Antoni Macierewicz

Antoni Macierewicz
Macierewicz at the Parliament of Poland
Minister of National Defence
Incumbent
Assumed office November 16, 2015
President	Andrzej Duda
Prime Minister	Beata Szydło
Preceded by	Tomasz Siemoniak
Deputy Leader of Law and Justice
Incumbent
Assumed office November 23, 2013
Leader	Jarosław Kaczyński
Member of the Sejm
Incumbent
Assumed office November 5, 2007
In office October 20, 1997 – October 18, 2005
In office November 25, 1991 – May 31, 1993
Minister of Internal Affairs
In office December 23, 1991 – June 20, 1992
President	Lech Wałęsa
Prime Minister	Jan Olszewski
Preceded by	Henryk Majewski
Succeeded by	Andrzej Milczanowski
Head of the Military Counterintelligence Service
In office October 4, 2006 – November 5, 2007
President	Lech Kaczyński
Prime Minister	Jarosław Kaczyński
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Janusz Nosek
Secretary of State in the Ministry of National Defence
In office July 1, 2006 – November 1, 2007
President	Lech Kaczyński
Prime Minister	Jarosław Kaczyński
Chairman of the Verification Commission
In office July 21, 2006 – November 9, 2007
President	Lech Kaczyński
Prime Minister	Jarosław Kaczyński
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Jan Olszewski
Member of the European Parliament
In office April 23, 2003 – July 19, 2004
Personal details
Born	August 3, 1948 Warsaw, Poland
Political party	Law and Justice (2012–present)
Other political affiliations	Christian National Union (1992–1995) Polish Action (1993–1995) Movement for Reconstruction of Poland (1993–1997) Catholic-National Movement (1997–2012) Patriotic Movement (2005–2012)
Spouse(s)	Hanna Macierewicz
Parents	Zdzisław Macierewicz Maria Macierewicz
Alma mater	University of Warsaw Polish Academy of Sciences
Profession	Politician Academic Historian Human rights activist
Religion	Roman Catholic
Signature
Website	macierewicz.com

Antoni Macierewicz (born August 3, 1948) is the Minister of National Defence for Poland. He previously served as the Minister of Internal Affairs, Head of the Military Counterintelligence Service, and Secretary of State in the Ministry of National Defence. An academic, historian, and human rights activist, Macierewicz was one of the leaders of the anti-communist resistance in Poland.

Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Macierewicz founded in 1976 the Workers' Defense Committee, a major anti-communist opposition organization that was the forerunner of Solidarity. During the 1980s Macierewicz directed the Centre for Social Research of Solidarity and was one of the trade union's key advisors. A former political prisoner, he escaped from incarceration and was hiding until 1984, directing work and issuing underground publications.^[1][2][3]

Macierewicz served as the Minister of Internal Affairs from 1991 to 1992, and the Head of the Military Counterintelligence Service from 2006 to 2007. He is currently in his sixth term in the Parliament of Poland, where he represents the Piotrków Trybunalski district, and was a Member of the European Parliament. He is also the Deputy Leader of Law and Justice, the largest party in the Parliament of Poland. Since November 16, 2015 Macierewicz is the Minister of National Defence.

A historian of Latin America and Poland, Macierewicz has been on faculty at the University of Warsaw and Jagiellonian University.

Early life

Macierewicz was born in Warsaw on August 3, 1948 into a family of intellectuals. He is the youngest of three children of Zdzisław and Maria Macierewicz. His father, a scientist and noted researcher in chemistry, a soldier in the Home Army during World War II, and a member of the Christian democratic Labor Party, was murdered by the Ministry of Public Security in 1949.

Anti-communist activities

Macierewicz was expelled from Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski High School for political reasons in 1965, specifically for refusing to denounce the Letter of Reconciliation of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops. Macierewicz continued his studies at Maria Konopnicka High School. From 1966, he belonged to the "Black One" scout troop.^[4] After completing his baccalaureate exams, he became a student at the University of Warsaw in 1966. He co-organized underground student organizations and participated in the student strikes that marked the 1968 Polish political crisis. He was arrested and remained a political prisoner from March 28 to August 3, 1968. Following the Polish 1970 protests, Macierewicz launched the campaign to help victims of state oppression. In 1971 he earned a Master's degree from the Institute of History of the University of Warsaw. His thesis was titled Hierarchy of Power and the Structure of Land Ownership in Tawantinsuyu in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century’’.

As a doctoral student at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, he developed expertise on South America, but his doctoral thesis was not considered for political reasons. Subsequently, he coordinated with other independent intellectuals, writing letters of protest to the government regarding changes in the constitution of the Polish People's Republic. He taught the history of Latin America at the Department of Iberian Studies of the University of Warsaw.^[5] During this time he published articles and learned Quechuan languages. In January 1976 he started a PhD under the supervision of Tadeusz Łepkowski, which was interrupted by the authorities in mid-October 1976 because of Macierewicz’s dissident activities. Moreover, publication of his book and a trip to Argentina in order to conduct archival research were both blocked.

Stanisław Lewek (second from left), the physician who enabled Macierewicz’s 1982 escape from incarceration

After the pacification of workers in June 1976, he organized relief in Radom and Ursus.^[6] Along with some of his colleagues from "Black One", he created underground structures, which dealt with the monetary, legal, and medical aid for the oppressed. Macierewicz founded the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR), the forerunner of Solidarity. “Macierewicz, more than anyone else, was responsible for the formation of KOR”, notes David Ost, a Professor of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.^[1]

In September 1976 he co-authored the organization's first appeal and began publishing the Komunikat „KOR”, working closely with Piotr Naimski and Jan Olszewski. From May 16 to July 23, 1977, and again in December 1979, Macierewicz was held as a political prisoner. In 1977 he started Głos, one of the first magazines of the democratic opposition in the communist era.^[7] In October 1979 he was a member of the Solidarity hunger strike at the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. In connection with his opposition activities, he was kept under surveillance by the security services of communist Poland and, from 1976 until 1980, he was detained at least 23 times and his residence regularly searched.

From September 1980, Macierewicz directed the Centre for Social Research of Solidarity.^[8] He also began to publish the independent newspaper News Day Warsaw. Since October 1980 he was a member of the National Coordination Committee of Advisors, and later the National Commission of Solidarity. On September 27, 1981, Macierewicz was one of the signatories of the founding declaration of Independence Service Clubs. In the autumn of 1981, he joined the faculty at the Jagiellonian University. After the introduction of martial law in Poland, Macierewicz was part of the strike committee at the Gdańsk Shipyard. After the pacification of the protest of December 16, 1981, he was arrested but escaped from prison. Macierewicz was in hiding until 1984, directing work and issuing underground publications.

Political career

Member of the Sejm

Macierewicz remains a Member of the Sejm, where he has served from November 25, 1991 to May 31, 1993, from October 20, 1997 to October 18, 2005, and from November 5, 2007 to present. He represents the Piotrków Trybunalski district. He is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for the Investigation of the Causes of the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 Crash. Macierewicz is also a member of the National Defense Commission and the Subcommission for the Polish Defense Industry and Technical Modernization of the Armed Forces.

Minister of Internal Affairs

He was Minister of Internal Affairs in Jan Olszewski's government. As a minister responsible for the police and security services, he was afforded full access to the former communist documentary archives, including records of communist intelligence and secret service agents. On May 28, 1992, the Parliament of Poland passed a law that the Minister of Internal Affairs had to provide the Sejm with a list of then senators, representatives, ministers, voivodes, judges and prosecutors who had been secret communist agents between 1945 and 1990.^[9] On June 4, 1992, Macierewicz provided a list, commonly known as the Macierewicz List, of 64 members of the government and parliament that had been identified as secret agents in the archives of the communist secret police to the Convent of Senior Parliamentarians. He also provided a second list containing the 2 names of highest importance, that of than President Lech Wałęsa and Marshall of Sejm Wiesław Chrzanowski.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}

As the crisis had been unfolding, prior to the lists' presentation, on May 29, 1992 the opposition parties submitted a motion of no confidence, asking for a vote on the fate of Olszewski's government. On the night of June 4, 1992, after the presentation of the lists, the motion of no confidence passed and Olszewski's government was dismissed.^[15] This situation was depicted in a documentary film, Nocna zmiana.

Activity between government posts

In 1992 Macierewicz founded his own party, Polish Action. He joined Olszewski’s party, the Movement for Reconstruction of Poland, and became his deputy in 1996. He ran for parliament on Olszewski’s party ticket. In 1997 he founded the Catholic-National Movement. In 2001 he joined the League of Polish Families, and on its list was re-elected to parliament in 2001, but left them due to policy differences.^[16] In 2002 Macierewicz ran unsuccessfully for President of Warsaw.

Member of the European Parliament

Macierewicz was a Member of the European Parliament during the fifth term. He served on the Committee on Development and Cooperation.

Secretary of State in the Ministry of National Defence

Following the 2005 Polish parliamentary election, Macierewicz was selected by Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński for the post of Secretary of State in the Ministry of National Defence.

Chairman of the Verification Commission

Macierewicz in Kraków, 2013

In July 2006, Macierewicz was appointed as the Chairman of the Verification Commission. He lead the liquidation of the Military Information Services, a vestige of the communist era.^[17][18] Macierewicz also established new intelligence and counterintelligence agencies.^[19] On 16 February 2007 the closure report, known as the Macierewicz Report, was published in the Polish Monitor.

In its analysis, global intelligence company Stratfor noted:^[20]

The move both removes Soviet influence and consolidates the twins' power in the government. The release of the WSI report is one of the largest and most decisive moves along these lines. By naming people in the WSI who are connected to Soviet intelligence, Kaczynski ensures their names will forever be known for — alleged or real — Soviet ties. The move undermines the entire structure of the WSI and all of its former personnel, ensuring that it and those attached to it can never recover.

Head of the Military Counterintelligence Service

In October 2006, Macierewicz became Head of the Military Counterintelligence Service, in office until the end of the Kaczyński government.

Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash investigation

Since July 20, 2010 Macierewicz is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for the Investigation of the Causes of the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash, commonly known as the Macierewicz Commission. Established on July 8, 2010, its goal is to prepare a full account of the circumstances surrounding the crash, which killed President of Poland Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria, and 94 other dignitaries en route to the 70th anniversary commemorations of the Katyń massacre. The committee was also mandated to provide recommendations regarding the prevention of aviation accidents and incidents. The committee was created in accordance with parliamentary legislation. It issues reports and hears extensive testimony from experts. On June 29–30, 2011 the committee published "Biała Księga Smoleńskiej Tragedii" (White Book of Smolensk Tragedy), where some 170,000 documents were published on their websites and 19 causes of the crash presented.^[21]

Deputy Leader of Law and Justice

Since November 23, 2013, Macierewicz has been the Deputy Leader of Law and Justice, the largest party in the Parliament of Poland.

Minister of National Defence

Macierewicz was designated Minister of National Defence on November 9, 2015. He was sworn in on November 16.

Honors and Awards

On May 3, 1990, Ryszard Kaczorowski, than President of Poland in exile, awarded Macierewicz the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of Poland's highest orders. News magazine Gazeta Polska named Macierewicz the 2010 Man of the Year.

Rutgers University

Macierewicz delivered a highly publicized lecture at Rutgers University on February 24, 2015. Macierewicz inaugurated the World Leaders Forum of the Rutgers Council on Public and International Affairs, a student-run nonpartisan organization sponsored by the School of Public Affairs and Administration.^[22] His lecture, entitled Peace and Security in Central Europe: Challenges and Opportunities, was received by a “standing-room-only crowd of Rutgers faculty, students, staff, and administrators”, including Chancellor Nancy Cantor and Dean Marc Holzer, who delivered welcoming remarks.^[23]

Macierewicz started the lecture with a quote on Russian expansionism from Aleksandr Dugin, and continued:

Up till now we've heard such words from Iranian ayatollahs talking about Israel. Now we hear it from a Russian politician and philosopher talking about Poland and other states of Central Europe…The Dugins, we can now say – the Putins, geopolitical philosophy means that they want to eliminate or subjugate 300 million people and a territory of one third of Europe with extraordinary economic potential.

The lecture culminated with Macierewicz declaring:

This is a great lesson for the future. Peace depends on security and not security on peace. In fact, the security of Central Europe is the key to global security.

Footnotes

1. David Ost (20 April 2010). Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics: Opposition and Reform in Poland Since 1968. Temple University Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-4399-0351-3.
2. Piotr Wróbel (27 January 2014). Historical Dictionary of Poland 1945-1996. Taylor & Francis. p. 1977. ISBN 978-1-135-92701-1.
3. Jan Józef Lipski. K.O.R. University of California Press. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-520-05243-7.
4. Michael Szporer; Mark Kramer (2012). Solidarity: The Great Workers Strike of 1980. Lexington Books. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-7391-7487-6.
5. Antoon de Baets (2002). Censorship of Historical Thought: A World Guide, 1945-2000. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 390–391. ISBN 978-0-313-31193-2.
6. Michael H. Bernhard (1993). The Origins of Democratization in Poland: Workers, Intellectuals, and Oppositional Politics, 1976-1980. Columbia University Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-231-08093-4.
7. Michael Szporer; Mark Kramer (2012). Solidarity: The Great Workers Strike of 1980. Lexington Books. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-7391-7487-6.
8. Piotr Wróbel (27 January 2014). Historical Dictionary of Poland 1945-1996. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1977–1998. ISBN 978-1-135-92701-1.
9. Ilan Berman; J. Michael Waller (2006). Dismantling Tyranny: Transitioning Beyond Totalitarian Regimes. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-7425-4903-6.
10. Antoon de Baets (2009). Responsible History. Berghahn Books. p. 63. ISBN 978-1-84545-541-5.
11. Jacqueline Hayden (12 October 2012). Poles Apart: Solidarity and The New Poland. Routledge. p. 108. ISBN 978-1-136-30143-8.
12. Frances Millard (11 September 2002). Politics and Society in Poland. Routledge. p. 21. ISBN 978-1-134-72447-5.
13. Tina Rosenberg (24 November 2010). The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 251. ISBN 978-0-307-77358-6.
14. Monika Nalepa (25 January 2010). Skeletons in the Closet: Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe. Cambridge University Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-0-521-51445-3.
15. George Sanford (6 December 2012). Poland: The Conquest of History. Routledge. pp. 38–39. ISBN 978-1-136-65096-3.
16. Tom Lansford (7 April 2015). Political Handbook of the World 2015. SAGE Publications. p. 4982. ISBN 978-1-4833-7155-9.
17. Joanna Kaminska (26 November 2014). Poland and EU Enlargement: Foreign Policy in Transformation. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 245. ISBN 978-1-137-45223-8.
18. Boyes, Roger (2015-02-25). "Polish twins to widen purge of communists". The Australian.
19. Leszek W. Głuchowski; Antony Polonsky (2009). 1968, Forty Years After. Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. p. 99. ISBN 978-1-904113-36-2.
20. Geopolitical Diary (2007-02-20). "Trying to Redefine Poland". Stratfor. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
21. Alexander Etkind; Rory Finnin; Uilleam Blacker; Julie Fedor, Simon Lewis, Maria Mälksoo, Matilda Mroz (24 April 2013). Remembering Katyn. John Wiley & Sons. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-7456-6296-1.
22. ""Rosyjskie wojska nie zatrzymają się na Ukrainie i Polsce". Ważny i prestiżowy wykład posła Macierewicza na amerykańskim uniwersytecie" ["Russian troops will not stop in Ukraine and Poland". The important and prestigious lecture of Member of Parliament Macierewicz at an American university]. wPolityce.pl (in Polish). 2015-02-25. Retrieved 2015-05-07.
23. "Polish Statesman Antoni Macierewicz Inaugurates the Rutgers Council on Public and International Affairs' World Leaders Forum" (Press release). Newark, NJ: Rutgers University. Retrieved 2015-05-07.

External links

• Official website
• Parlamentary profile