The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lech Walesa, in state, calls for toppling of Russia
HARTFORD — A newlywed couple sitting in the balcony at the Infinity Music Hall gave special meaning to the talk they came to hear Tuesday night, by Lech Walesa, the union electrician who formed the Solidarity movement in Poland and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights struggle against the Soviet Union.
Now, a generation after Walesa’s name became a synonym for freedom, the young couple — refugees from the Ukraine war who arrived in Connecticut last month — heard the 78-yearold statesman call for more help from the United States in defeating the Russian invasion.
And Walesa took his call far, far beyond that.
“It’s not enough for Ukraine to defeat Russia militarily,” Walesa said at a conversation sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Connecticut. “Unless we really put the right order in Russia, Russia will rise up within five to 10 years and will constitute a threat to democracy again.”
Even the complete reformation of Russia is not enough progress for Walesa, president of Poland from 1990 to 1995. No, the visionary of revolution, acknowledging that role without false modesty, declared the world is on the cusp of a “new era” — driven by technology, unfettered by national interests, based on neither communism nor capitalism, but built on free markets.
“The era of divisions has collapsed. The new era of information, intellect and globalization has appeared. And we have been left behind in between the two,” Walesa declared, speaking to a crowd of about 200, through an interpreter, with moderator Megan Clark Torrey, CEO of the World Affairs Council chapter.
“The new thing has not appeared yet.”
What does that new era look like? That’s the task of 21st century civilization, to figure it out or perish. “First, we have to really reach a consensus on the values and principles,” he said, “like the Ten Commandments.”
Laughter amid tragedy
If he weren’t an elder world statesman running the Lech Walesa Institute, this mischievous guy with a broad, white mustache could try his hand at standup comedy. Speaking of all the broken systems in the world, he quipped, “There is only one structure that can continue being effective in the world. That is traffic regulations.”
On a U.S. tour to raise money for refugee relief and raise resolve against Russia, he takes shots at the left and especially the right, and about political culture itself, gallows humor at a grave moment. “Whenever two Polish people meet they will always establish at least three political parties.”
Walesa railed against the “populist, demagogue” right-wing government in Poland, which he said has violated the constitutional separation of powers and illegally impeded news outlets. That’s why he was wearing a T-shirt with bold letters spelling out “Constitution” in Polish.
Walesa wore the same T-shirt under a blazer Monday night at an event at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, which has an exhibit of the Kociuszko Squadron of Polish aviators. There he met Gov. Ned Lamont and was greeted in Polish by Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz.
“It’s an honor to have Lech Walesa in Connecticut because we have the third highest number of Polish Americans of any state in the country,” said Bysiewicz, who speaks just a few words of the language; her grandparents immigrated from the central European nation.
Bysiewicz, in an interview Tuesday, said it’s notable that Walesa wore that t-shirt for two reasons. “We are the Constitution state and here we are a a time when constitutional issues are under attack.”
‘The final blow to Russia’
As Walesa spoke, the U.S. House of Representatives was approving a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine, with outside opposition led by Donald Trump Jr. Walesa didn’t mention U.S. politics in his talk, but he did in an interview with me, without prodding.
“My message with this T-shirt is, do not underestimate elections,” he said, “Polish people ... allowed demagogues and populists to win power, where in this country you allowed Trump to win power, which was a misfortune.”
On stage, vowing to wear the T-shirt until the administration in Poland halts its violations, he paused for another laugh line — “I brought 10 Tshirts, so don’t worry” — but never strayed from his main point about the latest crisis being a chance for world leaders, Germany in Europe and the United States globally, to push dramatic reforms toward eradicating evil.
“So here is my appeal to you. United States, take advantage of the opportunity that has been given to us,” he implored.
The immediate crisis, of course, is the war itself, which has sent 3 million refugees over the Ukraine border to Poland, with many more to come — and Poland is doing all it can, he said, as the world responds.
“So help us give the final blow to Russia,” Walesa said. “The question to me now is whether we will stay united strongly enough for this new concept of the world to prevail.”
He paid homage to his close friend, the late David Chase, a Holocaust survivor who became a multimillionaire global investor in Hartford and was a major supporter, setting up a Solidarity bank in reformist Poland. Walesa’s biggest worry, in answer to Torrey’s question: Letting this opportunity slip away. That happened when he was president of Poland, he said, looking for more U.S. aid.
“I would be begging, please, give us your generals,” he said. “I mean General Motors, General Electric. … That’s why I lost my election, because I wasn’t successful economically.”
Is the dream realistic?
How about that new world era? I asked the young refugee couple, Simon Bobrovskii, who exited Russia for Kyiv, Ukraine, where he was working as a hearing aid technician when the war broke out, and Daria Sakhniuk, a dental clinic manager from Kyiv.
They married in a refugee camp in Mexico before they were brought to Connecticut by Dana Bucin, a Hartford immigration lawyer from Romania working with Ukraine refugees — who is looking for more hosts.
Walesa’s vision of a new world era is realistic, Bobrovskii said, based on “the will of the people to live in peace together...it’s not a distant dream.”
No, his new wife said, “It’s utopia. It’s not real for this time, for now.”
Attorney Peter G. Kelly, chairman of the World Affairs Council and retired from Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, helped write the post-Soviet Polish constitution during Walesa’s presidency and helped former Russian president Boris Yeltsin reform the judiciary, only to see Vladimir Putin undo the reforms.
Kelly said Walesa’s message about two superpowers facing off is poignant. “What he’s saying is that what we have now doesn’t work.”
And so Lech Walesa, introduced Tuesday night by Connecticut businessman Anthony Viscogliosi as an inspiration of our youth, keeps pushing 40 years later.
“Our civilization is maybe reaching the point at which it can be destroyed,” Walesa said. “Will we be able to move beyond this point, avoiding this? If we fail to do that then there will be a millennium with no light on this globe.”
Amazingly, at that moment he delivered another quip. I couldn’t hear it or make it out on my recording amid the laughs of Polish speakers in the audience as the interpreter said the line in English. No matter; it was the laughter of human resilience.