Tadeusz Mazowiecki - "Thick Line"

"Thick Line"

In 1989, in his first parliamentary speech in Sejm, Mazowiecki talked about a "thick line" (gruba linia): "We draw a thick line on what has happened in the past. We will answer for only what we have done to help Poland to rescue her from this crisis from now on". Originally, as Mazowiecki explains, it meant non-liability of his government for damages done to the national economy by previous governments.

Media led by Adam Michnik's left-leaning Gazeta Wyborcza later called this term as a "thick stroke" (gruba kreska), essentially crossing out the communist past and going easy on the misdoings of the communists. Unlike in the Czech Republic or Germany, former communists were permitted to run for office without penalty, even when they had security police connections or muddled contacts with foreign states, with lustration process being much delayed. Nowadays, this citation is widely used to describe alleged forbearance of the government of that time for former activists of the Polish People's Republic and security services subordinated to them. In a conversation with Michael Szporer, Mazowiecki defends himself claiming that the fledgling Solidarity government had great difficulty manuvering because of the existing negotiated status quo with key ministries in the hands of the communists and a very real possibility of a reaction, such as a second martial law. During Mazowiecki's government, the Department of Interior and the Department of Defense were still controlled by the regime's apparatchik, and the Secret Political Police, under surveillance of Minister Czesław Kiszczak, continually spied on that part of the democratic opposition which was against the agreements of the Round Table and was able to destroy parts of its own archives. Just few months after Mazowiecki took office of the Prime Minister, Secret Political Police was dissolved and Czesław Kiszczak resigned his post.