His enemies seldom dare to accuse him directly, preferring to tar him with guilt by association for his family’s past. Adam Michnik, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, has been called a “traitor to the nation” in marginal nationalist publications and at meetings of “anti-liberals.” The last time it happened was at a football match when nationalist fans unfurled a huge poster with Michnik’s photograph and the words, “Szechter, apologize for your father and brother!”

Michnik was born to Ozjasz (Uzziah) Szechter, a prominent member of the anti-Polish Communist Party in Western Ukraine before WWII, and Helena Michnik, an historian and Communist. His half brother, Stefan Michnik, was a judge in the 1950s during the heights of Stalinism. His father, having seen the true face of socialism, joined the opposition. Adam founded his first dissident organization, the Hunters of Contradiction Club, at the age of 16 in 1962. Later he was expelled from university, joined the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR) and the independent trade union Solidarity, and was jailed four times.

When Poland won its freedom in 1989, Michnik became the editor-in-chief of the largest and most popular liberal newspaper and was even elected to parliament. He says that the new Poland, which Poles call the Third Rzeczpospolita, has been rather successful even though he finds quite a few faults with it. He wrote about his country’s recent achievements and contradictions in The Anti-Soviet Russophile, his first book published in Russia. It is a collection of articles about the new Poland, the role of the church, political parties, Russophobia and relations with Russia.

During a meeting in the House of Journalists in Moscow, RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Babich spoke with Adam Michnik about Russian-Polish relations and other issues.

Adam, your interest in Russia is well known. Can it be explained, in part, by the fact that our countries share a number of problems? It sometimes seems that whenever Russia is facing a certain problem, it can also be found in Poland. One of them is extremist demonstrations at stadiums.

You are absolutely right. I agree with you completely. I once expressed this idea at a meeting at the Carnegie Moscow Center. My Russian friend took me aside after that meeting and said: “Adam, you have offended everyone here! They thought these problems are unique to Russia, but you have dispelled that illusion by saying that the same problems also exist in Poland.” Well, what can I do? This is what our countries are like. As for extremism at stadiums, this is one of the problems in both Russia and Poland. To paraphrase one of Lenin’s book titles, nationalism is the last and highest stage of communism. Nationalism is thriving in Poland, Russia and Hungary, which was also once a member of the Soviet bloc. Take Fidesz, the Hungarian Civic Union led by Viktor Orban, which is currently in power. I have been criticizing them for several years. I remember Viktor Orban 22 years ago, when he was a liberal. But now he is an extreme nationalist, and some people in Poland say we should follow in Orban’s footsteps. Unfortunately, my worst fears are coming true: look at what is happening in Hungary. Nationalism is also dangerous in a small nation – to the nation itself.

Is nationalism dangerous to Poland?   

Of course. Polish nationalism is above all dangerous to Poland. A friend once told me: “Adam, you like all nationalism except Polish nationalism.” This is a sharp statement, but there is truth in it. Herzen did the same: he supported all the national movements against the tsarist despots. I think this is the right way. However, nationalism is also dangerous in small and recently oppressed nations. Poland is not a small nation, but it is not large either – 38 million people. Strangely, Poles have the worst traits of both big and small nations. I addressed this problem in the essays in this book. Some people in Poland said these essays were written by a traitor to the nation. I am not the first person in Poland to have been called a traitor, and I am sure I will not be the last one. Russians will now read my essays. They should know about both the bad and the good in Poland: essayists and journalists in general must not be propagandists for their country or government. These gentlemen [the government – Ed.] will always find enough people willing to glorify them. We must be like the geese that saved Rome. Our task is to cackle – this is our role and our duty.

And what should we cackle about?

For example, we can say that our main opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), is a blend of your Zhirinovsky and Rogozin. Imagine, that party ruled Poland for two years! Poles have a short memory; they have forgotten that PiS ruled us only four years ago. I can assure you that it was unpleasant.

In your essay “The Problem,” published in 1987 and included in the Russian edition of The Anti-Soviet Russophile, you quote criticisms of the Solidarity trade union made by journalists from the Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP, the Polish version of the Soviet Communist Party). Polish Communists wrote then that Solidarity members are “blinkered traditionalists who are feeding on a fanatical spiritual mixture of a perverse variety of Catholicism and romantic traditions reduced to chauvinism.” This is very much like what your newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, writes about Solidarity today, which has ties with Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s party. Does this mean that the Communists were right?

No, they weren’t, because Solidarity today has almost nothing in common with Solidarity of the 1980s. At that time, it was a national movement for reform, but now it has become a small group of conservative Catholic marginals who rely heavily on nationalist rhetoric. It is not a source of great sadness for me.

Do you feel defeated? When the strike movement swept Poland in 1980, people demanded the right to elect management and three-year childcare leave for mothers. It is now much easier to fire people in Poland, as well as in other East European countries, than during the Soviet era.

I do feel sometimes that this is not what we were fighting for. There are still many threats to democracy, culture and society as a whole. But the show is not over yet, there is still a chance and hope for us. Overall, the past 20 years were very good for Poland; in fact, it has been the best period in the past 400 years. When communism crumbled, I feared there would be anti-Russian pogroms, but there were none. I feared that we would never be able to join the European Union and would also spoil relations with our eastern neighbor [Russia]. But we have preserved our ties in the East and joined the EU and NATO. To me this is a guarantee that we will never have a government that will not respect democratic norms. As for the economy, look at our statistics. People now live much better. So there is hope for us, and this book is my contribution to nurturing that hope.

Some say that when conspiracy theories were spreading in Poland after the plane crash that killed President Kaczynski, Gazeta Wyborcza found itself in the same boat as Putin. Polish nationalists claim that not only Russia but also Poland’s liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk as well as the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza are to blame for the catastrophe. Were your newspaper and Russia on the same side of the barricade then, for the first time in years? 

Yes. Putin may have done some questionable things in his life, but he is not guilty of the Smolensk catastrophe. And he acted very decently after it.          

The Poles received Russians’ condolences after the catastrophe warmly. But soon that feeling was dampened by the usual problems, such as the fight for influence in Belarus and Ukraine and other Polish-Russian disputes.

Yes, and this is why we should appreciate the people who tried to build bridges between our nations. There was Jerzy Giedroyc, who published a leading Polish émigré literary-political journal, Kultura, in Paris. He was the first to publish Andrei Sinyavsky abroad in the 1960s. What respect he had for Russian culture! I remember he once told me while working on a new issue: “This is the seventh manuscript I have received from Russia. Why are you Poles lagging behind? You are cowards compared to the Russian dissidents!” That is who he was: a Polish patriot, yet a man who did not think, like many now do, that Poles have always been innocent victims. Russia and Poland should create a coalition against liars and idiots. For it is a problem we share: there are many politicians in Russia and Poland whose profession is to demonize neighbors and to portray their own nation as an innocent victim.