It's a conspiracy!

An incident on the way to work got me thinking. A guy sitting opposite me on the train commented on my US Army parka and fur hat; he told me that he collected militaria and pointed to his 1960s Red Army-issue boots. The man, in his early 30s, dressed like a manual labourer, then went on to talk quite knowledgeably, about his collection of military bits and pieces he'd dug up around Magnuszew, (where the Red Army established a bridgehead on the west bank of the Vistula and fought off a German counter-attacks in 1944).

He told me that he'd had a stash of 160 WWII hand grenades that he'd kept in his basement. When these were found by the police (his neighbours, he said, were always complaining about the explosions he was setting off) he was imprisoned for six and half years. At this stage, I began having doubts as to the veracity of the man's tale.

He then told of how he'd often recruit local drunks from Warka to dig for military remains, paying them 100 złotys for a day's work. “Two of them blew themselves sky-high”, he told me. "Fantasist," I thought. His grandfather was a German, he said, who had fought with the SS on the Eastern Front. “The things he'd seen...” His grandfather, who he said died when he was 12 or 13, said “they should have liquidated all the Jews.” By now, alarm bells started ringing. The guy's not only nuts but quite probably psychopathic. “The Jews are running Poland!” he said, drawing attention from other commuters. “Even this railway is owned by the Jews!” Without saying a word, I stood up and moved to another carriage.

This encounter – most untypical, I must add - got me thinking about the role of Conspiracy in politics. At the weekend, reading KGB – The Inside Story by Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky – the link between mental illness, paranoia and conspiracy all fitted together. Poland is still emerging from a dark period in its history – the direct result of the madness that fuelled the minds of two men – Hitler and Stalin.

Both were obsessed with conspiracies – one was convinced of a Jewish plot to run the world. The other – of a capitalist plot to run the world. The mental flexibility that allowed their ill minds to find plots and sub-plots that simply did not exist is staggering. During the Spanish Civil War, when Stalin was supporting the Republican side – his NKVD henchmen spent more energy chasing Trotskyites than they did fighting Fascists – which, ostensibly, was what they were there for.

Both Hitler and Stalin's secret services were in the business of torturing the truth out of innocent people in order to prove the existence of a given conspiracy. Stalin was so much more effective. His secret services effectively spread disinformation, they found useful dupes to do good propaganda for them, they were so much better at getting their victims to volunteer information to them. Hitler's propaganda had no room for shades of grey. Stalin's propaganda could make white look like black.

Destroying the bonds of human trust are a prerequisite for a New Order to step in, replacing centuries-old institutions with The Party. In the 20th C., this happened right across much of the Eurasian continent. It deeply affected the psyches (and indeed mental health) of those who lived through it.

To finally kill off the evil effects of totalitarianism in Poland – and other post-communist countries – what is needed is the rebuilding of social trust. Good must arise out of bad - not sinking back into a world of plots, counter-plots and counter-counter-plots.

One of my students, Marzena, who has just returned from her first trip to the UK, noticed how low the walls surrounding English houses were compared to the elaborate security measures that defend Polish houses. Despite (or because of) this, burglary rates in Warsaw are actually lower than in London. Three times lower, in fact. And yet, fear of crime is far greater here.

Paranoia – the fear that someone's out to get me – is at the heart of many populist political movements. Russia's Putin cannot accept, for example, that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – voluntary bodies set up from the grass roots – can exist or even spring up without the careful planning and support of foreign powers intent on using them to take over Russia.

Populist parties around the world use conspiracy theory to boost support among the disaffected. Those who believe that the fact that life has been less than fair them is the fault of some vast conspiracy. They will vote for anyone who can put their minds at ease by convincing them of that fact.

I'm not going to make any direct references to today's press conference by Antoni Macierewicz; I shall let readers make their own conclusion.

This time last year:
A Dream Too Far - short story

This time two years ago:
Compositions in white, blue and gold

This time three years ago:
Dobra and the road

This time four years ago:
Polish air force plane full of VIPs crashes on landing