Poland “threatened by aggression of the left” from both east and west, warns Kaczyński

Poland is facing “a great struggle against the left” in the form of both the Russian military threat from the east and a cultural threat from the west, says Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.

In its resistance to these dangers, Poland is not only protecting itself, but also making itself “a very important country in Europe and the world” by helping “others be free”, he adds.

“Poland is today confronted with the problem of a great struggle against the left,” Kaczynski told a meeting of supporters in the city of Stargard, quoted by news website wPolityce.

This threat is twofold, he explained. There is “the old post-communist left, which is doing terrible things in the east by attacking Ukraine, committing terrible crimes, threatening the use of nuclear weapons, illegally annexing territory”.

But also, “much less talked about today – understandably [because] the main problem today is in the east – we are also dealing with aggression from the left in the west, and it is also here [in Poland] under various party names”.

This western left “threatens our sovereignty not with military methods but with political and economic ones”, explained Kaczyński. “[It] aims to stop Poland from being Poland, in the traditional sense of the word.”

These leftists “want to accept everything, no matter how absurd it is”, added the PiS chairman, and “they demand that all this madness be affirmed and supported by the state, and that any criticism is forbidden, is penalised with criminal proceedings”.

In fact, Poland already has Europe’s widest and strictest set of “insult laws”, according to the OSCE. It is a criminal offence, punishable with a jail term, to offend religious sentiment or to insult the president, the Polish nation or state symbols.

“We want to be free,” continued Kaczyński, “and we want others to be free as well, to live in a community of free nations. We do not want anyone’s domination.”

The Polish government has in recent weeks stepped up its criticism of the EU, arguing that, under German compulsion, it is seeking to erode the sovereignty of Poland and other member states. PiS favours a looser economic union.

Kaczyński also declared that Poland must oppose the collapse of Christian civilisation. “With our resistance to this, Poland is a very important country in Europe and the world, because we fight not only our national interests, we also fight for much wider interests,” he said.

“We want to be ready to repel any kind of aggression by political bullies, people who want to undo history, who want to take freedom away from entire nations and destroy entire nations,” added the PiS chairman.

“The Russians claim that there is no Ukraine, [so] it can also be said that there is no Polish nation, and there are no others, so we must be ready and strong,” he warned, adding that German chancellor Olaf Scholz “wants to implement…an alliance with Russia in order to rule Europe”.

Main image credit: Michal Ryniak / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.