Dealing with the Communist Past or the Politics of the Present? Lustration in Post-Communist Poland

Abstract

THE QUESTION OF HOW TO DEAL with a previous non-democratic regime's former functionaries is not unique to the post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. All newly emerging democracies face a similar challenge of how to deal with what Huntington calls the 'torturer problem and in recent years various forms of purge have accompanied most political system transformations.2 The new post-communist democracies also had several options available to them when deciding how (if at all) to pursue historical justice and deal with their communist past. These included: the return of property that had been expropriated by the state to its original owners or their descendants, using criminal proceedings to bring prominent or representative former leaders to justice and opening up secret files for public inspection. One particular means of coming to terms with the past that has been a focus of political controversy in many of the post-communist states is lustration: the systematic vetting of public officials for links with the communist-era security services.3 Although the terms 'lustration' and 'de-communisation' are often used interchangeably, it is important to distinguish between actions directed against former functionaries of and collaborators with the state security apparatus and broader attempts to prevent former communist party members (generally above a certain rank) from holding certain public offices. In the strict sense of the word, only the latter can be accurately described as 'de-communisation'. It is also important to draw a distinction between simply vetting or screening individuals for past associations with the communist security services without any sanction necessarily following (other than the damage to their reputation that the disclosure of this information could cause) and then attempting to automatically exclude them from public life on the basis of such links. The most radical example of this kind of action in the former communist states, that combined elements of both vetting and exclusion from certain public offices for both secret service functionaries and communist party officials, was the 1990 Czechoslovak lustration law (subsequently applied in the Czech Republic but not Slovakia). All those who served as officers and agents of the communist security services or as communist party officials from district level upwards were excluded from around 9000 posts in government and public administration, the military, the