When Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition conducted its election campaign last year, it promoted the slogan of “Smiling Poland,” with corresponding brand accents of smiles and hearts. It implied that Poland had receded into darkness under the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which governed the country from 2015 to 2023. Tusk and his coalition partners promised progress and a healthy dose of “rule of law.” Instead, they have returned the country to an earlier era, as seemingly not a week passes without a thuggish confrontation. 

Last Wednesday marked the most recent round of farmer protests, which have occurred across the continent and become particularly visible in Poland, where the combination of unregulated Ukrainian agricultural imports and EU Green Deal provisions are particularly onerous. Foresters, truckers, miners, and hunters joined Wednesday’s protests, which had the official support of the country’s largest labor union. In a flashback to the Solidarity protests of the 1980s, riot police met the protesters with truncheons, tear gas, and water cannons.

Police Brutality in Poland

“ZOMO” is a word on Polish lips again. The Motorized Reserves of the Citizens’ Militia (abbreviated ZOMO) gained notoriety for violently subduing protests during the communist era, forming the backdrop of key events from the Solidarity era. Prosecuting its most criminal elements has been an aspect of post-communist Poland confronting its past. 

The name on police uniforms changed — Milicja gave way to Policja (the connotation passes effectively into English), but the willingness to employ police brutality demonstrably still exists in Poland. 

One widely circulated video shows riot police tackling and arresting a man carrying a Polish flag. EU parliamentarian Dominik Tarczyński flatly noted the symbolism: “The flag is on the ground,” he posted on X. In other videos, police charge a crowd while discharging tear gas. One shows an officer throwing what appears to be a stone into a crowd of protesters. Parliamentarian Sławomir Mentzen has claimed that police gassed and attacked a crowd assembled in front of the parliament building, and that he sustained injuries that required medical attention.

Flaga na ziemi… pic.twitter.com/oUEB8gHen7

— Dominik Tarczyński MEP (@D_Tarczynski) March 6, 2024

Dr. Michał Sopiński, rector and assistant professor at the Institute of Justice in Warsaw, wrote an appeal to government officials in which he highlighted the “gross excess of authority by police officers” and “possible abuses in the use of direct coercive measures.” 

Government and opposition figures have traded barbs over who provoked whom, both claiming the other side employed provocateurs. Numbers of protesters and injuries are unclear (though the previous week’s smaller protest drew an estimated 10,000 demonstrators). This much, however, is certain: Tusk’s government has minted its latest public outrage. 

Tusk’s Leftist Regime and the Conversative Problem

In December, one week after taking power, the new government raided the public television headquarters. In January, it took political prisoners in the Presidential Palace. Western journalists frequently describe the ruling coalition as moderate and politically diverse, but it has forced a leftist wish list onto the political agenda and assumed a comparably hardnosed stance on social issues. Abortion, “hate-speech” laws, and so-called transgender soldiers are reportedly in the works. Illegal migrants and migration activists have been invited to parliament. Education reform will restrict Polish history, literature, and religion. Tusk’s term has, so far, been a concoction of flagrant rule-of-law abuses and leftist social engineering.

Ironically, Tusk started his political career as a Solidarity activist. He now shares a government with descendants of the communist-era Polish United Workers’ Party and oversees police tactics he once would have reviled. He should resign. Yet, that alone won’t restore sanity. 

Last October’s elections can’t really be interpreted as a mandate for anything, but they certainly were a mandate against something: PiS. Recent polls suggest that this unpopularity has not improved, despite the new government’s excesses, and might even have worsened. Jarosław Kaczyński, the unpopular PiS leader and former prime minister, announced he would continue his leadership, a decision that figures to handicap his party’s short-term (if not long-term) chances. Confederation, the only other meaningful force on the right, failed to gain enough votes to be eligible for coalition talks. 

Nor can the recent farmer protests be neatly tied to the right. Journalist Piotr Semka notes that “PiS politicians are not always welcomed with open arms” at the protests. This stems from the perception that PiS meekly accepted the EU’s Green Deal provisions and failed to address the Ukrainian imports until close to the elections. Furthermore, adds Semka, “any government, not just Tusk’s crew, would struggle to meet some of the [farmers’] demands.” 

Among the components of the ruling government is the Third Way coalition, which includes an agrarian party. In key conservative constituencies of Poland’s rural East, 10 percent or more of 2019 PiS voters abandoned the party, with many opting for the Third Way. Although marketed as a legitimate option for conservative voters, the Third Way has offered little resistance to the leftist blitz. Recently, most of its MPs agreed to toe the line on abortion legislation. 

Polish conservatives find themselves in an unenviable position. Upcoming local and EU elections, as well as next year’s critical presidential election, present some constructive political aims, but they offer limited chances to curb the parliamentary onslaught. Kaczyński and other PiS leaders speak frequently of a government collapse, an event that would trigger new elections. If recent polls are accurate, this doesn’t figure to improve the parliamentary deficit. 

Poles unsatisfied with the current government might need to endure some lean years and express themselves through extra-legislative demonstrations like the recent protests. Smiling Poland — if such an idea has any substance — clearly isn’t forthcoming.

Michael O’Shea is a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute. He is an alumnus of the Budapest Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Hungary Foundation and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium.

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