WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are unpacking 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:05.960 a story that, honestly, if you wrote it as a 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:08.759 movie script, I think a Hollywood studio would 00:00:08.759 --> 00:00:11.339 reject it for being too unrealistic. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:11.580 --> 00:00:13.000 It's just a little too on the nose. The plot 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:16.260 points are almost too perfect in their absurdity. 00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:18.820 Right. We're talking about a man who started 00:00:18.820 --> 00:00:22.699 out as a simple electrician. A guy with, you 00:00:22.699 --> 00:00:25.730 know... Zero higher education, who spent his 00:00:25.730 --> 00:00:29.070 days wiring fuse boxes. Fixing cars. And somehow, 00:00:29.190 --> 00:00:31.769 this guy becomes the global face of the anti 00:00:31.769 --> 00:00:34.689 -communist movement, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 00:00:34.689 --> 00:00:36.909 and the first democratically elected president 00:00:36.909 --> 00:00:39.609 of Poland since 1926. It's one of those life 00:00:39.609 --> 00:00:42.009 trajectories that just shouldn't exist, statistically. 00:00:42.210 --> 00:00:44.009 If you look at the history of revolutions, or 00:00:44.009 --> 00:00:46.729 even just state building, you usually see a certain 00:00:46.729 --> 00:00:49.969 type emerge. The intellectual. The general. Exactly. 00:00:50.390 --> 00:00:53.250 You see the lawyer like a Robespierre or a Lincoln. 00:00:53.409 --> 00:00:56.570 You see the general, your Washingtons, your Napoleons. 00:00:56.649 --> 00:00:59.270 You get the writer, the philosopher. You very, 00:00:59.310 --> 00:01:02.630 very rarely see a guy who just a few years before 00:01:02.630 --> 00:01:04.450 he's shaking hands with the president of the 00:01:04.450 --> 00:01:07.849 United States was literally jumping over a fence 00:01:07.849 --> 00:01:10.010 to get into a shipyard. We are, of course, talking 00:01:10.010 --> 00:01:12.549 about La Quixota. Yeah. And I think to really 00:01:12.549 --> 00:01:15.310 grasp the weight of this, we need to strip away 00:01:15.310 --> 00:01:18.269 that. icon status for a second and just look 00:01:18.269 --> 00:01:20.709 at the stakes. Yeah. We aren't talking about 00:01:20.709 --> 00:01:24.909 a union boss negotiating for like better dental 00:01:24.909 --> 00:01:26.810 coverage for his workers. We're talking about 00:01:26.810 --> 00:01:28.950 Cold War Poland. We're talking about the Soviet 00:01:28.950 --> 00:01:31.230 bloc. And we are talking about a movement solidarity 00:01:31.230 --> 00:01:36.250 that grew to 10 million members. Which is a number 00:01:36.250 --> 00:01:37.950 that is just so hard to wrap your head around. 00:01:38.090 --> 00:01:40.930 To put that in perspective for a modern context, 00:01:41.170 --> 00:01:43.189 that was over a quarter of the entire Polish 00:01:43.189 --> 00:01:45.189 population at the time. A quarter of the population. 00:01:45.329 --> 00:01:47.890 Imagine a movement today in the United States 00:01:47.890 --> 00:01:51.129 having 80 or 90 million active card -carrying 00:01:51.129 --> 00:01:54.640 members. That is the scale of social mobilization 00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:56.719 we are dealing with. It wasn't just, you know, 00:01:56.739 --> 00:02:00.239 a political party. It was a societal tidal wave. 00:02:00.420 --> 00:02:03.180 It's massive. But here's why we're doing this 00:02:03.180 --> 00:02:07.079 deep dive today. Lectua Josa is... Well, he's 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:10.479 messy. He is complicated. That's putting it mildly. 00:02:10.539 --> 00:02:12.819 He is the hero who jumped the fence, yes. But 00:02:12.819 --> 00:02:15.139 he's also the controversial president who arguably 00:02:15.139 --> 00:02:17.620 didn't really know how to govern. He's the Nobel 00:02:17.620 --> 00:02:19.960 laureate who later in life made some truly... 00:02:20.879 --> 00:02:23.639 bizarre comments about minorities. And this is 00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:26.259 the big one. He is the subject of a spy thriller 00:02:26.259 --> 00:02:28.860 subplot involving secret police files that has 00:02:28.860 --> 00:02:31.199 been running for 40 years. That's the mission 00:02:31.199 --> 00:02:33.300 for today. We aren't here to polish the statue. 00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:35.400 We want to look at the cracks. We have a massive 00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:37.520 stack of source material, biographical records, 00:02:37.740 --> 00:02:39.819 investigation files from the Institute of National 00:02:39.819 --> 00:02:42.219 Remembrance, political analyses. We are going 00:02:42.219 --> 00:02:44.520 to try to figure out how the hero, the politician 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:46.580 and the alleged informant can all be the same 00:02:46.580 --> 00:02:48.860 person. To unpack the man behind the legend. 00:02:49.520 --> 00:02:52.180 Exactly. So let's get into it. I'm going to rewind 00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:54.900 all the way back. Because usually when you read 00:02:54.900 --> 00:02:57.479 biographies of great leaders, there's this sense 00:02:57.479 --> 00:03:00.939 of destiny, or at least a privileged upbringing 00:03:00.939 --> 00:03:03.460 that prepares them for power. Right. There's 00:03:03.460 --> 00:03:06.539 a path. But where Raz's start wasn't just humble. 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:09.400 It was genuinely traumatic. It was incredibly 00:03:09.400 --> 00:03:13.039 rough. He was born in 1943 in a village called 00:03:13.039 --> 00:03:15.159 Popowell. Now you have to pause on that date. 00:03:15.670 --> 00:03:19.069 1943. This is the dead center of World War II. 00:03:19.229 --> 00:03:21.949 In Poland. In Poland. It is arguably the worst 00:03:21.949 --> 00:03:24.629 place in time to be born in the entire 20th century. 00:03:24.810 --> 00:03:27.050 The country is under brutal Nazi occupation. 00:03:27.310 --> 00:03:28.830 And his family had already been shattered before 00:03:28.830 --> 00:03:30.770 he even took his first breath. They had. His 00:03:30.770 --> 00:03:33.210 father, Bleszow, was a carpenter, just a regular 00:03:33.210 --> 00:03:35.530 guy. But before Leisch was even born, the German 00:03:35.530 --> 00:03:38.129 occupying forces rounded him up. He was sent 00:03:38.129 --> 00:03:40.810 to a forced labor camp called Muniek. Now, this 00:03:40.810 --> 00:03:42.750 wasn't just a prison, right? No, not at all. 00:03:42.930 --> 00:03:45.030 You have to understand, Muniek was an outpost. 00:03:45.069 --> 00:03:47.389 hosted the Stutthof concentration camp system. 00:03:47.669 --> 00:03:51.110 So the conditions were just horrific. We're talking 00:03:51.110 --> 00:03:55.330 starvation, rampant disease, brutal, back -breaking 00:03:55.330 --> 00:03:57.629 labor. So Leach never really knew his father. 00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:00.599 Not really, no. Baleso actually survived the 00:04:00.599 --> 00:04:03.159 camp itself, which is, I mean, a statistical 00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:05.819 miracle. He came home after the war, but he was 00:04:05.819 --> 00:04:08.500 a broken man. The source material is clear on 00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:10.599 this. He was completely destroyed by the experience. 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:13.259 Physically and mentally. Completely. The exhaustion 00:04:13.259 --> 00:04:16.699 and the illness he contracted in the camp, it 00:04:16.699 --> 00:04:18.519 killed him just two months after he got back. 00:04:18.959 --> 00:04:21.800 Leach was an infant, so he grew up in the shadow 00:04:21.800 --> 00:04:23.819 of that loss with the story of what happened 00:04:23.819 --> 00:04:25.819 to his father. That has to shape your worldview. 00:04:26.379 --> 00:04:29.620 It's not an abstract political idea. It's knowing 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:33.300 that an authoritarian regime literally worked 00:04:33.300 --> 00:04:35.720 your father to death. It absolutely instills 00:04:35.720 --> 00:04:37.980 a deep seated, you know, personal resentment 00:04:37.980 --> 00:04:40.639 of that kind of authority. He was raised primarily 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:43.339 by his mother, Felixa, and later a stepfather. 00:04:43.660 --> 00:04:45.680 And if you look at the psychological profiles 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:48.379 and the source material we have. Everyone points 00:04:48.379 --> 00:04:50.459 to Felixa. She was the core of the family. She 00:04:50.459 --> 00:04:52.759 was the one who shaped his tenacity, stubbornness. 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:55.519 She taught him that you don't back down. But 00:04:55.519 --> 00:04:57.540 you have to understand, this wasn't a let's sit 00:04:57.540 --> 00:04:59.699 around and discuss political philosophy kind 00:04:59.699 --> 00:05:02.180 of household. No, it was about survival. It was 00:05:02.180 --> 00:05:04.920 a survival household, pure and simple. So he 00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:06.660 went to vocational school. That was the path. 00:05:06.899 --> 00:05:09.800 He graduated as a qualified electrician in 1961. 00:05:10.279 --> 00:05:12.660 Then worked as a car mechanic. Did his mandatory 00:05:12.660 --> 00:05:15.610 two years in the military. It all sounds like 00:05:15.610 --> 00:05:18.329 a very standard, very blue -collar life in the 00:05:18.329 --> 00:05:20.550 People's Republic of Poland. It was. For a while, 00:05:20.589 --> 00:05:22.350 he was just a guy trying to get by, trying to 00:05:22.350 --> 00:05:25.750 make a living. But in 1967, he lands the job 00:05:25.750 --> 00:05:27.750 that sets the stage for everything that follows. 00:05:27.949 --> 00:05:30.569 He starts working as an electrician at the Lenin 00:05:30.569 --> 00:05:34.110 Shipyard in Gdysk. The Lenin Shipyard. I always 00:05:34.110 --> 00:05:37.310 find that irony so delicious. It is perfect, 00:05:37.370 --> 00:05:39.170 isn't it? The shipyard named after the father 00:05:39.170 --> 00:05:41.889 of communism. becomes the birthplace of the movement 00:05:41.889 --> 00:05:44.129 that ultimately destroys it. History loves a 00:05:44.129 --> 00:05:46.389 good joke. But we have to be really clear here. 00:05:46.610 --> 00:05:49.230 He didn't just walk into the shipyard in 67 and 00:05:49.230 --> 00:05:51.149 start a revolution. He was a worker. He was doing 00:05:51.149 --> 00:05:53.930 his job. But the environment in Poland was shifting. 00:05:54.089 --> 00:05:56.329 The pressure was building. And this brings us 00:05:56.329 --> 00:06:00.110 to 1970. You simply cannot understand Letwosza, 00:06:00.129 --> 00:06:02.550 the man he became, without understanding the 00:06:02.550 --> 00:06:05.100 trauma of 1970. Talk me through that, because 00:06:05.100 --> 00:06:08.300 in the popular history, 1980 gets all the glory, 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:12.180 but 1970 feels like the dark, bloody prequel. 00:06:12.300 --> 00:06:14.540 It was the crucible. It was where he learned 00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:17.779 all the hard lessons. In December of 1970, the 00:06:17.779 --> 00:06:20.259 communist government announced a massive, sudden 00:06:20.259 --> 00:06:23.000 price hike on basic food items. The essentials. 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:25.959 The absolute essentials. Meat. flour, sugar. 00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:28.319 Now, in a communist state, you have to remember 00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:30.480 the government sets all the prices. So when you 00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:32.560 suddenly can't afford to feed your kids, you 00:06:32.560 --> 00:06:34.540 blame the state directly. There's no one else 00:06:34.540 --> 00:06:37.040 to blame. The workers at the shipyard, they walked 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:38.660 out. They went on strike and they took to the 00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:41.279 streets. But this wasn't a peaceful sit -in with 00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:44.319 guitars and signs. No. No. It turned violent 00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:47.000 very quickly. It turned into street fighting. 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:49.899 The regime sent in the militia, the Zumo, and 00:06:49.899 --> 00:06:52.560 then the army. and they opened fire on the workers 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:56.180 with live ammunition. In the streets of Gdansk 00:06:56.180 --> 00:06:58.699 and the neighboring city of Edinia, the official 00:06:58.699 --> 00:07:01.560 death toll was over 30, but it was likely higher. 00:07:02.060 --> 00:07:04.959 Wojosa was there. He was just 27 years old, and 00:07:04.959 --> 00:07:06.920 he was one of the organizers on the strike committee. 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:09.899 So he saw it firsthand. He saw people, his friends, 00:07:10.060 --> 00:07:13.439 his co -workers, dying on the pavement, shot 00:07:13.439 --> 00:07:15.379 down by their own government for protesting the 00:07:15.379 --> 00:07:17.790 price of bread. I can't imagine how terrifying 00:07:17.790 --> 00:07:19.910 that must have been. I mean, you're a young guy 00:07:19.910 --> 00:07:23.110 with a family and you see the state, your state, 00:07:23.269 --> 00:07:26.389 mowing down your colleagues. It changed him completely. 00:07:26.529 --> 00:07:28.689 It taught him a lesson that became the absolute 00:07:28.689 --> 00:07:32.029 core of his strategy 10 years later. Unorganized 00:07:32.029 --> 00:07:34.040 chaos gets you killed. Right. Throwing stones 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:37.319 at tanks. It doesn't work. You cannot win a military 00:07:37.319 --> 00:07:39.699 confrontation with the state. They have all the 00:07:39.699 --> 00:07:42.720 guns. He realized you have to be smarter. You 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:44.959 have to be more organized. But in the short term, 00:07:45.040 --> 00:07:48.019 that activism cost him dearly. You got fired. 00:07:48.180 --> 00:07:51.699 Eventually, yes. After 1970, he was branded a 00:07:51.699 --> 00:07:55.379 troublemaker, a dissident. In 1976, he was finally 00:07:55.379 --> 00:07:57.680 fired from the shipyard for his involvement in 00:07:57.680 --> 00:08:00.120 what the state called illegal unions and for 00:08:00.120 --> 00:08:02.120 his constant campaigning to build a monument 00:08:02.120 --> 00:08:05.180 to commemorate the victims of that 1970 crackdown. 00:08:05.379 --> 00:08:08.319 And being fired in communist Poland in the 70s 00:08:08.319 --> 00:08:10.779 wasn't like it is today. It didn't just mean 00:08:10.779 --> 00:08:12.459 you went and looked for a new job on LinkedIn. 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:15.519 No, it meant you were on a blacklist. Your name 00:08:15.519 --> 00:08:17.660 was circulated. You were an enemy of the state. 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:20.399 So how did he survive? How did he support his 00:08:20.399 --> 00:08:23.180 family? Barely. He bounced between temporary 00:08:23.180 --> 00:08:26.120 jobs. He'd get hired by some small garage to 00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:28.819 fix cars or a company to do electrical work. 00:08:28.939 --> 00:08:32.100 And then the secret police, the SB, the Suba 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:34.639 Bespiseswa, they'd pay a visit to his boss. And 00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:37.100 he'd be let go. Immediately. He was constantly 00:08:37.100 --> 00:08:39.539 under surveillance. The source material from 00:08:39.539 --> 00:08:41.580 the archives details it all, how his apartment 00:08:41.580 --> 00:08:44.120 was bugged, his phone was tapped. He had agents 00:08:44.120 --> 00:08:46.240 following him to church, following his wife to 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:48.500 the market. That kind of constant pressure breaks 00:08:48.500 --> 00:08:51.100 most people. You have a wife, you have a growing 00:08:51.100 --> 00:08:54.159 family, and you have guys in trench coats watching 00:08:54.159 --> 00:08:57.799 your every single move. It's suffocating. But 00:08:57.799 --> 00:08:59.320 this is where he makes a crucial connection. 00:09:00.029 --> 00:09:02.649 This period of being an outcast is when he links 00:09:02.649 --> 00:09:05.669 up with the broader opposition movement, specifically 00:09:05.669 --> 00:09:08.970 a group called KOR, the Workers' Defense Committee. 00:09:09.289 --> 00:09:11.809 OK, explain KOR for a second, because this seems 00:09:11.809 --> 00:09:14.029 like a pivotal moment where the worker meets 00:09:14.029 --> 00:09:16.169 the intellectual. That is exactly what it is. 00:09:16.250 --> 00:09:19.070 It's a hugely important development. Before KOR, 00:09:19.230 --> 00:09:21.610 the Polish opposition was basically split into 00:09:21.610 --> 00:09:23.909 two camps that didn't talk to each other. You 00:09:23.909 --> 00:09:26.490 had the intellectuals in Warsaw and Krakow writing 00:09:26.490 --> 00:09:28.629 essays about freedom and democracy that nobody 00:09:28.629 --> 00:09:30.820 read. And then you had the workers. And you had 00:09:30.820 --> 00:09:33.500 the workers in places like Gidesque who were 00:09:33.500 --> 00:09:35.559 angry about food prices and working conditions. 00:09:36.220 --> 00:09:39.519 KOR was the bridge. It was founded by intellectuals 00:09:39.519 --> 00:09:41.740 specifically to help workers who were being persecuted 00:09:41.740 --> 00:09:44.600 by the state. They provided legal aid, financial 00:09:44.600 --> 00:09:46.580 support. So they gave them a support network. 00:09:46.860 --> 00:09:49.460 And an education. Washa started working with 00:09:49.460 --> 00:09:51.779 them, distributing underground newspapers, what 00:09:51.779 --> 00:09:54.299 they called bibura. He was learning. He was getting 00:09:54.299 --> 00:09:56.700 a crash course in political strategy from seasoned 00:09:56.700 --> 00:09:59.139 dissidents. He was no longer just an angry worker. 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:01.419 He was becoming an organizer. So he's unemployed. 00:10:01.539 --> 00:10:03.519 He's watching his back. But he's also organizing. 00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:08.120 Which brings us to August of 1980, the sequel 00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:11.100 to 1970. But this time, the ending is completely 00:10:11.100 --> 00:10:14.009 different. August 14th, 1980, the government, 00:10:14.250 --> 00:10:16.970 in its infinite wisdom, raises food prices again. 00:10:17.190 --> 00:10:18.909 It's almost like they didn't learn from history 00:10:18.909 --> 00:10:21.710 either. Unbelievable. The strike starts at the 00:10:21.710 --> 00:10:24.350 Lenin shipyard, just like before. But here's 00:10:24.350 --> 00:10:27.029 the problem. Wojcicki doesn't work there anymore. 00:10:27.269 --> 00:10:30.470 He's been fired. He is legally barred from even 00:10:30.470 --> 00:10:32.789 entering the premises. So we get the famous jump. 00:10:32.990 --> 00:10:36.269 The jump. It is the founding myth of modern Poland. 00:10:36.649 --> 00:10:38.990 It's the equivalent of Washington crossing the 00:10:38.990 --> 00:10:42.000 Delaware. Woshusa arrives at the shipyard perimeter. 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:45.159 The gates are locked. They're guarded by security. 00:10:45.799 --> 00:10:49.080 So he finds a spot in the wall or a fence. It 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:51.500 counts very slightly on the exact geometry of 00:10:51.500 --> 00:10:53.820 it. But he gets over. He scrambles over it. I 00:10:53.820 --> 00:10:56.580 have to ask. Is there any skepticism about this 00:10:56.580 --> 00:10:58.940 moment? Or is it generally accepted that he definitely 00:10:58.940 --> 00:11:01.299 jumped the fence? Oh, he definitely went over 00:11:01.299 --> 00:11:03.620 the fence. There were too many witnesses. But 00:11:03.620 --> 00:11:06.399 the symbolic weight of it is what matters. An 00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:08.799 outsider, a worker they cast out, breaking back 00:11:08.799 --> 00:11:11.620 in to lead his people. It's pure cinema. And 00:11:11.620 --> 00:11:13.720 he immediately takes charge. He finds the strike 00:11:13.720 --> 00:11:16.019 committee. And because he has that natural charisma, 00:11:16.059 --> 00:11:18.559 that booming voice, and most importantly, the 00:11:18.559 --> 00:11:21.340 street cred from being there in 1970, he takes 00:11:21.340 --> 00:11:23.809 over. But this time, he doesn't lead them out 00:11:23.809 --> 00:11:27.090 to the streets to get shot. Precisely. This is 00:11:27.090 --> 00:11:30.070 the lesson of 1970 in action. His first major 00:11:30.070 --> 00:11:33.029 decision is to order an occupation strike. We 00:11:33.029 --> 00:11:35.490 stay inside. They lock the gates from the inside. 00:11:35.509 --> 00:11:37.649 They protect the machinery. And they keep everyone 00:11:37.649 --> 00:11:40.450 sober. No alcohol was allowed on the premises. 00:11:40.730 --> 00:11:43.549 Discipline. Incredible discipline. And then he 00:11:43.549 --> 00:11:46.399 does something even smarter. He expands the fight. 00:11:46.500 --> 00:11:49.120 This is the Enterprise Strike Committee. MKS, 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:53.000 yes. He realized that if it's just the Lenin 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:55.159 shipyard striking, the government can eventually 00:11:55.159 --> 00:11:57.679 wait them out or starve them out. But what if 00:11:57.679 --> 00:12:00.200 the buses in the city stop running? And the other 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:02.480 factories stopped producing. What if the whole 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:04.799 region shuts down? That's real leverage. That 00:12:04.799 --> 00:12:06.799 is leverage. They coordinated strikes across 00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:08.840 20 different plants at first, and it grew from 00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:10.960 there. It became a network, a general strike. 00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:12.679 And the government blinked. They had no other 00:12:12.679 --> 00:12:15.759 choice. The entire coastal economy was paralyzed. 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:17.899 And they couldn't just send in the tanks and 00:12:17.899 --> 00:12:19.779 shoot 10 ,000 workers inside a shipyard without 00:12:19.779 --> 00:12:22.220 triggering a full -blown civil war. So they sent 00:12:22.220 --> 00:12:24.919 a government delegation to negotiate. Which leads 00:12:24.919 --> 00:12:27.240 to the signing of the Ghidasur Agreement on August 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:30.639 31, 1980. A historic moment. But I want to talk 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:33.240 about the pen. Because in all the photos and 00:12:33.240 --> 00:12:35.799 the television footage of this incredibly serious, 00:12:36.039 --> 00:12:40.799 somber treaty signing, Wajiza is using this ridiculous 00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:44.399 object. The giant pen. It was this massive, oversized 00:12:44.399 --> 00:12:47.419 souvenir pen. Like, comically large. And it had 00:12:47.419 --> 00:12:49.860 a picture of Pope John Paul II on it. It looked 00:12:49.860 --> 00:12:51.860 like something you'd win at a carnival. Why do 00:12:51.860 --> 00:12:53.840 that? I mean, was it just him being a character, 00:12:53.919 --> 00:12:56.460 being weird, or was it a calculated move? I think 00:12:56.460 --> 00:12:59.529 it was a brilliant... perhaps instinctive piece 00:12:59.529 --> 00:13:01.889 of political theater. Think about the aesthetic 00:13:01.889 --> 00:13:04.929 of communism. It's all gray suits, gray concrete, 00:13:05.190 --> 00:13:09.529 small print, serious, unsmiling faces. It's faceless 00:13:09.529 --> 00:13:11.870 bureaucracy. And then there's Wojessa. And then 00:13:11.870 --> 00:13:14.049 you have Wajoso with his big mustache and his 00:13:14.049 --> 00:13:16.830 chaotic energy signing this historic document 00:13:16.830 --> 00:13:19.450 with a giant, colorful, kitschy religious pen. 00:13:19.610 --> 00:13:21.450 It was a visual statement. It signaled humanity. 00:13:21.710 --> 00:13:23.889 It signaled, we are not like you. We are the 00:13:23.889 --> 00:13:26.809 people. We are colorful and messy and alive and 00:13:26.809 --> 00:13:29.309 faithful. It made the government officials across 00:13:29.309 --> 00:13:31.570 the table look like lifeless robots. And the 00:13:31.570 --> 00:13:33.289 agreement itself was completely groundbreaking. 00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:35.620 It was the beginning of the end for the Soviet 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:38.440 Union, though nobody knew it at the time. The 00:13:38.440 --> 00:13:41.179 key point was that it granted the right to form 00:13:41.179 --> 00:13:43.960 independent trade unions. That sounds kind of 00:13:43.960 --> 00:13:46.059 dry, but it was everything. It was everything. 00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:48.960 In a communist state, the party is supposed to 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:52.379 control everything. To allow a massive independent 00:13:52.379 --> 00:13:55.320 organization to exist outside of party control, 00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:59.389 that broke the monopoly on power. And that organization 00:13:59.389 --> 00:14:02.929 born from that agreement was Solidarity Solidarność. 00:14:03.110 --> 00:14:05.269 And while she said the electrician becomes the 00:14:05.269 --> 00:14:08.129 chairman, suddenly he's not just a local hero. 00:14:08.389 --> 00:14:10.789 He's a global superstar. He's on the cover of 00:14:10.789 --> 00:14:12.990 Time magazine. He's meeting with international 00:14:12.990 --> 00:14:15.690 dignitaries. And he's immediately in these high 00:14:15.690 --> 00:14:18.070 stakes meetings with the hardliners. There's 00:14:18.070 --> 00:14:20.190 a fantastic anecdote from a meeting in March 00:14:20.190 --> 00:14:23.129 1981. He's sitting across from General Wojciech 00:14:23.129 --> 00:14:25.509 Jaruzelski. The man in charge. The man in charge. 00:14:25.769 --> 00:14:29.429 Jaruzelski is a stiff. formal military man, always 00:14:29.429 --> 00:14:31.649 in his uniform, always behind those dark glasses. 00:14:31.750 --> 00:14:34.070 The face of the regime, he's trying to intimidate 00:14:34.070 --> 00:14:36.769 Wachas. He accuses Solidarity of being manipulated 00:14:36.769 --> 00:14:39.710 by Western powers, of taking foreign money. And 00:14:39.710 --> 00:14:42.429 Wachas doesn't flinch. Not for a second. He hits 00:14:42.429 --> 00:14:45.970 back with this very specific, very Wachasa -style 00:14:45.970 --> 00:14:48.529 wit. And he looks at Jaruzelski and says, we 00:14:48.529 --> 00:14:50.190 don't have to take only dollars. We can take 00:14:50.190 --> 00:14:53.049 corn, fertilizer, anything is okay. I would take 00:14:53.049 --> 00:14:55.169 everything from the enemy. The more, the better. 00:14:55.559 --> 00:14:58.419 until the enemy was weakened no more. He's basically 00:14:58.419 --> 00:15:00.899 telling the general to his face, yes, I will 00:15:00.899 --> 00:15:03.700 take your enemy's stuff to beat you. It's incredibly 00:15:03.700 --> 00:15:06.830 ballsy. But it also shows his philosophy perfectly. 00:15:07.269 --> 00:15:09.870 Practical results over ideological purity. He 00:15:09.870 --> 00:15:11.289 didn't care where the help came from as long 00:15:11.289 --> 00:15:13.730 as it helped the workers. But that honeymoon 00:15:13.730 --> 00:15:16.029 period, that sort of festival of freedom, it 00:15:16.029 --> 00:15:17.929 couldn't last. The Soviet Union was watching. 00:15:17.990 --> 00:15:20.429 Moscow was watching very, very closely. And they 00:15:20.429 --> 00:15:22.110 were getting extremely nervous. They were putting 00:15:22.110 --> 00:15:24.309 immense pressure on the Polish government to 00:15:24.309 --> 00:15:26.870 crush this counter -revolution before it spread. 00:15:27.169 --> 00:15:29.970 And on December 13th, 1981, the hammer comes 00:15:29.970 --> 00:15:33.360 down. Martial law. It was a cold Sunday morning. 00:15:33.519 --> 00:15:35.679 You woke up and the phones were dead. There were 00:15:35.679 --> 00:15:38.820 tanks in the streets, snow on the ground. General 00:15:38.820 --> 00:15:41.379 Jaruzelski appears on television and announces 00:15:41.379 --> 00:15:45.980 a state of war. Martial law. Solidarity is outlawed. 00:15:46.019 --> 00:15:49.240 Banned overnight. And thousands of people are 00:15:49.240 --> 00:15:51.320 arrested in the middle of the night. Dragged 00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:53.940 from their homes. Including Wayaza. They came 00:15:53.940 --> 00:15:56.659 for him immediately. He was interned for 11 months. 00:15:57.139 --> 00:15:59.299 They didn't put him in a normal prison, though. 00:15:59.580 --> 00:16:02.500 They moved him around to these isolated, guarded 00:16:02.500 --> 00:16:04.600 government villas in the east of the country 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:08.159 places like Chilis, Otwock, and finally, Aramo. 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:11.019 Aramo's deep in the mountains, right? Near the 00:16:11.019 --> 00:16:13.500 Soviet border. It's desolate. It's completely 00:16:13.500 --> 00:16:16.019 cut off from the world. What was the government's 00:16:16.019 --> 00:16:18.059 strategy there? Were they trying to turn him 00:16:18.059 --> 00:16:21.570 or just silence him? Both. The goal was to break 00:16:21.570 --> 00:16:23.830 him psychologically. They wanted him to sign 00:16:23.830 --> 00:16:26.769 some sort of confession to appear on state television 00:16:26.769 --> 00:16:29.429 and say, solidarity was a mistake. Let's all 00:16:29.429 --> 00:16:31.769 go back to work peacefully. They tried to ply 00:16:31.769 --> 00:16:34.169 him with luxury. He had good food, plenty of 00:16:34.169 --> 00:16:36.250 alcohol, while his friends and followers were 00:16:36.250 --> 00:16:38.330 being beaten in the streets. It's a classic golden 00:16:38.330 --> 00:16:42.090 cage. It's a golden cage. But he refused to cooperate. 00:16:42.429 --> 00:16:45.970 He was incredibly stubborn. He refused to negotiate 00:16:45.970 --> 00:16:48.509 unless his advisors from solidarity were present 00:16:48.509 --> 00:16:50.830 and all the other prisoners were. released. So 00:16:50.830 --> 00:16:53.250 he just sat there for nearly a year, mostly alone, 00:16:53.450 --> 00:16:55.789 holding the line. And while he was in there, 00:16:55.830 --> 00:16:59.450 in that cage, his legend just grew. He became 00:16:59.450 --> 00:17:03.269 a martyr, a living symbol of resistance. Exactly. 00:17:03.570 --> 00:17:05.849 You can imprison the man, but you can't imprison 00:17:05.849 --> 00:17:08.609 the symbol. In fact, locking him up just made 00:17:08.609 --> 00:17:11.470 the legend stronger, both inside Poland and internationally. 00:17:12.109 --> 00:17:14.269 And the world definitely recognized this. In 00:17:14.269 --> 00:17:17.049 1983, shortly after he was released, but while 00:17:17.049 --> 00:17:19.309 Poland was still under the thumb of martial law, 00:17:19.490 --> 00:17:22.329 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A huge 00:17:22.329 --> 00:17:24.730 moment. But he didn't actually go to Oslo to 00:17:24.730 --> 00:17:26.849 accept it. Whoa, he was too smart for that. He 00:17:26.849 --> 00:17:29.410 knew the game the regime was playing. He knew 00:17:29.410 --> 00:17:31.490 that if he left Poland, they would simply cancel 00:17:31.490 --> 00:17:33.849 his passport and refuse to let him back in. They 00:17:33.849 --> 00:17:35.509 would love to exile him. It would have been the 00:17:35.509 --> 00:17:37.289 perfect solution for them. Get the troublemaker 00:17:37.289 --> 00:17:40.309 out of the country for good. So he stayed. So 00:17:40.309 --> 00:17:43.859 who went in his place? His wife, Danuta. And 00:17:43.859 --> 00:17:46.119 we really need to pause here and talk about Danuta 00:17:46.119 --> 00:17:49.059 Wajisa. For a long time, she was just seen as 00:17:49.059 --> 00:17:52.559 the wife behind the great man, you know, raising 00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:54.619 their eight children while he was off making 00:17:54.619 --> 00:17:57.740 history. But the source material. And her own 00:17:57.740 --> 00:18:00.460 autobiography, which came out much later, paints 00:18:00.460 --> 00:18:02.539 a very different picture. She was the backbone 00:18:02.539 --> 00:18:05.160 of the entire family. She was fearless. The sources 00:18:05.160 --> 00:18:06.920 have these great stories about when the Secret 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:09.420 Service agents, the SB, would come to their apartment, 00:18:09.579 --> 00:18:12.839 which they did constantly, to search it or to 00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:16.049 arrest. leech again she wasn't intimidated she 00:18:16.049 --> 00:18:18.470 would open the door and openly mock them she 00:18:18.470 --> 00:18:20.089 would yell at them shame them in front of the 00:18:20.089 --> 00:18:22.730 neighbors she was in many ways just as tough 00:18:22.730 --> 00:18:25.130 as he was and so she was the one who went to 00:18:25.130 --> 00:18:28.029 oslo she accepted the nobel prize on his behalf 00:18:28.029 --> 00:18:30.289 in front of the world while her husband was back 00:18:30.289 --> 00:18:33.380 in gazesk wait He'd gone back to work as an electrician 00:18:33.380 --> 00:18:35.460 after all this, after winning the Nobel Prize. 00:18:35.619 --> 00:18:38.680 Yes. That is the absolute absurdity of life in 00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:42.119 1980s Poland. You have a Nobel Peace Prize laureate 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:44.220 working the morning shift at the shipyard because 00:18:44.220 --> 00:18:46.839 the union is still illegal and he has bills to 00:18:46.839 --> 00:18:49.240 pay. But he was also, of course, leading the 00:18:49.240 --> 00:18:51.480 underground movement. He was publishing essays 00:18:51.480 --> 00:18:54.180 and messages in the clandestine weekly newspaper 00:18:54.180 --> 00:18:57.700 Tagodnik Mazauze. His motto during that time 00:18:57.700 --> 00:19:00.500 was, solidarity will not be divided or destroyed. 00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:03.660 And that message was everywhere, scrawled on 00:19:03.660 --> 00:19:06.480 walls across the country. So this stalemate lasts 00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:09.380 for years. The government has the guns and the 00:19:09.380 --> 00:19:11.839 control, but the people have the numbers and 00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:14.859 the moral high ground. And the whole time, the 00:19:14.859 --> 00:19:16.859 economy is just collapsing, the store shelves 00:19:16.859 --> 00:19:19.680 are empty. By 1988, the country is essentially 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:22.400 bankrupt. The system isn't working. A new wave 00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:25.420 of strikes breaks out across Poland. The communists 00:19:25.420 --> 00:19:27.079 finally realize they are driving the car directly 00:19:27.079 --> 00:19:29.500 off a cliff. They need a way out. They need someone 00:19:29.500 --> 00:19:31.660 who can calm the workers down, someone that people 00:19:31.660 --> 00:19:33.779 will actually listen to. There's only one guy 00:19:33.779 --> 00:19:35.700 who can do that. They have to call the electrician. 00:19:35.779 --> 00:19:38.160 This leads to the roundtable negotiations in 00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:42.039 1989. And visually, this is just as iconic as 00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:45.809 the giant pen. They custom built a massive round 00:19:45.809 --> 00:19:49.369 wooden table so that symbolically no one was 00:19:49.369 --> 00:19:51.890 at the head, where the communist generals and 00:19:51.890 --> 00:19:54.109 ministers sat across from the dissidents they 00:19:54.109 --> 00:19:56.849 had thrown in prison just a few years earlier. 00:19:57.130 --> 00:19:59.890 And Wojessa was the informal leader of the opposition 00:19:59.890 --> 00:20:02.630 side. Informal, but clearly the boss. Everyone 00:20:02.630 --> 00:20:04.670 knew he was the one with the real power, the 00:20:04.670 --> 00:20:07.069 one who had the support of the people. And he 00:20:07.069 --> 00:20:09.130 played his hand perfectly. He knew the government 00:20:09.130 --> 00:20:11.390 was desperate. So what was the deal they struck? 00:20:11.819 --> 00:20:15.180 The deal was historic. First, Solidarity becomes 00:20:15.180 --> 00:20:17.539 a legal organization again. And second, they 00:20:17.539 --> 00:20:20.119 agree to hold semi -free elections. OK, you have 00:20:20.119 --> 00:20:22.380 to explain semi -free. That sounds like a trap. 00:20:22.519 --> 00:20:24.119 It was designed to be a trap that would keep 00:20:24.119 --> 00:20:26.599 the communists in power. The deal was this. In 00:20:26.599 --> 00:20:29.039 the Sej, which is the more powerful lower house 00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:31.759 of parliament, 65 % of the seats were reserved, 00:20:31.960 --> 00:20:33.880 automatically given to the Communist Party and 00:20:33.880 --> 00:20:36.299 its satellite parties. Only the remaining 35 00:20:36.299 --> 00:20:39.480 % were up for a free, open election. So they 00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:41.730 guaranteed themselves a majority. They thought 00:20:41.730 --> 00:20:44.210 so. However, as part of the deal, they created 00:20:44.210 --> 00:20:47.069 a new upper house, the Senate, and that was going 00:20:47.069 --> 00:20:50.210 to be 100 percent open for a free election. The 00:20:50.210 --> 00:20:52.150 communists thought, OK, we'll keep our majority 00:20:52.150 --> 00:20:53.789 in the south. We still control the government, 00:20:53.970 --> 00:20:56.670 but we'll let the opposition have a voice in 00:20:56.670 --> 00:20:59.190 this new Senate. It'll let off some steam. They 00:20:59.190 --> 00:21:01.470 completely underestimated how much the Polish 00:21:01.470 --> 00:21:03.869 people hated them. Drastically. It was one of 00:21:03.869 --> 00:21:06.049 the biggest political miscalculations of the 00:21:06.049 --> 00:21:09.609 20th century. Wojtyla didn't run for office himself, 00:21:09.710 --> 00:21:12.930 but. He became the face of the entire opposition 00:21:12.930 --> 00:21:16.029 campaign. He lent his image to everyone who did 00:21:16.029 --> 00:21:18.269 run. This is the Lecce's team idea. Exactly. 00:21:18.450 --> 00:21:21.549 They created these very simple, very powerful 00:21:21.549 --> 00:21:23.849 posters. Just a black and white photo of the 00:21:23.849 --> 00:21:26.750 local solidarity candidate standing next to a 00:21:26.750 --> 00:21:29.390 smiling Lecce. It was called Lecce's team. It 00:21:29.390 --> 00:21:31.670 was the ultimate celebrity endorsement. If Lecce 00:21:31.670 --> 00:21:33.829 was with you, you were legitimate. And it worked. 00:21:34.220 --> 00:21:37.220 It worked beyond anyone's wildest dreams. In 00:21:37.220 --> 00:21:40.440 the June 1989 election, solidarity candidates 00:21:40.440 --> 00:21:42.960 won every single seat that was available to them 00:21:42.960 --> 00:21:46.539 in the Sejmall, 161 of them. A clean sweep. And 00:21:46.539 --> 00:21:49.240 in the new Senate. In the Senate, they won 99 00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:52.480 out of 100 seats. The one guy who lost was some 00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:55.900 independent weirdo who nobody liked. It was an 00:21:55.900 --> 00:21:58.319 absolute total humiliation for the Communist 00:21:58.319 --> 00:22:00.259 Party. So even though the communists technically 00:22:00.259 --> 00:22:02.700 still had their 65 percent of reserved seats, 00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:06.279 they had lost all moral authority. They had no 00:22:06.279 --> 00:22:09.160 mandate to rule. None whatsoever. And Wajdaza 00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:11.960 brilliantly used that momentum. He went to the 00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:14.240 leaders of those small satellite parties, the 00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:15.900 ones that had been puppets of the communists 00:22:15.900 --> 00:22:18.299 for 40 years. And he convinced them to switch 00:22:18.299 --> 00:22:20.460 sides. He basically said, look at the scoreboard. 00:22:20.579 --> 00:22:22.619 The ship is sinking. Come join us on the lifeboat. 00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:25.319 And they did. They did. They abandoned the communists 00:22:25.319 --> 00:22:27.900 and formed a coalition with Solidarity. And suddenly 00:22:27.900 --> 00:22:29.819 the communists didn't have a majority in the 00:22:29.819 --> 00:22:33.299 SIG anymore. Poland got its first non -communist 00:22:33.299 --> 00:22:36.000 prime minister in over four decades, Tadeusz 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:37.920 Mazowiecki. And then the dominoes just start 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:40.180 to fall across Europe. The Berlin Wall comes 00:22:40.180 --> 00:22:42.700 down a few months later. Then Czechoslovakia, 00:22:42.720 --> 00:22:46.039 Romania, the whole Soviet bloc crumbles. It does. 00:22:46.220 --> 00:22:48.579 And Wojtyla takes a well -deserved victory lap. 00:22:48.980 --> 00:22:52.339 In November of 1989, he stands before a joint 00:22:52.339 --> 00:22:55.039 meeting of the U .S. Congress. He is only the 00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:57.440 third foreigner in history to address a joint 00:22:57.440 --> 00:22:59.950 meeting without being a head of state. Who were 00:22:59.950 --> 00:23:02.109 the others? The Marquis de Lafayette and Winston 00:23:02.109 --> 00:23:04.589 Churchill. So, you know, pretty good company. 00:23:04.789 --> 00:23:07.589 And he opens his speech with three very famous 00:23:07.589 --> 00:23:10.829 words. We the people. He starts with the opening 00:23:10.829 --> 00:23:13.089 words of the U .S. Constitution. The applause 00:23:13.089 --> 00:23:16.329 was just deafening. It was the moment that Poland 00:23:16.329 --> 00:23:19.509 symbolically and politically rejoined the West. 00:23:19.890 --> 00:23:22.400 So here we are. It's the end of 1989. Washosa 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:25.619 is a living god. He has defeated communism. He 00:23:25.619 --> 00:23:28.059 is a hero to the entire world. If the movie ends 00:23:28.059 --> 00:23:30.079 right here, it's a masterpiece. But real life 00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:32.160 doesn't end when the credits roll. And this is 00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:34.000 where the story gets really difficult. Because 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:36.099 being a revolutionary is a very, very different 00:23:36.099 --> 00:23:38.779 job from being a president. Washosa decides he 00:23:38.779 --> 00:23:41.079 needs to be president. He runs in 1990. And this 00:23:41.079 --> 00:23:43.259 is the first real crack in the armor of solidarity. 00:23:43.799 --> 00:23:46.839 His slogan was, I don't want to, but I have to. 00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:50.920 Which sounds a little arrogant. It came across 00:23:50.920 --> 00:23:53.339 that way to many. He believed that the transition 00:23:53.339 --> 00:23:56.259 to democracy was happening too slowly. He thought 00:23:56.259 --> 00:23:58.960 the new government, led by Prime Minister Mazowiecki, 00:23:59.079 --> 00:24:02.339 his own longtime ally, was too soft on the old 00:24:02.339 --> 00:24:05.059 communists. He wanted to accelerate the changes. 00:24:05.339 --> 00:24:07.460 This is what became known as the war at the top. 00:24:07.619 --> 00:24:11.240 Yes, the war at the top. And it was really a 00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:14.359 class conflict within the opposition. On one 00:24:14.359 --> 00:24:18.059 side, you had what some called the Warsaw Salon. 00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:21.680 the educated, polite, glasses -wearing intellectuals 00:24:21.680 --> 00:24:23.920 like Mazowiecki. And on the other side, you had 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:27.359 Washissa and the workers. Rough, loud, impatient. 00:24:27.759 --> 00:24:29.839 Washissa felt they were trying to sideline him. 00:24:29.839 --> 00:24:31.339 He felt that the intellectuals were treating 00:24:31.339 --> 00:24:33.480 him like a mascot. Like they were saying, thanks 00:24:33.480 --> 00:24:35.279 for the revolution, Light, you did great. Now 00:24:35.279 --> 00:24:37.339 go back to the shipyard and let the smart people 00:24:37.339 --> 00:24:39.859 handle the government. He absolutely hated that. 00:24:40.099 --> 00:24:41.960 So he runs for president against his own prime 00:24:41.960 --> 00:24:44.480 minister, Mazowiecki. It's a fratricidal war 00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:47.900 within the solidarity movement. And it got nasty. 00:24:48.460 --> 00:24:50.839 It was a really ugly campaign that shattered 00:24:50.839 --> 00:24:53.740 the unity of the anti -communist front. Wojtyla 00:24:53.740 --> 00:24:56.480 won, becoming the first freely elected president 00:24:56.480 --> 00:24:59.759 of Poland in 63 years. But he burned a lot of 00:24:59.759 --> 00:25:01.819 bridges to get there. And once he got into the 00:25:01.819 --> 00:25:04.220 presidential palace? Well, it turns out running 00:25:04.220 --> 00:25:06.960 a country is a lot harder than organizing a strike. 00:25:07.160 --> 00:25:09.220 A completely different skill set. Let's look 00:25:09.220 --> 00:25:13.640 at his presidency. It's from 1990 to 1995. On 00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:15.740 paper, if you just look at the big achievements, 00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:18.759 there are some huge successes. Monumental successes. 00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:20.940 We have to give him credit where it's due. He 00:25:20.940 --> 00:25:23.900 personally oversaw the negotiations for the withdrawal 00:25:23.900 --> 00:25:27.440 of all Soviet troops from Polish soil. Imagine 00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:30.200 the skill and the sheer force of will required 00:25:30.200 --> 00:25:32.079 to get the Russian army to pack up and leave 00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:34.240 without firing a single shot. That's a massive 00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:36.680 deal. It's a massive deal. He also pushed very 00:25:36.680 --> 00:25:38.819 hard for debt reduction, traveling the world 00:25:38.819 --> 00:25:40.539 and convincing Western governments to forgive 00:25:40.539 --> 00:25:43.180 billions of dollars of Poland's communist era 00:25:43.180 --> 00:25:46.160 debt. And he was the one who really started hammering 00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:48.819 on the door of NATO and the European Union, setting 00:25:48.819 --> 00:25:52.039 Poland on the path to join both. But the day 00:25:52.039 --> 00:25:54.220 -to -day business of governing, that was another 00:25:54.220 --> 00:25:57.819 story. It was chaotic. Wojosa fundamentally didn't 00:25:57.819 --> 00:26:00.740 understand or didn't respect parliamentary democracy. 00:26:01.220 --> 00:26:03.380 He was used to being a union boss. You give an 00:26:03.380 --> 00:26:06.279 order and... The line holds. In a parliament, 00:26:06.380 --> 00:26:08.240 you have to build coalitions. You have to read 00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:10.359 boring documents. You have to compromise. He 00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:12.960 called it idle chatter. He had no patience for 00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:16.119 it. He wanted to rule by decree. He was constantly 00:26:16.119 --> 00:26:18.039 in conflict with the parliament, with his own 00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:20.539 ministers. He kept firing prime ministers. The 00:26:20.539 --> 00:26:22.779 government changed almost every single year. 00:26:22.839 --> 00:26:25.619 It created immense political instability right 00:26:25.619 --> 00:26:28.140 when the country needed stability the most. And 00:26:28.140 --> 00:26:30.500 he had some terrible foreign policy ideas, too, 00:26:30.619 --> 00:26:34.460 like this NATO -BIS concept. Oh, NATO -BIS. What 00:26:34.460 --> 00:26:38.259 a disaster. BIS means second or encore. So this 00:26:38.259 --> 00:26:41.720 was his idea for a NATO part two. Plan B security 00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:43.660 alliance for Eastern Europe. Who was supposed 00:26:43.660 --> 00:26:45.839 to be in it? It was a vague idea for a regional 00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:48.819 bloc, including Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, 00:26:48.839 --> 00:26:51.559 and maybe even Russia in some way. His logic 00:26:51.559 --> 00:26:53.920 was that the real NATO wouldn't let Poland in 00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:56.180 quickly enough, so they needed an alternative. 00:26:56.559 --> 00:26:59.119 How did Poland's neighbors react to that? They 00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:01.640 hated it. Countries like Lithuania and Ukraine, 00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:05.160 who had historical reasons to be wary of Polish 00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:07.619 influence, saw it as Poland trying to become 00:27:07.619 --> 00:27:10.900 a mini -empire, a kind of Neo -Russia. They saw 00:27:10.900 --> 00:27:13.119 it as Polish neo -imperialism. And what did the 00:27:13.119 --> 00:27:15.279 actual NATO think? They were just confused. They 00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:17.259 were like, wait, do you want to join our club 00:27:17.259 --> 00:27:19.160 or are you trying to start your own rival club? 00:27:19.420 --> 00:27:22.119 It made him look amateurish and erratic on the 00:27:22.119 --> 00:27:25.250 world stage. In his personal style. He was still 00:27:25.250 --> 00:27:27.930 the electrician from Gosk, not a polished spadesman. 00:27:27.990 --> 00:27:30.529 And the Waschacisms, his unique way of speaking, 00:27:30.730 --> 00:27:33.589 became a real problem. He spoke in these convoluted, 00:27:33.589 --> 00:27:35.789 often contradictory metaphors that often didn't 00:27:35.789 --> 00:27:38.609 make any sense. He would say things like, I am 00:27:38.609 --> 00:27:41.740 for and even against. Which means nothing. Exactly. 00:27:41.900 --> 00:27:44.140 Yeah. He would also wear casual clothes when 00:27:44.140 --> 00:27:47.619 protocol demanded formal suits. The Polish intelligentsia, 00:27:47.640 --> 00:27:49.440 the people he had fought with during the war 00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:52.380 at the top, were deeply embarrassed by him. They 00:27:52.380 --> 00:27:54.440 felt he lacked the dignity of a head of state. 00:27:54.740 --> 00:27:57.900 Which all leads us to the 1995 election. He runs 00:27:57.900 --> 00:28:01.619 for re -election. And he loses. He loses. And 00:28:01.619 --> 00:28:04.460 the ultimate irony is who he loses to. Aleksander 00:28:04.460 --> 00:28:07.339 Kwasniewski. A former communist. A former communist 00:28:07.339 --> 00:28:10.140 youth minister. Kwasniewski was everything Wojtasza 00:28:10.140 --> 00:28:12.539 wasn't. He was young. He was smooth. He spoke 00:28:12.539 --> 00:28:14.539 good English. He wore perfectly tailored suits. 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:18.079 He represented modernity and a move away from 00:28:18.079 --> 00:28:20.380 the constant fighting of the transition period. 00:28:20.680 --> 00:28:22.640 There was a moment in their televised debate 00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:26.279 that really sealed Weishus' fate. The shake my 00:28:26.279 --> 00:28:29.220 leg incident. It was brutal to watch. Weishus 00:28:29.220 --> 00:28:31.400 was frustrated throughout the debate. He came 00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:33.619 across as rude, arrogant, and condescending. 00:28:34.119 --> 00:28:36.920 At the very end, Kwasińewski, playing the part 00:28:36.920 --> 00:28:40.119 of the civilized, modern politician, walks over 00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:42.619 to Wysza to offer a handshake. And Wysza refuses. 00:28:43.220 --> 00:28:45.480 He refuses to shake his hand and barks at him. 00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:48.839 I can give you my leg to shake. Oof, that's bad. 00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:51.680 It was just so petty. It looked small. And I 00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:53.559 think a lot of Polish people looked at that moment 00:28:53.559 --> 00:28:56.140 and thought, we are tired of the fighting. We 00:28:56.140 --> 00:28:58.339 are tired of the chaos. We just want a normal 00:28:58.339 --> 00:29:01.960 country with a normal president. Westerlost narrowly. 00:29:01.980 --> 00:29:04.519 The hero of solidarity was voted out of office 00:29:04.519 --> 00:29:07.000 by the very people he had liberated. That is 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:09.359 a Shakespearean tragedy right there. But the 00:29:09.359 --> 00:29:12.319 tragedy gets even darker. Because all this time, 00:29:12.420 --> 00:29:14.519 we haven't touched on the shadow that followed 00:29:14.519 --> 00:29:17.059 him through his entire career. The allegations. 00:29:17.460 --> 00:29:19.559 The Bolek files. We need to tread very carefully 00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:21.740 here, because this is still a raging, deeply 00:29:21.740 --> 00:29:25.920 emotional debate in Poland today. But we have 00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:29.440 to explain it. What is the core accusation? The 00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:32.380 accusation in its simplest form is that in the 00:29:32.380 --> 00:29:35.680 early 1970s, specifically after that bloody 1970 00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:38.359 massacre we talked about, but before he became 00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:41.339 the great leader in 1980, Lech Wachasa was broken 00:29:41.339 --> 00:29:44.400 by the secret police. Broken how? The claim is 00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:46.259 that he signed an official commitment to cooperate, 00:29:46.599 --> 00:29:49.400 was given the secret code name Bolek, and for 00:29:49.400 --> 00:29:51.420 several years he informed on his co -workers 00:29:51.420 --> 00:29:53.440 at the shipyard. The source material mentions 00:29:53.440 --> 00:29:57.740 the years 1970 to 1976 very specifically. Correct. 00:29:57.980 --> 00:30:00.279 The allegation is that during this six -year 00:30:00.279 --> 00:30:03.000 period, he provided information on who was organizing 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:05.619 strikes, who was distributing illegal leaflets, 00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:07.980 and critically, that he took payments for this 00:30:07.980 --> 00:30:10.539 information. The files mention a total of over 00:30:10.539 --> 00:30:13.920 13 ,000 zlotys. Which wasn't a fortune, but it 00:30:13.920 --> 00:30:16.380 wasn't nothing either. No. For a poor worker 00:30:16.380 --> 00:30:19.460 with a young family in the 1970s, it was a significant 00:30:19.460 --> 00:30:23.000 amount of money. Now, Wyjosa has defended himself 00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:26.500 against this furiously for decades. Absolutely. 00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:28.859 But the problem for him is that his defense has 00:30:28.859 --> 00:30:32.519 been, well, inconsistent over the years. At times, 00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:35.440 he has said something like, OK, I signed some 00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:37.480 sort of paper just to get them to stop beating 00:30:37.480 --> 00:30:39.660 me during interrogation, but I never told them 00:30:39.660 --> 00:30:42.000 anything real. I ran rings around them. At other 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:44.579 times, he has said, it's all forgeries. The secret 00:30:44.579 --> 00:30:46.880 police created these documents to destroy me. 00:30:47.019 --> 00:30:48.880 And there was another explanation he offered, 00:30:48.960 --> 00:30:51.180 right? Yes. At one point, he wrote on his blog 00:30:51.180 --> 00:30:53.799 that he did sign some financial receipts, but 00:30:53.799 --> 00:30:55.880 it was to help a secret police officer who had 00:30:55.880 --> 00:30:58.079 lost some money that was entrusted to him. It's 00:30:58.079 --> 00:31:00.519 messy. The story keeps changing. But in 2000, 00:31:00.940 --> 00:31:03.440 a special court actually cleared him of collaboration, 00:31:03.779 --> 00:31:06.400 didn't it? Yes, the Luz Estration Court, which 00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:08.559 was set up to vet public officials, ruled that 00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:10.440 there was a lack of sufficient evidence to prove 00:31:10.440 --> 00:31:13.119 he was a conscious collaborator. But, and this 00:31:13.119 --> 00:31:15.880 is a huge but, that ruling was based on the files 00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:18.480 that were available at that time. And everyone 00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:20.900 knew the files were missing. Everyone knew that 00:31:20.900 --> 00:31:23.359 the communists had burned truckloads of secret 00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:26.740 police files in 1989 and 1990 as they were losing 00:31:26.740 --> 00:31:30.799 power. But then, in 2008, a book comes out. That 00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:33.140 ignites the whole debate again. Right. A book 00:31:33.140 --> 00:31:35.200 by two historians from the Institute of National 00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:38.759 Remembrance, Sienkiewicz and Gontarczyk. It's 00:31:38.759 --> 00:31:41.759 called S .B. Alek Wajesa. And they lay out the 00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:44.240 case based on surviving documents that Wajesa 00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:48.079 was indeed Bulek from 1970 to 1976. And they 00:31:48.079 --> 00:31:50.119 added another accusation, a cover up theory. 00:31:50.380 --> 00:31:52.579 They did. They alleged that later, when Wajesa 00:31:52.579 --> 00:31:54.960 was president in the early 90s, he borrowed his 00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:57.339 own secret police files from the state archives 00:31:57.339 --> 00:32:00.210 and returned them with key pages missing. Which 00:32:00.210 --> 00:32:02.250 is a very serious charge. Extremely serious. 00:32:02.450 --> 00:32:05.009 But the story still wasn't over. Because then, 00:32:05.130 --> 00:32:07.730 2016 happens. And this whole affair turns from 00:32:07.730 --> 00:32:10.690 a historical debate into a bizarre crime novel. 00:32:10.910 --> 00:32:13.509 The Cusack Archives. The Cusack Archives. General 00:32:13.509 --> 00:32:15.809 Chesasa Cusack had been the Minister of the Interior 00:32:15.809 --> 00:32:18.210 for most of the 1980s. He was the head of the 00:32:18.210 --> 00:32:20.589 entire secret police apparatus, the Big Boss. 00:32:20.789 --> 00:32:23.250 He died in late 2015. And a few months later, 00:32:23.390 --> 00:32:26.829 his widow pays a visit. His widow, Maria Kisak, 00:32:26.950 --> 00:32:29.390 walks into the Institute of National Remembrance, 00:32:29.490 --> 00:32:32.329 the state archive, and she tells them that her 00:32:32.329 --> 00:32:35.190 husband kept secret official documents in his 00:32:35.190 --> 00:32:38.109 private house for decades as a form of, you know, 00:32:38.490 --> 00:32:40.650 Insurance. And she wants to sell them. She offers 00:32:40.650 --> 00:32:43.250 to sell them to the government for 90 ,000 zlotes. 00:32:43.509 --> 00:32:45.990 She tried to pawn state secrets. She literally 00:32:45.990 --> 00:32:48.309 did. The prosecutors were, as you can imagine, 00:32:48.390 --> 00:32:50.930 stunned. They immediately got a warrant, went 00:32:50.930 --> 00:32:53.849 to her house, and seized all the documents. And 00:32:53.849 --> 00:32:56.890 inside this Kazakh archive, they found two folders, 00:32:57.150 --> 00:33:00.470 a personal file and a work file for an agent 00:33:00.470 --> 00:33:02.990 with the codename Bolek. And what was in them? 00:33:03.190 --> 00:33:06.029 The motherlode. A handwritten, signed commitment 00:33:06.029 --> 00:33:08.769 to cooperation, dozens of handwritten reports 00:33:08.769 --> 00:33:11.230 on other activists, and handwritten receipts 00:33:11.230 --> 00:33:13.289 for money, all signed with the name Boett. And 00:33:13.289 --> 00:33:15.769 they tested the handwriting. In 2017, a team 00:33:15.769 --> 00:33:17.430 of forensic handwriting experts commissioned 00:33:17.430 --> 00:33:19.750 by the Institute concluded that the signatures 00:33:19.750 --> 00:33:22.769 on those key documents were, in fact, authentic 00:33:22.769 --> 00:33:25.609 signatures of Lech Wachizzo. So where does that 00:33:25.609 --> 00:33:27.470 leave us? Does this destroy the legend entirely? 00:33:27.849 --> 00:33:29.789 This is where the nuance comes in. And this is 00:33:29.789 --> 00:33:31.490 where I think we, as people looking at history, 00:33:31.589 --> 00:33:34.349 have to be mature about it. Let's, for the sake 00:33:34.349 --> 00:33:36.750 of argument, assume the files are 100 % real. 00:33:37.109 --> 00:33:40.410 What does that story tell us? Go on. It means 00:33:40.410 --> 00:33:43.529 that a 27 -year -old worker traumatized by seeing 00:33:43.529 --> 00:33:45.470 his friend shot dead in the street, terrified 00:33:45.470 --> 00:33:48.210 for his wife and his newborn baby, broke under 00:33:48.210 --> 00:33:50.589 intense interrogation and signed a deal with 00:33:50.589 --> 00:33:53.730 the devil to protect his family. And then, in 00:33:53.730 --> 00:33:57.349 1976, he stopped. He broke free. And four years 00:33:57.349 --> 00:34:00.769 later, in 1980, he summoned the courage to lead 00:34:00.769 --> 00:34:02.910 the movement that destroyed the very people he 00:34:02.910 --> 00:34:04.750 had supposedly worked for. So you could actually 00:34:04.750 --> 00:34:07.210 argue that his experience as an informant made 00:34:07.210 --> 00:34:09.340 him a better revolutionary later. Because he 00:34:09.340 --> 00:34:11.900 knew exactly how the secret police operated from 00:34:11.900 --> 00:34:14.360 the inside. Exactly. It makes him human. It makes 00:34:14.360 --> 00:34:17.000 him more complex. It's not a story of a perfect 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:19.139 Mark Saint. It's a story of a terrible mistake 00:34:19.139 --> 00:34:22.039 and then a historic redemption. But for Washosa 00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:24.960 himself, he can't accept that narrative. He seems 00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:28.300 to view any admission of weakness as a total 00:34:28.300 --> 00:34:31.059 crushing defeat. So he continues to deny everything, 00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:33.800 calling it all a conspiracy, which unfortunately 00:34:33.800 --> 00:34:36.119 just alienates a lot of people who might otherwise 00:34:36.119 --> 00:34:38.469 be willing to forgive a mistake he made. a young 00:34:38.469 --> 00:34:40.949 man half a century ago. Let's move to the post 00:34:40.949 --> 00:34:43.650 -presidency years. Because he doesn't just fade 00:34:43.650 --> 00:34:46.429 away after losing in 95. He's still around. He's 00:34:46.429 --> 00:34:49.809 still active. But politically? Politically, he 00:34:49.809 --> 00:34:53.150 is, to be blunt, irrelevant. He ran for president 00:34:53.150 --> 00:34:55.889 again in 2000. Do you know what percentage of 00:34:55.889 --> 00:34:59.369 the vote he got? Tell me. 1 .01%. 1%. Wow. That 00:34:59.369 --> 00:35:01.530 is just heartbreaking for a figure of his stature. 00:35:02.030 --> 00:35:04.889 It showed that Poland as a country had moved 00:35:04.889 --> 00:35:07.170 on from him, but he didn't disappear. He became 00:35:07.170 --> 00:35:09.530 this sort of grumpy, outspoken grandfather of 00:35:09.530 --> 00:35:12.449 the nation. And his publicly stated views have 00:35:12.449 --> 00:35:14.550 been a complete roller coaster. We have to talk 00:35:14.550 --> 00:35:16.969 about his comments on LGBT rights. This was a 00:35:16.969 --> 00:35:20.469 huge international controversy. Waza is and always 00:35:20.469 --> 00:35:23.710 has been a devout Catholic. He wears a badge 00:35:23.710 --> 00:35:26.269 of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa on his lapel 00:35:26.269 --> 00:35:30.340 every single day of his life. In 2013, he said 00:35:30.340 --> 00:35:32.739 on Polish television that homosexual MPs should 00:35:32.739 --> 00:35:34.539 have to sit in the back of the parliament or 00:35:34.539 --> 00:35:36.880 maybe even behind a wall separate from the other 00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:39.360 legislators. And the world exploded. Absolutely. 00:35:39.579 --> 00:35:42.079 The city of San Francisco renamed a street that 00:35:42.079 --> 00:35:44.360 had been named after him. He was disinvited from 00:35:44.360 --> 00:35:46.920 speaking events. The backlash was immense. But 00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:48.639 then, and this is what makes him so endlessly 00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:52.150 fascinating and unpredictable. He evolved. It 00:35:52.150 --> 00:35:54.829 changed his mind. Years later, he apologized 00:35:54.829 --> 00:35:57.110 for those comments. He started publicly supporting 00:35:57.110 --> 00:36:00.030 same -sex marriage. And he even publicly praised 00:36:00.030 --> 00:36:02.989 Robert Biedro, who is a prominent, openly gay 00:36:02.989 --> 00:36:05.610 Polish politician, calling him a great talent 00:36:05.610 --> 00:36:07.869 for the country. That is a massive shift for 00:36:07.869 --> 00:36:10.170 a man in his 70s from a rural Catholic background. 00:36:10.409 --> 00:36:13.119 It is. He's completely unpredictable. In 2015, 00:36:13.340 --> 00:36:15.880 during the European migration crisis, he said 00:36:15.880 --> 00:36:18.340 some very inflammatory things, warning that refugees 00:36:18.340 --> 00:36:20.960 might start exercising their own customs, including 00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:24.599 beheading. Very fear mongering stuff. But then 00:36:24.599 --> 00:36:27.500 on Russia. On Russia and Ukraine, he's more radical 00:36:27.500 --> 00:36:30.199 and hawkish than almost anyone. He strongly supports 00:36:30.199 --> 00:36:33.070 Ukraine. He recently made this radical suggestion 00:36:33.070 --> 00:36:35.809 that the Russian Federation should be forcibly 00:36:35.809 --> 00:36:38.550 broken up and its population reduced to less 00:36:38.550 --> 00:36:41.789 than 50 million by organizing uprisings of all 00:36:41.789 --> 00:36:44.329 the peoples annexed by Moscow over the centuries. 00:36:44.510 --> 00:36:47.019 He wants to completely dismantle Russia. He wants 00:36:47.019 --> 00:36:49.739 to free the annexed nations, Chechnya, Tatarstan, 00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:52.519 and so on. He is a revolutionary to the bitter 00:36:52.519 --> 00:36:55.820 end. He also despises Donald Trump. He called 00:36:55.820 --> 00:36:58.940 a potential Trump victory in 2024 a misfortune 00:36:58.940 --> 00:37:00.900 for the whole world. You just can't put him in 00:37:00.900 --> 00:37:03.179 a neat political box. He isn't a Republican or 00:37:03.179 --> 00:37:05.119 a Democrat or a conservative or a liberal. He's 00:37:05.119 --> 00:37:07.460 just wasasa. And his cultural legacy is just 00:37:07.460 --> 00:37:09.980 as complex. Oh, the mustache alone is an icon. 00:37:10.340 --> 00:37:13.199 And the language, the wazirsisms. He has this 00:37:13.199 --> 00:37:15.780 completely unique, peculiar way of speaking in 00:37:15.780 --> 00:37:18.989 these. riddles. I am for and even against. There 00:37:18.989 --> 00:37:21.389 are positive pluses and negative pluses. It's 00:37:21.389 --> 00:37:23.670 almost Yoda -like, but much more confusing. And 00:37:23.670 --> 00:37:26.909 he inspired a U2 song. New Year's Day. Bono wrote 00:37:26.909 --> 00:37:29.670 the lyrics inspired by the images he saw of the 00:37:29.670 --> 00:37:32.469 Solidarity Movement under martial law. The image 00:37:32.469 --> 00:37:34.469 of the Grides standing together in the snow, 00:37:34.650 --> 00:37:37.750 defiant. Peter Gabriel also wrote a song about 00:37:37.750 --> 00:37:40.880 him, Wallflower. And he's been in movies. He 00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:43.219 appeared as himself in Andrzej Wajda's classic 00:37:43.219 --> 00:37:45.619 film Man of Iron, which won the Palme d 'Or at 00:37:45.619 --> 00:37:48.579 Cannes. And then Wajda made a full biopic about 00:37:48.579 --> 00:37:51.780 him, Wachosa, Man of Hope. He was even a playable 00:37:51.780 --> 00:37:54.000 leader for the Polish civilization in the video 00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:57.219 game Civilization V. He's everywhere. So bringing 00:37:57.219 --> 00:37:58.599 this all back, we started with the idea that 00:37:58.599 --> 00:38:01.110 this group was too crazy for Hollywood. We have 00:38:01.110 --> 00:38:03.389 the tragic origin story, the dark middle chapter 00:38:03.389 --> 00:38:05.969 with the spy allegations, the heroic triumph 00:38:05.969 --> 00:38:08.690 over an empire, the messy and chaotic reign as 00:38:08.690 --> 00:38:11.409 king, and this complicated, controversial twilight. 00:38:11.570 --> 00:38:13.730 It really is the ultimate human story, isn't 00:38:13.730 --> 00:38:15.650 it? We want our heroes to be marble statues. 00:38:15.730 --> 00:38:18.170 We want them to be perfect and pure. But Le Cuecheza 00:38:18.170 --> 00:38:20.449 is profoundly flawed. He can be petty. He can 00:38:20.449 --> 00:38:22.750 be arrogant. He can be rude. And he might have 00:38:22.750 --> 00:38:25.349 had a very dark moment of weakness in the 1970s. 00:38:25.469 --> 00:38:28.349 But he also, undeniably, had the courage to jump 00:38:28.349 --> 00:38:31.019 that fence when nobody else did. He once said, 00:38:31.079 --> 00:38:35.420 I don't want to, but I have to. It really feels 00:38:35.420 --> 00:38:37.840 like that one phrase sums up his entire life. 00:38:38.039 --> 00:38:40.920 He was dragged into history and he dragged Poland 00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:43.659 with him, kicking and screaming towards freedom, 00:38:43.739 --> 00:38:45.760 whether they like his personal style or not. 00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:47.980 And that raises the big provocative question 00:38:47.980 --> 00:38:51.079 for you, for the listener, to think about. Can 00:38:51.079 --> 00:38:54.380 a revolutionary ever be a good ruler? Or are 00:38:54.380 --> 00:38:56.860 the skills that are required to destroy a dictatorship, 00:38:57.079 --> 00:38:59.519 stubbornness, confrontation, a cult of personality, 00:38:59.860 --> 00:39:02.519 the exact opposite of the skills required to 00:39:02.519 --> 00:39:04.639 build a stable democracy? That is something to 00:39:04.639 --> 00:39:07.360 chew on. Wajusa won the war, but maybe he was 00:39:07.360 --> 00:39:09.260 always destined to lose the peace that followed. 00:39:09.579 --> 00:39:11.860 That's it for this deep dive into the electrician 00:39:11.860 --> 00:39:13.920 of Gdesk. Thanks for listening. See you next 00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:14.079 time.