Fouché was a cunning man and a trickster, and he got away with much, because the knowledge of his exploits reached few and with delay. Tusk won’t do it again.
Why did one list fail? In short, because the creators, promoters and defenders acted from extreme to extreme. The best example is Donald Tusk, whose scope ranges from blackmail and harassment to love bombing. This is how the chairman of the Civic Platform usually works in politics. He “takes him out”, puts him in prison or threatens with “a rope and a branch bent under the weight”, or he sets up a melodramatic circus to the measure of Szymon Hołownia’s tears shed over the Constitution. In his actions, Tusk, though not alone, is very reminiscent of Józef Fouché, an old minister of police, a Jacobin and Thermidor, then a fierce supporter of the Emperor Napoleon, and finally of Louis XVIII.
As a Jacobin, Fouché voted for the beheading of King Louis XVI. He fought diligently against the enemies of the revolution, famous for his exceptional ruthlessness and cynicism. He quickly came into conflict with Robespierre, so he switched to the side of the Thermidorians. After 1795 he had four lean years before becoming minister of police. Thereafter he fought against Jacobins and Royalists in equal measure. Almost like Tusk fighting against PiS, but also the Polish Coalition (PSL) and Poland 2050, when their leaders did not believe in the miraculous workings of one list.
Fouché, like Tusk many years later, did not believe in rivals and potential allies of honor and faith. As part of the fight against the opposition, Fouché closed his newspapers and Tusk sent the ABW officers to the “impressive” editorial office. When the revolution came to an end under the management (the equivalent is Donald Tusk in 2014), Fouché made a deal with Bonaparte (like Tusk with Merkel about his career in Brussels). The grateful Napoleon did not throw him out of the post of police minister (Tusk got his dream job from Merkel). Fouché replied with a ruthless fight against the Jacobins (Tusk was as ruthless in fighting PiS as he was in damaging Poland ruled by PiS).
In 1809, when the fortunes of the empire were in doubt, Fouché agreed contingency plans with the British (Donald Tusk started as head of the EPP, then agreed that he would return to Brussels – as Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland). After the fall of Napoleon, Fouché went into hiding, only to resurface during Bonaparte’s 100 Days – again as Minister of Police. However, he quickly betrayed Napoleon by communicating with the Duke of Wellington. And then he became the head of the provisional government, and again the minister of police – only this time under Louis XVIII. He ended up an outlaw, banished from France for regicide. As for Tusk, we’ll see.
Fouché tended to get along well beforehand with those he was to join, and played doubles for a long time. Tusk played doubles, even with Poland’s enemies, such as Vladimir Putin. The brutality and ruthlessness he exposed before and after the Smolensk disaster indicated just that, as they were meant to divert attention from this double game. Ruthlessness also manifested itself after Tusk’s return to Polish politics in July 2021.
Tusk and Fouché are united by the acceptance of what is, namely opportunism. As long as it is well placed in a concrete reality. Fouché was a master at that, but Tusk did his best too. After all, it was he who recognized the Third Republic of Poland in the form of the Round Table as a state that had changed enough to be treated as a new quality. In June 2008, President Lech Kaczyński said: “Communism collapsed in virtually all Warsaw Pact countries, it faltered in the Soviet Union itself, and then it was time to speed up activities quickly. It is not done.” On subsequent anniversaries of the June 4, 1989 elections, Donald Tusk admitted that with the birth of the Third Polish Republic, everything was fine.
In an interview for “Rzeczpospolita” in February 2009, Lech Kaczyński stated: “I am one of those who believe that the state had to be re-established in Poland after 1989, and the fact that this was not done has far-reaching consequences. today”. At the conference “How have we managed our freedom?” (August 28, 2009), President Kaczyński said: “The people who won the property struggle in the 1990s were generally people of the previous system. And yet active participation in the previous system should not be a bonus in a system completely opposite to the first. For Tusk there was no such problem as for Fouché.
Already in the 1990s, Jarosław Kaczyński pushed the idea of a “new state” (the term was invented by Adam Lipiński) to radically distance himself from the Polish People’s Republic, which in the Third Polish Republic has many very large enclaves. Cutting off the People’s Republic of Poland would make it possible to stop the expansion of nomenklatura capitalism and the domination of the economy by post-communists and people from the services. It would make it possible to purge the judiciary, law enforcement agencies, military, police and secret services of people with crimes, agent work or violating moral principles on their conscience. In the “new state”, which Donald Tusk did not want, decommissioning and a much broader vetting than the one that was conducted would be possible.
Tusk apparently did not mind that not only people who served the communists, but especially the agents of the communist services, did not disappear from universities, media, cultural institutions or sports. And the same, in another reality, can be attributed to Fouché. This had enormous consequences for the system of selection of the elites in Poland, because – as Lech Kaczyński said – “a long-time secret collaborator cannot be regarded as a moral authority.” At the conference “How have we managed our freedom?” President Kaczyński said: “The impact of criminal structures on our reality has had a significant impact on shaping the social fabric. Besides the ‘corruption tax’ there was also the ‘crime tax’. They have contributed to the demoralization of entire social groups.”
In January 2014, Jarosław Kaczyński stated at the conference “Against Poverty, Against Corruption”: “One of the great tasks ahead is to fight against corruption. And in terms of axiology, law and facts. (…) Democracy is becoming not threatened by PiS, democracy is threatened by corruption, the dissolution of the state, everything that is part of Donald Tusk’s system.” As far back as December 2010, the PiS president said, “We are dealing with a government that fights corruption – effectively in our time, a fight that has deeply damaged the self-confidence of those who commit corruption. It has, as it were, lessened the insolence of those who corrupt and those who allow themselves to be corrupted. This battle was stopped and a number of protective measures were taken. Corruption in the Warsaw City Hall related to waste management proves that everything is as it was.
Donald Tusk has always maintained that capital and property have no nationality. Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński have always believed that capital and property have a nationality. “The Poles will not build their own model of capitalism without their own capital. Capital has no nationality only in economic theory. In business and political practice, the origin of capital is always important because, in addition to profit, it is an important tool for influence and control, said Jarosław Kaczyński in May 2013.
The dramatic events in Ukraine prove that as prime minister Donald Tusk made a cardinal mistake when he, as the PiS president put it, “abandoned the Jagiellonian policies and leadership policies of some post-Soviet countries in favor of efforts to improve relations with Russia.” And “The Russians are using this situation to demote Poland. These relations are radically unequal and therefore humiliating Poland. The effect was that Russia attacked Ukraine and a real threat to Poland arose.
Fouché was of exceptional cunning and maneuverability, and he got away with much, because knowledge of his exploits reached few and with delay. In an age of instant information, Tusk can’t be a Fouché no matter how hard he tries. But does Poland really need such politicians? France does not need them either, although President Emmanuel Macron often tries to resemble Joseph Fouché. The latter, however, can in no way be said to be the personification of the virtues. These are bad times, but even in such times, politicians who want to be like Fouché should not be rewarded.
Source: wPolityce