. Before the war, two nationalities were treated with great suspicion by the Poles: Ukrainians and Lithuanians. Exploiting inevitable prejudices was a key tactic of Soviet Russia, as part of its strategy to divide and rule among the nations it dominated in the Soviet system. The historical damage again was great, since Poles were turned against two nations that historically had been intertwined with Poland, in the case of Lithuania forming one kingdom, much the same as Scotland and England. Yet it was also a tactic that was fomented by Poland's communist rulers: underneath the rhetoric of socialist brotherhood, anti-Ukrainian and anti-Lithuanian sentiment was tolerated in communist Poland as a useful way of cementing patriotic instincts with the communist state.
After 1989, the first task of the democratic governments that came to power in Poland was to rebuild the trust between Poles and their eastern neighbors. Poland was one of the first countries to recognize Lithuania after the latter had declared independence in 1990, and over the last decade politicians from across the political spectrum have sought to elevate Poland's relations with Ukraine to a strategic level. In many cases, sentiments of the past are difficult to overcome: in the case of Lithuania, there remain tensions over what the Poles perceive as discrimination against the Polish minority in Lithuania. As for Ukraine, again, nationalist sentiments stand in the way of completely overcoming the past, as in the recent case of the refusal of Lwów city authorities - before the war a Polish city - to honor the war graves of Polish soldiers who died defending the city in the Polish-Soviet war of 1921.
Yet these issues are usually the product of local sentiments and the ambitions of local politicians to score political points. At the state level, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine have recognized that common interests are more important than historical prejudices. Only twelve years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lithuania is on the verge of NATO membership, and is almost sure to be invited to the alliance at the NATO summit in Prague in November. Ukraine, too, stands at the cusp of a new relationship with NATO and over the last year -with the emergence of Islamic terror as the main threat to global security - it has moved closer to the alliance than ever before. NATO recognizes Poland's role in bringing these countries closer to NATO, and indeed has looked to Poland to act as a bridgehead, participating in joint military training and exercises.
Mother Russia The real challenge before Poland and the Poles is the future relationship with Russia. Overcoming prejudices here will be even more difficult than in the case of Lithuanians and Ukrainians. Under Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek's government, which ended last year, there were feeble attempts to play on anti-Russian sentiment. Officials used the controversial issue of blocking Russian ambitions to transport natural gas through Poland on the basis that this would be a conduit for extending Russian intelligence penetration of Poland, for example. But at a time when the United States is actively cooperating with Russian intelligence in combating Islamic terrorists that argument seems increasingly weak. Second, following the Reykjavik NATO summit last week, and the establishment of a new strategic alliance (in effect) between Russia and NATO, the patience of the United States to traditional Polish anti-Russian prejudices has come to a rapid end. And Poland too is coming under pressure from the European Union, which sees the establishment of a strategic EU-Russian relationship as a key goal especially in the area of energy. The room for Poland to be the only country in Europe pursuing an anti-Russian agenda is becoming increasingly limited.
That is the real challenge facing Poland and its leaders over the next few years. Throwing off the yoke of communism and establishing democracy and free markets has proven more difficult than expected but it was a task that had a national consensus behind it. In contrast, readjusting centuries of historical experience over just a decade has the potential to divide domestic politics and run into deep social resistance. But the Poles are quickly discovering that democracy and independence brings with it not just freedoms but new responsibilities as well. As it aspires to be part of the international community, so those responsibilities will increasingly come to involve overcoming centuries of emotions and experiences. The extent to which the political class faces these responsibilities, rather than seeking to exploit emotions for short-term political gain, will shape Poland's credibility in the eyes of its new foreign allies and partners.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw Director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl.
