In the space of just a few weeks, Poland’s Jarosław Kaczyński of the ruling Law and Justice party has witnessed his authority crumble and slip through his fingers like grains of sand. He witnessed it not only in parliament, but also at a memorial and at a polling station.
WARSAW – Consider the following three-scene play. In the first scene, it is October 10, 2023. Jarosław Kaczyński, the soon-to-be-deposed little “Big Man” of Poland’s populist ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), does what he does on the tenth day of every month. He lays flowers at the monument commemorating his twin brother, then-President Lech Kaczyński, and 95 others who died when their plane tried to land in thick fog at Smolensk airfield in Russia, in April 2010.
Meanwhile, Zbigniew Komosa, a Polish entrepreneur who carries out a similar ritual on the tenth day of every month, lays a wreath commemorating the victims of the crash. But pinned to his offering is a note that reads: “In memory of the 95 victims of Lech Kaczyński, who, ignoring all regulations, ordered the pilots to land in extremely hazardous conditions. May you rest in peace.”
Every month, Kaczyński has had Komosa’s wreath removed. This time, however, the police attending Kaczyński are somehow less eager to do so, and Kaczyński must do it himself. He tears the note off and carries the wreath away from the monument to cries of “thief” from Komosa and a friend who is filming the entire incident. Kaczyński then demands that the police arrest the wreath-layers or at least take down their names, while Komosa demands that they arrest Kaczyński for stealing private property.
The scene lasts around ten minutes as an increasingly frustrated Kaczyński tells the police that he is ordering them as the minister for security (a position he no longer holds) to arrest Komosa. Eventually, Kaczyński resorts to ringing a police commandant personally, but still to no avail.
In scene two, it is Sunday, October 15, 2023: Election Day. Kaczyński, not an early riser, shows up late in the day to vote. The polling station is crowded, because voter turnout is higher than in any election since the fall of communism. Accompanied by his security detail, Kaczyński is astonished to be told by those in line that he is not permitted to jump the queue, and that he should go to the back to wait his turn. The scene is especially striking because, as everyone knows, elderly voters are often allowed ahead as a matter of courtesy.
In scene three, it is November 13, 2023: The first session of the newly elected parliament, where four democratic opposition parties command a large majority. Since 2016, the parliament building has been surrounded by crowd-control barriers, reinforced by a strong police presence. But as this session commences, members of the public remove the barriers and stack them tidily to one side, while the police look on.
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There is no storming of the parliament to worry about. The crowd is there to support the peaceful transfer of power, not to prevent it. But viewers of the play should know that this is not how the Polish police normally behaved during PiS’s eight-year rule. For example, law enforcement responded brutally to women marching in protest against Poland’s total ban on abortion in 2020; at the time, Kaczyński wanted to use the army to suppress the protests.
What conclusions can we draw from this drama? First, the authority to use violence or force can evaporate unexpectedly and very quickly, sometimes even before an election loss, and long before a formal transfer of power. After all, the new democratic government, led by former European Council President and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is unlikely to be sworn in before December 13 – a full month after the events of scene three, and two months after scene two, when Kaczyński was told to go to the back of the line.
Something similar happened in Russia during Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny. No one stood in the way of his “march on Moscow” – on the contrary, many ordinary Russians cheered him on – and the effort probably failed only because Prigozhin had not thought through what he would do if he took Moscow.
Second, in fledgling authoritarian regimes, many of those tied to the “apparatus of repression” will not yet have committed crimes on behalf of those in power. Even if there is only a small outside chance of democracy returning, they will remain unwilling to stick out their own necks, and the law will retain some force.
We saw this during the wreath-laying incident: the man filming the scene kept demanding that the police explain which article of the criminal code authorized them to order him to leave. In the end, they pushed him back a bit, but not so far as to prevent him from annoying Kaczyński.
The moral of the story, then, is that the longer authoritarians are in power, the more likely they are to stay in power by implementing policies and procedures to make it less likely that ordinary people will challenge their authority. For example, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping turn up at their neighborhood polling stations, other voters, like those Kaczyński encountered, are kept away. When authoritarian regimes are consolidating themselves, time is not on the side of the forces of democracy.
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WARSAW – Consider the following three-scene play. In the first scene, it is October 10, 2023. Jarosław Kaczyński, the soon-to-be-deposed little “Big Man” of Poland’s populist ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), does what he does on the tenth day of every month. He lays flowers at the monument commemorating his twin brother, then-President Lech Kaczyński, and 95 others who died when their plane tried to land in thick fog at Smolensk airfield in Russia, in April 2010.
Meanwhile, Zbigniew Komosa, a Polish entrepreneur who carries out a similar ritual on the tenth day of every month, lays a wreath commemorating the victims of the crash. But pinned to his offering is a note that reads: “In memory of the 95 victims of Lech Kaczyński, who, ignoring all regulations, ordered the pilots to land in extremely hazardous conditions. May you rest in peace.”
Every month, Kaczyński has had Komosa’s wreath removed. This time, however, the police attending Kaczyński are somehow less eager to do so, and Kaczyński must do it himself. He tears the note off and carries the wreath away from the monument to cries of “thief” from Komosa and a friend who is filming the entire incident. Kaczyński then demands that the police arrest the wreath-layers or at least take down their names, while Komosa demands that they arrest Kaczyński for stealing private property.
The scene lasts around ten minutes as an increasingly frustrated Kaczyński tells the police that he is ordering them as the minister for security (a position he no longer holds) to arrest Komosa. Eventually, Kaczyński resorts to ringing a police commandant personally, but still to no avail.
In scene two, it is Sunday, October 15, 2023: Election Day. Kaczyński, not an early riser, shows up late in the day to vote. The polling station is crowded, because voter turnout is higher than in any election since the fall of communism. Accompanied by his security detail, Kaczyński is astonished to be told by those in line that he is not permitted to jump the queue, and that he should go to the back to wait his turn. The scene is especially striking because, as everyone knows, elderly voters are often allowed ahead as a matter of courtesy.
In scene three, it is November 13, 2023: The first session of the newly elected parliament, where four democratic opposition parties command a large majority. Since 2016, the parliament building has been surrounded by crowd-control barriers, reinforced by a strong police presence. But as this session commences, members of the public remove the barriers and stack them tidily to one side, while the police look on.
Secure your copy of PS Quarterly: The Climate Crucible
The newest issue of our magazine, PS Quarterly: The Climate Crucible, is here. To gain digital access to all of the magazine’s content, and receive your print copy, subscribe to PS Premium now.
Subscribe Now
There is no storming of the parliament to worry about. The crowd is there to support the peaceful transfer of power, not to prevent it. But viewers of the play should know that this is not how the Polish police normally behaved during PiS’s eight-year rule. For example, law enforcement responded brutally to women marching in protest against Poland’s total ban on abortion in 2020; at the time, Kaczyński wanted to use the army to suppress the protests.
What conclusions can we draw from this drama? First, the authority to use violence or force can evaporate unexpectedly and very quickly, sometimes even before an election loss, and long before a formal transfer of power. After all, the new democratic government, led by former European Council President and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is unlikely to be sworn in before December 13 – a full month after the events of scene three, and two months after scene two, when Kaczyński was told to go to the back of the line.
Something similar happened in Russia during Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny. No one stood in the way of his “march on Moscow” – on the contrary, many ordinary Russians cheered him on – and the effort probably failed only because Prigozhin had not thought through what he would do if he took Moscow.
Second, in fledgling authoritarian regimes, many of those tied to the “apparatus of repression” will not yet have committed crimes on behalf of those in power. Even if there is only a small outside chance of democracy returning, they will remain unwilling to stick out their own necks, and the law will retain some force.
We saw this during the wreath-laying incident: the man filming the scene kept demanding that the police explain which article of the criminal code authorized them to order him to leave. In the end, they pushed him back a bit, but not so far as to prevent him from annoying Kaczyński.
The moral of the story, then, is that the longer authoritarians are in power, the more likely they are to stay in power by implementing policies and procedures to make it less likely that ordinary people will challenge their authority. For example, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping turn up at their neighborhood polling stations, other voters, like those Kaczyński encountered, are kept away. When authoritarian regimes are consolidating themselves, time is not on the side of the forces of democracy.