The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(111)

Martial law was imposed in December 1981 (chapter 55). Tens of thousands were arrested and imprisoned, the country placed on total lockdown. But, as noted in chapter 55, that horribly oppressive act may have saved the nation. First, it allowed Solidarity time to regroup. Second, it graphically demonstrated to the people the horrors they were living under. Life in Poland then was beyond hard (chapter 22). The government, in a foolish move, began to stock stores with food and merchandise, thinking the populace would be grateful. Instead, all it showed was that the government had been responsible for the shortages all along. Finally, it galvanized the world into action, which placed even more pressure on the communists (all of which I dealt with in my novel The 14th Colony).

But Poland bears some responsibility for its troubled past.

It has a volatile history (chapter 5). The absurdity of electing a king (chapter 34) led to centuries of political chaos. Then the single-man veto, the liberum, crippled government and allowed a few to dominate the many, making it even easier for invaders to triumph. For a long time Poland did not have weak government, it had no government at all, and that ultimately cost them everything.

Today the country is littered with political parties, the PO and PiS the most dominant (chapter 12). They constantly fight and bicker and try to glue together some semblance of a coalition. Sometimes it works, most times not. The Polska Partia Przyjació? Piwa, Polish Beer-Lovers’ Party (chapter 12), existed and is illustrative of how absurd things can get. Poland continues to struggle to find its place within the European and world communities. Sadly, though, all of the current violence and struggles discussed in chapters 65 and 74 are fact-based. Ronald Reagan said, Poland is not East or West. Poland is the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression. And a few lines from its national anthem say it all:

Poland has not yet perished,

So long as we still live.

What the foreign force has taken from us,

We shall with sabre retrieve.