WI/PC: Lech Walesa Killed

[APreston]

This is related to another TL idea I have when my current one ends. Is it plausible for Lech Walesa to be executed by any Polish communist government for his agitating, and what would the result be? I'm thinking most plausible is that when Jaruzelski comes to power and imprisons him, he gets executed as an example to other strikers and agitators, probably sometime in late 1981 or early 1982.

[ccdsah]

Originally Posted by APreston

This is related to another TL idea I have when my current one ends. Is it plausible for Lech Walesa to be executed by any Polish communist government for his agitating, and what would the result be? I'm thinking most plausible is that when Jaruzelski comes to power and imprisons him, he gets executed as an example to other strikers and agitators, probably sometime in late 1981 or early 1982.

i don't think he will be executed, prison is a definite possibility though

[Shaby]

This would not be good. Not good at all. Protests might turn even more violent, protesters would have had martyr figure to point to and Pope would step up Free Poland campaign. Eventually Soviets might get invited in (or invited themselves in) and Czechoslovakia '68 in Poland might get repeated. Or even worse, Hungary '56.

[MSZ]

Kill Walesa and somebody else would take his place. Executing a Noble Peace Prize laureat definitly wouldn't look good for the Communists. If this would be meant as a beginning of a hard-head campaign to kill the Warsaw Communism syndrome, I doubt it would succeed at that point. Mostpossible result is someone other than Walesa taking over the mantle of democratic leader. Worst possible is Soviets and Germans moving in and getting themselves an Afghan War times 10.

[seraphim74]

While Polish communists weren't the nicest or the smartest of people, they did have some brains; executing Wałęsa would have made him a martyr and only stiffen Polish opposition not to mention destroyed any Polish chance to make business with Western countries (to which Poland owed a lot of money); besides Polish communist leaders from 1980s were not Stalinist and the last thing they wanted was a big scale bloodshed.
However, in Polish United Workers' Party (Polish communist party) there was a group of hardliners, later known as "beton" (concrete); they actually were interested in Soviet intervention, which Jaruzelski would have prefered to avoid. Should they have taken over, say, in 1981, the martial law in Poland might have ended with much more casualties, Wałęsa included. And then teh Soviets migth have had to intervene (not that they were eager to do so).

[Simreeve]

Originally Posted by seraphim74

While Polish communists weren't the nicest or the smartest of people, they did have some brains; executing Wałęsa would have made him a martyr and only stiffen Polish opposition

So why didn't they decide against killing that "turbulent priest" -- what was his name 'Father Jerzy' or something like that -- too?

[SlickWilly]

Would the Murder of John Paul 2 by eg a Bulgarian agent be more significant in terms of the fall of the wall and the development Opf Poland?

[Mefisto]

Originally Posted by Simreeve

So why didn't they decide against killing that "turbulent priest" -- what was his name 'Father Jerzy' or something like that -- too?

Because Jerzy Popiełuszko was a priest: a class enemy for communists and "communoistoids". Lech Wałęsa was a worker, a Noblist and a symbol recognized abroad. Killing him would be problematic. They tried to discredit him first.

[seraphim74]

Originally posted by Simreeve

So why didn't they decide against killing that "turbulent priest" -- what was his name 'Father Jerzy' or something like that -- too?

The case of father Jerzy Popiełuszko is still not completely clear. There are reasons to believe that decision to murder him was not made by the communist top brass, but by senior officers of Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Security Service - more or less Polish equivalent of KGB) on their own. And the uproar in Poland and abroad was so big, that the perpetrators, all of them SB officers (including 1 colonel) were tried and sentenced to prison - in 1985. There are still suspicions concerning two SB generals who might have also been guilty of conspiring to kill father Jerzy.
Anyway, it's 1984, 3 years after the martial law was declared and Polish opposition, while still active, was quite efficiently surpressed. Killing Wałęsa in 1981, when emotions really went high, would have been considered too risky. IMHO.

[Dementor]

Originally Posted by SlickWilly

Would the Murder of John Paul 2 by eg a Bulgarian agent be more significant in terms of the fall of the wall and the development Opf Poland?

He was a Turk close to the Grey Wolves, not a Bulgarian agent.