Communist-forgiving or Communist-purging?: Public Attitudes towards Transitional Justice and Truth Revelation in Post-1989 Poland

Abstract

While Poles generally supported a radical approach towards truth revelation, on its own the issue did not appear to be especially salient. Poles wanted to move on from debates about the communist past and felt that the process of achieving transitional justice was a potentially destructive one. However, they also felt that they had a right to know about the past of their political elites and that collaboration with the communist security services was an especially reprehensible form of pro-regime activity. Moreover, in the public mind truth revelation was often considered in conjunction with other, more salient issues.