How to read the Polish secret police reports

From time to time, we'll publish sections of the Polish secret police reports as we did a short while ago. The question has come up about the significance of the Roman numerals in each case file entry. Here's what the Roman numerals mean:

I signifies "agents";
II signifies "persons under investigation," i.e., "human targets";
III signifies "investigative matters";
IV signifies "objects/buildings/institutions under investigation"; and
V denotes files of secret police functionaries.

As said earlier - and this is extremely important - the fact that an individual's name appears in the index of files in no way means that that individual is guilty of anything. Many of the people, as Roman numerals II, III and IV show, are likely to be completely innocent victims of the secret police. We must always keep this in mind when reading, analyzing or reporting on the secret police files.

The first hundred names

The bad guys won a victory May 11 when Poland's "Constitutional Tribunal" of a few appointed judges overrode parliament and decided that the law on vetting former communist collaborators and secret police agents was unconstitutional.

Moreover, the Tribunal closed the archives at the Institute of National Remembrance to scholars and journalists. Secret police documents are to remain secret until such time as a "fair" way of dealing with the agents is discovered.

It looks like another attempt by the old guard to help Poland's Soviet collaborators to remain burrowed throughout the country's civil society.

Fortunately, the KGB is not the only group that has the files. Some of us have had copies for quite a long time. To help Poland find a "fair" way of resolving the issue we will begin publishing the names on the list of several thousand agents, handlers, targets, and files of entire operations available at the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw.

Today we start with the first hundred names.

Cautionary note: This list is compiled from the archives of Poland's old Communist secret police. Such lists in other formerly Communist countries have been found to contain names of people who had been incorrectly or wrongly identified as secret police agents or collaborators. Many names on the list are of secret police targets (victims), rather than informants or collaborators; they are of individuals who were targeted for recruitment but who refused. They were still noted in the catalogue of assets, but must be considered innocent victims.

Consequently, this blog is not accusing the people whose names appear on the secret police list of being secret collaborators. Each person deserves a fair hearing and must be considered innocent until sufficient evidence of guilt is presented.

The list is categorized as follows:

The first line of each entry is the "Sygnatura" or file name. IPN signifies the Institute of National Remembrance. BU roughly signifies the Archival Office. The numerals indicate the file's call number.

On the next line, the numerals are designated as "Nr. mikro.," or "microfilm call number."

The third line contains the individual's name, usually the surname followed by the given names. In some instances, the names are cryptonyms.

Below the individual's name is the "Aktotworca," or the entity that created the file. For example, WUSW Kielce means the Provincial Office of Internal Affairs in Kielce. SUSW means the Capital City (i.e., Warsaw) Office of Internal Affairs. MSW refers to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The last line of several entries contains digits followed by a slash and what looks like the Roman numeral II. This is the "numer materialu" or internal call number of the documents assigned to the file by the secret police.

IPN BU 0770/1
1
MISZCZYK ANTONI
WUSW Kielce
51/II

IPN BU 0770/2
2
KWIATKOWSKI TADEUSZ
WUSW Kielce
2/II

IPN BU 0770/3
3
JABŁOŃSKI SATURN
WUSW Kielce
3/II

IPN BU 0770/4
4
BARCIK ANDRZEJ
WUSW Kielce
4/II

IPN BU 0770/5
5
OLEKSIK STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
5/II

IPN BU 0770/6
6
WÓJCIK JÓZEF
WUSW Kielce
11/II

IPN BU 0770/7
7
SIBILA FRANCISZEK
WUSW Kielce
13/II

IPN BU 0770/8
8
WAWRZAK STEFAN
WUSW Kielce
14/II

IPN BU 0770/9
9
LEWANDOWSKA KATARZYNA
WUSW Kielce
15/II

IPN BU 0770/10
10
SZELICHOCIŃSKI KAROL
WUSW Kielce
18/II

IPN BU 0770/11
11
SERAFIN WŁADYSŁAW
WUSW Kielce
19/II

IPN BU 0770/12
12
TOMASIKIEWICZ TADEUSZ
WUSW Kielce
21/II

IPN BU 0770/13
13
KAMIŃSKI HENRYK + 1
WUSW Kielce
22/II

IPN BU 0770/14
14
ŁUCZYŃSKI MICHAŁ
WUSW Kielce
25/II

IPN BU 0770/15
15
WIELOWIEJSKI JERZY
WUSW Kielce
27/II

IPN BU 0770/16
16
STĘPIEŃ PIOTR
WUSW Kielce
29/II

IPN BU 0770/17
17
GISZKO TADEUSZ
WUSW Kielce
30/II

IPN BU 0770/18
18
GRZEGORCZYK WŁADYSŁAW
WUSW Kielce
32/II

IPN BU 0770/19
19
SZENUAR HENRYK
WUSW Kielce
33/II

IPN BU 0770/20
20
TYBURSKI STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
34/II

IPN BU 0770/21
21
NĘDZIAK STEFAN
WUSW Kielce
35/II

IPN BU 0770/22
22
LASEK ADAM
WUSW Kielce
37/II

IPN BU 0770/23
23
KABAŁA TEODOE
WUSW Kielce
38/II

IPN BU 0770/24
24
PRZYGODA STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
39/II

IPN BU 0770/25
25
STOGA MIECZYSŁAW + 1
WUSW Kielce
41/II

IPN BU 0770/26
26
KSIĄŻEK RYSZARD
WUSW Kielce
42/II

IPN BU 0770/27
27
SERWATA STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
43/II

IPN BU 0770/28
28
SZKUTA ZYGMUNT
WUSW Kielce
44/II

IPN BU 0770/29
29
KOPANIA FRANCISZEK
WUSW Kielce
46/II

IPN BU 0770/30
30
MIĘTUS ADAM
WUSW Kielce
49/II

IPN BU 0770/31
31
ZAJĄC WŁADYSŁAW
WUSW Kielce
54/II

IPN BU 0770/32
32
KOŃCIK MIECZYSŁAW
WUSW Kielce
55/II

IPN BU 0770/33
33
DENAROWICZ TEODOR
WUSW Kielce
56/II

IPN BU 0770/34
34
KACZOR ANTONI + 1
WUSW Kielce
57/II

IPN BU 0770/35
35
PAWLENKO MIKOŁAJ
WUSW Kielce
58/II

IPN BU 0770/36
36
BOJKO ANDRZEJ
WUSW Kielce
60/II

IPN BU 0770/37
37
KUŁAGOWSKI FELIKS
WUSW Kielce
61/II

IPN BU 0770/38
38
IDZIK JAN
WUSW Kielce
62/II

IPN BU 0770/39
39
PRĘDKI JAN
WUSW Kielce
66/II

IPN BU 0770/40
40
KOŁODZIEJCZYK JÓZEF
WUSW Kielce
67/II

IPN BU 0770/41
41
PRYGIEL JAN
WUSW Kielce
68/II

IPN BU 0770/42
42
PIETRZYKOWSKI WITOLD
WUSW Kielce
72/II

IPN BU 0770/43
43
WRONA WŁADYSŁAW
WUSW Kielce
73/II

IPN BU 0770/44
44
SUWAŁA JAN
WUSW Kielce
77/II

IPN BU 0770/45
45
KALĘBASA KAZIMIERZ
WUSW Kielce
79/II

IPN BU 0770/46
46
CIESIELSKI FELIKS
WUSW Kielce
80/II

IPN BU 0770/47
47
KRAJEWSKI JAN
WUSW Kielce
82/II

IPN BU 0770/48
48
ĆWIEK WŁADYSŁAW + 1
WUSW Kielce
83/II

IPN BU 0770/49
49
SMUGA JÓZEF
WUSW Kielce
84/II

IPN BU 0770/50
50
SOCHACKI JÓZEF
WUSW Kielce
85/II

IPN BU 0770/51
51
MUSIAŁ MIECZYSŁAW
WUSW Kielce
86/II

IPN BU 0770/52
52
CECOTA HENRYK
WUSW Kielce
87/II

IPN BU 0770/53
53
GRADEK STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
88/II

IPN BU 0770/54
54
BABULA HENRYK
WUSW Kielce
89/II

IPN BU 0770/55
55
NATORSKI EDWARD + 1
WUSW Kielce
90/II

IPN BU 0770/56
56
NAPORA WACŁAW
WUSW Kielce
95/II

IPN BU 0770/57
57
DUDEK ADAM
WUSW Kielce
98/II

IPN BU 0770/58
58
ŻABA JAN
WUSW Kielce
100/II

IPN BU 0770/59
59
LEGODZIŃSKI MICHAŁ
WUSW Kielce
104/II

IPN BU 0770/60
60
LISICKI ROMAN
WUSW Kielce
106/II

IPN BU 0770/61
61
KAMIONKA WŁADYSŁAW
WUSW Kielce
107/II

IPN BU 0770/62
62
KUŚMIERZ TADEUSZ
WUSW Kielce
108/II

IPN BU 0770/63
63
TROLL FRANCISZEK
WUSW Kielce
109/II

IPN BU 0770/64
64
KOŁDEJ JÓZEF
WUSW Kielce
110/II

IPN BU 0770/65
65
OLSZEWSKI KAZIMIERZ
WUSW Kielce
111/II

IPN BU 0770/66
66
CHROST STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
120/II

IPN BU 0770/67
67
DYL JAN
WUSW Kielce
121/II

IPN BU 0770/68
68
PACHOLCZYK WŁADYSŁAW
WUSW Kielce
123/II

IPN BU 0770/69
69
WITKOWSKI JAN
WUSW Kielce
130/II

IPN BU 0770/70
70
BULLI KONSTANTY
WUSW Kielce
135/II

IPN BU 0770/71
71
ZAKRZEWSKI ALEKSANDER
WUSW Kielce
136/II

IPN BU 0770/72
72
CHOLEWA STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
137/II

IPN BU 0770/73
73
KOPEĆ JAN
WUSW Kielce
138/II

IPN BU 0770/74
74
KAWKA KAROL
WUSW Kielce
139/II

IPN BU 0770/75
75
JÓŹWIAK JÓZEF
WUSW Kielce
140/II

IPN BU 0770/76
76
FURGAN JÓZEF
WUSW Kielce
141/II

IPN BU 0770/77
77
WILCZYŃSKI STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
142/II

IPN BU 0770/78
78
DĄBEK LIDIA
WUSW Kielce
144/II

IPN BU 0770/79
79
ŻYCKI TADUESZ
WUSW Kielce
147/II

IPN BU 0770/80
80
BIERNAT EUGENIUSZ
WUSW Kielce
149/II

IPN BU 0770/81
81
SEREDY WACŁAW + 3
WUSW Kielce
150/II

IPN BU 0770/82
82
ROZPĘDOWSKI FRANCISZEK
WUSW Kielce
151/II

IPN BU 0770/83
83
KACA JAN
WUSW Kielce
152/II

IPN BU 0770/84
84
KUZKA EUGENIUSZ
WUSW Kielce
155/II

IPN BU 0770/85
85
ROZBORSKI BOLESŁAW
WUSW Kielce
156/II

IPN BU 0770/86
86
CHOŁUJ MARIAN + 3
WUSW Kielce
161/II

IPN BU 0770/87
87
ZIELONY ANTONI
WUSW Kielce
162/II

IPN BU 0770/88
88
PRZYGODZKI JÓZEF + 4
WUSW Kielce
163/II

IPN BU 0770/89
89
SITKOWSKI WACŁAW
WUSW Kielce
113/II

IPN BU 0770/90
90
WASILEWSKI MICHAŁ
WUSW Kielce
115/II

IPN BU 0770/91
91
TETELEWSKI JÓZEF
WUSW Kielce
116/II

IPN BU 0770/92
92
ADAMSKI STEFAN
WUSW Kielce
165/II

IPN BU 0770/93
93
CIAUS MARIAN
WUSW Kielce
169/II

IPN BU 0770/94
94
GRABEK STANISŁAW
WUSW Kielce
170/II

IPN BU 0770/95
95
PARADOWSKI FRANCISZEK
WUSW Kielce
172/II

IPN BU 0770/96
96
WOLSZCZAK ANTONI
WUSW Kielce
173/II

IPN BU 0770/97
97
DRAB STEFAN
WUSW Kielce
179/II

IPN BU 0770/98
98
WRONA STANISŁAW + 14
WUSW Kielce
174/II

IPN BU 0770/99
99
NOWAK ANTONI
WUSW Kielce
175/II

IPN BU 0770/100
100
BABIARZ FELIKS
WUSW Kielce
181/II

The original documentation of Jaruzelski's treason

Here is a copy of the original handwritten, secret document showing Jaruzelski's recruitment as a "secret informer," "secret collaborator," and ultimately as a rezident agent of Stalin's GRU military intelligence service.

The English translation appears in the post below. Click on the document image to enlarge.

Servant of Stalin

To mark the 25th anniversary of the imposition of communist martial law in Poland, we bring you a secret military police document regarding the recruitment of Wojciech Jaruzelski into the Soviet GRU (GZ IW), as an agent of Stalin, in 1946.

A copy of the original handwritten document accompanies this story, below. A translation follows:

Top secret

INFORMATION
regarding officers selected to work in the 2nd Bureau of the Supreme Commander [i.e., Military Information, Poland's GRU]

1. Lt. Col. Jeruzelski Wojciech, son of Wladyslaw, born in 1923 in Kurow, the County of Pulawy, a son of an estate manager. Before the war, he attended school. After 1939 he and his family escaped to Lithuania, where he worked as a farm laborer. In June 1941 he was evacuated along with his family to the Altai Krai, where he also worked as a laborer. In July 1943 he was mobilized to the Polish Army and has served with the armed forces since. His latest assignment is the chief of a department at the General Staff of the Land Forces.

He is our secret informer [t/inf] with a pseudonym "Wolski" recruited because of his patriotic convictions, while he served with the 5th Infantry Division, on March 23, 1946.

He is characterized as a valuable individual and a member of the [Communist] party.
A good secret collaborator, he is fit to become a rezydent [a plenipotentiary agent of the GRU].

We have no k/m [komprmaterialy] [i.e., no data compromising Jaruzelski].
(This is based upon data provided by the I Dept. of the GZIW [Central Directorate of Military Information -- GRU])....

Ten more ambassadors fall after Szlajfer

Just months after Poland's ambassador-designate to Washington resigned in disgrace after being exposed as a Soviet-era secret police collaborator, the new conservative government in Warsaw has launched a systematic purge of the diplomatic service.

The outgoing former communists had named Henryk Szlajfer, an ex-Trotskyist and secret police stukatch, as Poland's ambassador to the United States last spring when FourthWorldWar.com reported on the surviving index of Szlajfer's secret police file.

After protesting his innocence, Szlajfer finally confronted the facts and quit. The controversy ripped the lid off Poland's dirtiest secret: the protection and promotion of thousands of KGB-era collaborators at all levels of government.

President Lech Kasczynsk and Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, elected in September, haven't wasted any time in implementing a bold plan to rid their country, finally, of the individuals who served the Soviet collaborationist regimes.

The Foreign Ministry announced January 4 that it was sacking 10 ambassadors for being "linked to communist-era special services or to the communist party" of the old regime.

The Polish press reports that the ambassadors to be cashiered are posted in Algeria, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Israel, Lithuania, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom.

Has TASS taken over the AP's Warsaw bureau?

Here's how the Associated Press covered the story about post-nomenklatura Poland's decision to release the secret archives of the old Soviet Warsaw Pact military alliance. Four times in the first five paragraphs, AP blames Poland's new leaders for antagonizing Russia:

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland is risking further strains in relations with Russia by throwing open Cold War-era archives that include a 1979 Soviet retaliation plan that envisaged nuclear strikes on western European cities in the event of a war with NATO.

The map foresaw the nuclear annihilation of Poland and was dotted with red mushroom clouds over the German cities of Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart and the site of NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

It was revealed Friday by Polish Defense Minister Radek Sikorski, a staunch anti-communist who went into exile in Britain in the 1980s to oppose Poland's Moscow-backed communist rulers.

By declassifying some 1,700 volumes of a Soviet-led military bloc's files, Sikorski and Poland's other new conservative leaders risk antagonizing Russian leaders, who rue the loss of their superpower status with the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

"This could worsen Russian-Polish relations," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs. "At this point, there is no more destructive topic for Russian-Polish relations than the historic one." . . .

The November 29 byline of AP's Warsaw correspondent Ryan Lucas appears on the story.

Not a Soviet collaborator, Poland's new defense minister opens Warsaw Pact archives

Now that Poland has decided to cleanse its political leadership of former Soviet collaborators and communist secret police agents, it is doing what the country should have done more than a decade ago: Opening up the secret Warsaw Pact archives.

Defense Minister Radek Sikorski signed an order November 25 to release 1,700 volumes of Soviet bloc documents, including plans to destroy Belgium and parts of West Germany with nuclear weapons.

Files unearthed last spring showed that former military dictator Wojciech Jaruzelski, who was defense minister when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, was himself a longtime GRU Soviet military intelligence agent. Jaruzelski began his four-decade career of treason as one of Stalin's shock troops in the Soviet takeover of Poland after World War II.

For some reason, the late Kwasniewski regime didn't see fit to make those secrets known.

What else is out there?

Congratulations to our friend Radek Sikorski

Congratulations to our friend, Poland's new defense minister Radek Sikorski, and best wishes on implementation of Plan Zero.

We will watch carefully those who attempt to disrupt the new Polish government's plan to clean the security, defense and intelligence services of Soviet collaborators, human rights abusers and criminals.

And we will be sure to publish their names.

Let the revelations begin!

The Polish people's decisive rejection of the former Communists in the September 25 parliamentary elections could open the way to more systematic revelations about Soviet-era secret police collaborators.

Conservative and center-right parties won 305 of the 460 seats in the lower house of parliament, a strong win but not strong enough to un-do the constitution that the former Soviet collaborators wrote to protect themselves. Still, the new parliament can un-do many collaborationist laws.

A presidential vote is scheduled for October 9, with a conserative as the favored candidate.

Who's next?

Prime Minister Belka admits he signed collaboration document, but denies spying

Prime Minister Marek Belka made his communist secret police file public in a bid to show that he never collaborated, even though he admits he signed an agreement to spy.

President Aleksandr Kwaśniewski, a former Communist who has packed his government with secret police collaborators, says there is no reason for Belka to resign.

There is no evidence Belka ever served as a secret police collaborator. However, Polish news reports show that Belka did secretly sign an agreement to inform for the Jaruzelski regime.

Balka admits he signed the agreement 20 years ago, but called it a pro forma paper that any scholar or professional who traveled abroad under the Soviet-controlled regime. "I have signed the instruction and I didn't make a secret of it. But I did not treat it as a commitment to cooperate with secret services," he said, according to the Warsaw Business Journal.

Communists forged his file, Belka says

Insisting he is innocent of ever collaborating with the communist secret police, Prime Minister Marek Belka says that the chekists themselves forged the material in his 70-page file.

"The file the media is talking about isn’t mine, its full of documents fabricated by the communist secret service," Radio Polonia reports him as saying. "In legal terms, the whole matter makes a mockery of the law and my vetting case is closed."

The issue is a tricky one for all involved. The Communists were notorious for writing exaggerated and completely false reports in individuals' files, and many people across the former Soviet empire of Central and Eastern Europe were falsely accused when their files were made public.

For well over a decade, Polish politicians - especially the former communists - fought the creation of a lustration process that would handle the secret police archives in a legal and confidential manner, while screening out certain categories of collaborators with the former Soviet-controlled regime.

BBC: Belka lied

The BBC reports that Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka "lied when he said he did not sign anything agreeing to co-operate with the secret services."

Prior to visiting the United States in 1984, according to the Associated Press, Belka signed a document agreeing to inform the Soviet-controlled security and intelligence service if US intelligence officers approached him and to seek "potential informers" for the military regime of Wojciech Jaruzelski.

Poland's state-controlled PAP "news" agency says it saw Belka's classified file and that a final report says Belka gave the regime "no important information." He said he had been cleared of the charge by a special ombudsman and he considered the matter closed.

"It is sure that Belka signed a document agreeing to collaborate," said Donald Tusk of the opposition Civic Platform, According to Tusk, such an invididual "should not hold the post of prime minister."

Collaboration now a 'hot issue' in Poland, BBC says

"Any hint of collaboration with the communist secret police is the hot political issue now," the BBC's Adam Easton reports from Warsaw.

Belka says he might quit politics after secret police allegations

Facing near-certin political minority status after the upcoming elections, Prime Minister Marek Belka tells a radio station that he may resign from politics and withdraw from public life.

The Warsaw Business Journal, citing Rzeczpospolita and Gazeta Wyborcza, offers another insight: "One of the most probable reasons behind such an announcement from the Prime Minister is the issue of his file in the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) which was revealed to the Sejm Orlen Commission last week. Following allegations that Belka signed documents with the communist secret services, IPN president Leon Kieres is now considering whether to reveal the contents of the file to the public."

This blog appears twice in top 20 Google searches

This blog appears twice in Google's top 20 search results for the name "Szlajfer," concerning the controversy about the former communists picking a former secret police collaborator by that name as Poland's next ambassador to the United States.

COLLABORATION CONFIRMED: Szlajfer withdraws ambassador candidacy

Henryk Szlajfer has quit his candidacy to become Poland's ambassador to the United States after the Polish Institute of National Remembrance confirmed he was a secret police collaborator in the 1970s who spied on his friends.

Szlajfer continues to protest the allegations, which our companion blog, Fourth World War, first reported in the US on April 30.

Poland's Wiadomosci TV program reported Szlajfer's withdrawal on June 13, using images from this blog in its story. It also used images of documents from the Institute of National Remembrance, known by its Polish initials IPN.

The IPN announced that Szlajfer was an "operational contact" (kontakt operacyjny) in the 1970s with the cryptonym "Albin."

Szlajfer denies all, saying he would appeal the IPN court ruling. Even so, and despite approval from the Foreign Relations Committee of Poland's lower house of parliament and from the US State Department, he immediately withdrew as ambassador-designate to Washington.

This blog, Polish Collaborators, was created to cover the controversy that followed the original Szlajfer story on Fourth World War.

Institute denied Szlajfer victim status on June 9

Poland's Institute of National Remembrance denied Henryk Szlajfer "the status of a wronged person," or victim of communism, on June 9, according to Rzeczpospolita.

A BBC translation of the Rzeczpospolita article appears here.

Prime Minister: Decision on Szlajfer to come 'soon'

An official decision on what to do about ambassador-designate Henryk Szlajfer is coming "soon," after President Aleksandr Kwasniewski and Prime Minister Marek Belka review the controversy, the Associated Press reports from Warsaw.

According to AP, "allegations of communist-era collaboration have cast doubt over the pending appointment of Poland's new ambassador to the United States, the Foreign Ministry said" on July 14.

Prime Minister Belka told reporters that an official decision on Szlajfer will bome "soon."

Szlajfer asked Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld to "review" his nomination, in the words of AP, "after public allegations that in the 1970s he was a secret informer for the communist security forces."

IPN: Szlajfer spied on his friends Michnik & others

Disgraced former ambassador-designate Henryk Szlajfer, whose collaboration with the communist secret police was confirmed June 14, spied on his fellow "dissident" friends Adam Michnik, Jacek Kuron, Karol Modzelewski and others, according to Polish television.

Michnik's "dissident" activity was as a Communist of the Leon Trotsky strain, and under which Szlajfer gained his credentials as an opponent of Soviet rule. He and the others later drifted away from Trotskyism.

The Trotskyists opposed Poland's democratic and Christian underground movements that led to the rise of the Solidarity trade union and Pope John Paul II.

Wiadomosci TV program reports that Szlajfer "refused" victim-of-communism status that would have exonerated him of incriminating allegations in the Soviet-era archives.

Critics of this blog, including a former US ambassador, accused the blogger of Soviet-like behavior when breaking the story about Szlajfer and his Trotskyist past. (Editors: Keep in mind that the Soviets used the pejorative "Trotskyite" when describing disciples of Red Army founder Leon Trotsky, whom Stalin assassinated in 1940.)

Szlajfer never used victim status in his defense, and denies everything.

US Embassy in Warsaw wants another left-liberal to replace Szlajfer

Why does the State Department persist in warming to the Left?

With admitted secret police collaborator Henryk Szlajfer quitting his all-but-certain appointment as ambassador to the United States, it appears that the US Embassy in Warsaw is quietly pushing for another left-liberal to take his place: Jerzy Kozminski, who served as Poland's envoy in Washington during the Clinton administration.

Kozminski currently has a cushy job heading a US-sponsored foundation in Poland, raking in a salary of more than $100,000 a year - by Polish standards a fortune - and some doubt that he will accept the post. Others are betting that he will, anticipating an electoral victory of conservative and center-right political parties in the upcoming parliamentary presidential elections. Then, Polish observers say, Kozminski will be out of his foundation job - but if the former Communists can name him ambassador before the elections, he will be set for the next few years.

Documents show Jaruzelski also snitched on fellow officers

After being recruited as an agent of Soviet GRU military intelligence, Poland's future dictator Wojciech Jaruzelski spied on his fellow officers, according to a document from the Stasi of the former East Germany.

As this blog reported on June 8, Jaruzelski joined Stalin's GRU legion in 1946.

This blogger has since learned that a Stasi report generated on March 14, 1986 showed that Captain Czeslaw Kiszczak recruited Jaruzelski in 1952 to snitch on his friends and colleagues at the General Staff Academy.

When ruling Poland under martial law in the 1980s, Jaruzelski named his former recruiter, now-General Kiszczak, to be his Minister of Internal Affairs.

Jaruzelski agreed to betray his military comrades apparently while the Communist military leadership had sought to purge him for his "bourgeous roots." The Stasi material indicates that Kiszczak saved his career by showing proof of Jaruzelski's faithful service to the Soviet Union's Josef Stalin.

Stalin died in early 1953. Russian strongman Vladimir Putin decorated Jaruzelski in May, 2005, for his World War II service to the Soviet cause.

Traitor: Archives show Jaruzelski was Soviet GRU agent

Former Polish dicator Wojciech Jaruzelski, the military general whose imposition of martial law in 1981 failed to snuff out the pro-freedom movement in his country, was an agent of Soviet GRU military intelligence, archives show.

News of his secret collaboration with Stalin comes after the 81 year-old Jaruzelski said he wanted to set up a "truth commission" with former Solidarity leader and Polish President Lech Walesa to serve as an "independent" and "objective" platform for researching the country's troubled history.

He didn't like Walesa's proposal to have a commission under the control of the National Remembrance Institute, which looks unfavorably on the decades of Soviet rule.

Jaruzelski became a GRU agent shortly after World War II ended but before his country was under total Soviet control, according to remnants of his file which Polish researchers recently discovered.

According to the file, the GRU formally recruited Jaruzelski, whose cryptonym was "Wolski," on March 23, 1946.

As with many Soviet files, the name is misspelled, but according to Polish sources the file is definitely that of the former dictator. Jaruzelski's name is misspelled According to a biographical note compiled by an intelligence officer, Jaruzelski "Jeruzelski Wojciech."

The GRU termed Jaruzelski "a good secret collaborator, fit to be a resident" (dobry tajny współpracownik, nadający się na rezydenta).

A "resident" or rezident, in Soviet jargon, is head of a "residency" (rezidentura), the chief of a KGB or GRU station abroad. The use of the word in the Jaruzelski file appears to refer to him as a potential leader of other secret collaborators.

The Soviets physically ran Polish military intelligence (Informacja Wojskowa) at the time, using GRU and Chekist officers, and essential documents in the nominally Polish service were generally written in Russian.

Despite the enthusiasm with which the US wishes to embrace Poland as one of the most reliable of NATO allies, the failure of Poland to de-Sovietize the current WSW military intelligence service presents continued, if unspoken, confidence problems.

It is unclear when - if ever - Jaruzelski stopped being a Soviet GRU agent.

Jaruzelski angry that Poles question his patriotism

"Suggestions that [Jaruzelski] is anything but a [Polish] patriot provoke a quick and angry reaction" from the longtime Soviet collaborator, the Associated Press reports.

Before the recent news that Jaruzelski's communist-era archive show that he became a secret collaborator with Stalin's GRU military intelligence in 1946, the former dictator made headlines of his own in Russia when

Since his seizure of power in 1981, Jaruzelski claimed he acted not as a repressor of his people or traitor to his country, but as a selfless patriot to prevent a Soviet invasion during the political disintegration of the Polish communist party.

Jaruzelski joined the Soviet-controlled Polish resistance army during World War II after he and his family were deported to Siberia, where his father died. Despite what the Soviets did to his family, Jaruzelski continued after the war as a servant of Stalin.

Patriotic Poles joined the democratic resistance army allied with the British and the United States.

AP reported on May 23 that "lashed out at the most recent attack against him – a threat by right-wing politicians to strip him of his general's rank and pension for behavior they deemed too pro-Moscow during his visit to Russia for the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II."

In the mid-1990s, the Polish parliament cleared Jaruzelski of having violated the constitution by overthrowing the civilian communist regime and placing the country under his military rule. The parliament was dominated by former communists who had their own Soviet collaboration to account for. It passed laws making it a crime to reveal the identities of people who secretly collaborated with Stalin and his successors during the Soviet occupation.

Jaruzelski is now on trial - stalled in a legal system that remains corrupted by collaborationist judges - for the 1970 killings of shipyard workers, when he ran the military as defense minister.

Putin gave medal to Jaruzelski for collaborationist service

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin presented former Polish dictator Wojciech Jaruzelski with a World War II service medal during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of V-E Day.

While in Moscow receiving the Kremlin award, Jaruzelski gave interviews with the Russian media recalling his family's deportation to Siberia during the Stalin years, and, according to AP, "was quoted recalling the 'warmth of the Siberian soil.'"

AP reported on May 23, "Jaruzelski says he was quoted out of context, his voice quivering with anger at accusations that his loyalties were and remain with Moscow rather than with his own people."

"'This is such wickedness,' he said, his voice rising with emotion. 'Such a big problem was made of this, that I am not worthy of the name of a Pole.'"