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Once upon a time, one Czes\u0142aw Mi\u0142osz wrote about J\u00f3zef Mackiewicz:<\/p>\n
We cannot treat seriously everything written by Mackiewicz, the anti-Communist.\u00a0 Some of his essays are obsessive and bordering on paranoia, following a well known pattern of sniffing for agents everywhere, even in the Vatican.\u00a0 When embarking on a compilation of his political writings one would do well to remember that he paid with fantasies and even insanity for constancy of his views.<\/em><\/p>\n Every part of the above is incorrect but we wouldn\u2019t expect anything else from an apologist of \u201cpolish people\u2019s republic\u201d. \u00a0I do not intend to dignify it with a polemic, it\u2019s enough to say that Mi\u0142osz paid with that kind of gibberish for lack of any views whatsoever so what\u2019s there to discuss?\u00a0 What interests me here is the accusation \u2013 often repeated \u2013 that Mackiewicz \u201clooked for conspiracies\u201d.\u00a0 In reality, Mackiewicz observed, compared, questioned and tried to formulate answers.\u00a0 Is this not a duty of every intellectual?\u00a0 Perhaps not of intellectuals like Mi\u0142osz \u2013 they prefer to sniff where the wind is blowing from and take up the most convenient position \u2013 but real intellectuals, those who see understanding of the world around us as a noble obligation.\u00a0 In line with this calling, Mackiewicz observed; he watched, for instance, how free human beings freely acted in the interests of the greatest enemy of freedom.\u00a0 He compared, for example, the glorification of bolshevik criminals in the free world with the infamy of the Nazis.\u00a0 He posed the question: how could that be?\u00a0 Then he formulated a hypothesis: could it be a plague?<\/p>\n A good example of his method is his long lasting enquiry into the strange case of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.\u00a0 Mackiewicz was initially of the opinion that Solzhenitsyn wrote in response to party\u2019s request.\u00a0 As time passed he became even more critical, stating that a book such as One Day in Life of Ivan Denisovich <\/em>implies a fundamental falsehood, since if one is allowed to speak about labour camps they must belong to the past; so, intentionally or not, Solzhenitsyn served the purpose of communist propaganda.\u00a0 Increasing indulgence shown by the authorities to Solzhenitsyn seemed in direct proportion to the radicalisation of his antisoviet rethoric.\u00a0 The First Circle <\/em>left Mackiewicz with a \u201cpowerful holistic image of horrifying, perfidious, grim, deceitful and hopeless sovietism\u2026<\/em>\u201d so he admitted to some puzzlement.\u00a0 He quoted many hypotheses, among others the famous theory of Nikolai Ulianov that Solzhenitsyn did not exist at all, but he rejected them all.\u00a0 The GULag Archipelago <\/em>complicated matters further since it was a \u201cwell aimed blow in the teeth of bolshevism, sovietism, communism, socialism in every form.\u201d\u00a0 Why would Moscow be so strangely lenient?\u00a0 After getting the Nobel Prize for Literature Solzhenitsyn was \u201cpunished\u201d with banishment and his pronouncements in the West attracted attention to an element less obvious in his books.<\/p>\n One of the most widely known authors in the world, not a pro-soviet writer, on the contrary, author of \u2018The GULag Archipelago\u2019 exclaims: do not touch the Soviet Union, do not try to destroy the Soviet system, whether by internal counterrevolution or external military force.\u00a0 Give them Peace.\u00a0 And wait until a \u2018moral revolution\u2019 triggers an \u2018ethical rebirth\u2019.\u00a0 I say this not from a propaganda tribune but from behind the barb wires of GULag!<\/em><\/p>\n Mackiewicz hypothesised that Solzhenitsyn became unintentionally an important tool of soviet provocation:<\/p>\n …more convincing the anticommunist stance of the preacher, the more effective the propaganda value of the final call: \u2018do not, under any circumstances, fight communism\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n In an instant he was accused of obsession and insanity.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth stressing though, that he only pointed out how an authentic anticommunist, like Solzhenitsyn, could be harnessed to the chariot of soviet provocation.\u00a0 Mackiewicz did not expect to find conspiracy, he merely tried to find answers to important questions, but when he arrived at a conclusion that he was dealing with a conspiracy he did not hesitate to name it.\u00a0 He acted in a similar manner when in 1943 he was invited to see the exhumation of graves in Katy\u0144.\u00a0 He spoke to criminologists before he travelled to Katy\u0144 and thus was able to ask the inconvenient question regarding the origin of ammunition used in executions.\u00a0 The ammunition was German, which Goebbels\u2019s propaganda machine tried to hide.\u00a0 I\u2019m only interested here in Mackiewicz\u2019s attitude, which could be summarised in the principle that healthy scepticism can only bring us closer to the truth.<\/p>\n Obviously, I am getting to the plane crash near Smolensk.<\/p>\n I am not surprised at the number of conspiracy theories, I\u2019m not shocked with accusations that soviets \u201ccommitted another mass murder on Poles\u201d; I just cannot see any proof for these suspicions.\u00a0 Would soviets be capable of such a crime?\u00a0 Without a doubt.\u00a0 They have the knowhow and the political will to undertake that kind of operation.\u00a0 Putin\u2019s men were ready to blow up their own citizens to strengthen his grip on power, why should they waver before killing 96 foreign citizens?\u00a0 However, the ability to complete an action does not prove that the action was completed.\u00a0 History knows examples of accidents less probable than a plane crash-landing in fog.<\/p>\n I admit that I have not studied the extensive literature attempting to prove the exact opposite but it all seems to me to be just that, i.e. literature, fiction.\u00a0 Having said that, there are still many unanswered questions regarding the causes of the crash and the sequence of events, as well as events immediately after the crash.\u00a0 In most civilised states, the hosts would be vitally interested in quick dispelling of any suspicions but soviets are not a state at all and surely not civilised, so they seem to be doing all within their powers to blow up the suspicions.\u00a0 It is possible that some conclusive evidence of the involvement of soviet special forces in the crash is going to come to light in the future but, bearing in mind the total soviet monopoly on any information regarding this case, I would be inclined to scepticism with regards to such news because soviets are past masters of manipulation \u2013 which makes it even more important to inquire about the causes of their odd behaviour.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s examine their modus operandi.\u00a0 How did the soviet propaganda machine react to the accusation of Katy\u0144 murders?\u00a0 They denied it for half a century, they muddied the waters, they threw counteraccusations (J\u00f3zef Mackiewicz was an expert of this long lasting propaganda war).\u00a0 How did Putin react to the accusations that he arranged the bomb attacks and especially the abortive attack in Riazan in September 1999?\u00a0 Those asking inconvenient questions were silenced, witnesses disappeared, journalists and politicians died in unexplained circumstances and the records of \u201cRiazan training exercises\u201d were made secret for the next 75 years.<\/p>\n And how did the soviets react to the Smolensk crash?\u00a0 In my opinion they are doing everything they can to rouse as much conspiracy speculation as possible.\u00a0 But why?\u00a0 An article by one Georgi Gordin has recently been circulating in the blogosphere.\u00a0 This is how he interprets the case:<\/p>\n It is well known that the “investigation” into the disaster is directed by the same people who organised the crash and had sent the special forces to \u201cclean up\u201d the area of survivors. \u00a0\u201cResults of investigation” conducted by people whose main task was to cover up evidence, is predictable. \u00a0When killers are in charge of investigation the perpetrators are likely to remain undetected. <\/em>[1]<\/p>\n What we have here is a classic method of soviet agit-prop: the thesis, which one would normally need to prove, is actually used as the minor premise; we thus have \u201cpeople who organised the crash\u201d and \u201ccleaned up the area of survivors\u201d, as proof that the investigation is spurious.\u00a0 I do not need to add that \u201cGordin\u201d is a pseudonym, so we have no more than an anonymous statement.\u00a0 \u201cGordin\u201d looks very much like a rerun of the \u201cmasked witness\u201d who was paraded before the US Congress Committee investigating the Katy\u0144 Forest Massacre so we must be sceptical as to such \u201crevelations\u201d.<\/p>\n We have on one hand well founded doubts whether the crash was really an accident, on the other, no reliable information from the soviets.\u00a0 We can easily imagine that such information vacuum can only be filled with speculation so it is legitimate to suspect that this speculation is what the soviets wanted.\u00a0 But why?\u00a0 Why would they add fuel to the fire that was likely to burn anyway?\u00a0 How can they possibly benefit?\u00a0 Conspiracy theories would have cropped up even if the investigation was conducted in most open manner, even if the content of the black box was published immediately etc.\u00a0 The public reaction in Poland was the easiest to predict: universal mourning and elevation of Lech Kaczy\u0144ski to the level of a national hero and a martyr, regardless of the fact that he took part in the Magdalenka talks in 1988-89 (i.e. secret talks with communists, which laid the foundations for the false revolutions in Eastern Europe).\u00a0 My first reaction to the catastrophe was that it will further muddy the waters \u2013 already hopelessly muddied \u2013 of the alleged sovereignty of contemporary Poland and this seems to have happened.\u00a0 Even the excellent Jadwiga Chmielowska, who until recently had no qualms about calling today\u2019s \u201cpolish people\u2019s republic no 2\u201d by its proper name, decided that yours truly must be a mole\u2026\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m in The Underground \u2013 what else is left for me to do?\u00a0 But in my eyes attack on the current \u201cpolish people\u2019s republic\u201d cannot amount to an attack on Poland because that would be a contradiction in terms.\u00a0 The \u201cstate\u201d of which Lech Kaczy\u0144ski was a president, is no more than a continuation of the earlier soviet creation, so if it is true that the soviets murdered all passengers of the presidential plane, than we must ask: to what purpose?\u00a0 Perhaps we could find an answer in \u201cGordin\u2019s\u201d essay?<\/p>\n Lech Kaczynski was relatively safe, as long as Putin did not pick a “Polish Yanukovych\u201d \u2013 the moronic \u201cfriend of Russia\u201d, Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk. \u00a0From that moment on, the chekist leadership could think of only one thing: how to clear the way for its puppet or someone similar from the same group of “friends of Russia.” […]<\/em><\/p>\n And none of the self-satisfied middle-class will remember the true face of Putin when, in a fit of unconcealed rage, he promised to “hang by the balls,” the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. \u00a0He said this in the presence of Western leaders. \u00a0No one will remember Putin\u2019s sincere regret that he failed to poison Viktor Yushchenko, president of Ukraine \u2013 a country which, according to Putin’s public statement, “does not exist.” <\/em><\/p>\n Let\u2019s leave aside the thesis that Kaczy\u0144ski\u2019s murder would somehow clear the way for Tusk, as this is indeed too absurd: Kaczy\u0144ski was not a favourite to win the forthcoming presidential election, and now his brother is.\u00a0 \u201cGordin\u201d is attempting to smuggle a different hypothesis here, namely, that the 1989-91 revolutions \u2013 together with the later pink, orange or chartreuse revolutions \u2013 were authentic events; that as a result of all those colourful revolutionary movements emerged a free Georgia and a free Ukraine, which are both hostile to Putin\u2019s \u201cRussia\u201d.\u00a0 In reality, these are creatures of the same nature as the \u201cpolish people\u2019s republic no 2\u201d, with limited sovereignty replicating the template of the famous \u201cuk\u0142ad\u201d [2] created in Magdalenka in 1989.\u00a0 It is true to say that Lech Kaczy\u0144ski was a critic of the \u201cuk\u0142ad\u201d but he also happened to be its \u2026 signatory, which perhaps explains why he did so little to destroy it.\u00a0 When Putin speaks publicly about Saakashvili or Yushchenko, he is well aware of the impact his words will have: they will strengthen the impression of their independence.\u00a0 This is the same old formula as used by soviets many times before; the same method was used by Khrushchev to build the myth of Gomu\u0142ka\u2019s independence and again by Brezhnev with Ceausescu.<\/p>\n In the contemporary version of the soviet union, which for some inexplicable reason everyone wishes to call \u201cRussia\u201d, we have a creature ready to assassinate 96 passengers of a plane but, by the same token, equally ready to take advantage of an accident.\u00a0 I have no idea whether this was an accident or a cold blooded murder, so I keep an open mind.\u00a0 More important to my way of thinking is the analysis of potential benefits soviets could reap from this situation regardless<\/span> of whether they perpetrated the act or not.\u00a0 It is my duty to point out that elevation of a signatory of the infamous \u201cuk\u0142ad\u201d to the role of a national saint cannot possibly damage the soviet cause, just as anticommunist statements of Solzhenitsyn could not harm them that much.<\/p>\n Nothing other than healthy scepticism tells me that I ought not to believe in the \u201ccollapse of communism\u201d malarkey, tells me to be cautious with regards to \u201cformer\u201d apparatchiks parading as anticommunists.\u00a0 Scepticism is a rational stance, it is an essential frame of mind for anyone who wishes to verify any hypothesis.\u00a0 A thinking man must be sceptical whenever confronted with any hypothesis.\u00a0 Thanks to our sceptical approach we can state that there are enough clues suggesting that Storm in Moscow <\/em>was an intricately planned and clumsily executed kgb operation aimed at fanning the flames of conflict in the Caucasus and the elevation of a kgb officer to the role of \u201cRussian president\u201d.\u00a0 The same scepticism, which informs my cautiousness towards alleged anticommunism of people such as Yushchenko, tells me to be wary of the Smolensk catastrophe.<\/p>\n ________<\/p>\n