The Magic Lantern

“All three statements were strictly true, but I would not deny that, taken together, they might conceivably have been construed as recommending to the audience a certain course of action, or, to put it another way, as ‘interference in the internal affairs of the Polish People’s Republic’. ‘Instant expulsion!’ said Bronisław Geremek, the veteran Solidarity adviser, when he heard what had happened. But this time I was not expelled, and by the end of the year there was no longer a Polish People’s Republic to interfere in. The people had deleted the People.”

Garton Ash recalls his election speech, using language that deliberately glosses over the extent of the risk he took at the time. His actions might have “conceivably be construed” as a recommendation, which suggests distance, hypotheticals, and a lack of intent. This contrast sharply with the legal penalty he skirted, as “interference” is a direct action, even a sinister one. He notes that “this time I was not expelled” to remind the reader that foreign guests were held to high standards in communist states, and also alluding to his own personal history of exclusion from the GDR. He is saved by an accident of history, as “the people had deleted the People” a play on words that invokes the falsehood of the state compared to the genuine authenticity of the revolutions. “Deletion” makes the act sound singular and brief, though later in the work Garton Ash will note that Poland’s path away from communism had a long history.

“The meeting was held in the same hall that the inter-factory strike committee had used in August 1980, with the same model ships in glass cases, the same white eagle on the wall, and the same bust of Lenin. As he walked up on to the platform, Lech Wałęsa—the same—gave that Lenin a laughing glance, as if to say, ‘So who whom to you, old chum.’ Later, each candidate had his photograph taken shaking hands with Lech Wałęsa. Two hundred and sixty-one handshakes.”

This anecdote emphasizes historical continuity and the importance of Solidarity. The labor union first met in 1980, and the building is the same—with the “same model ships in glass cases” and “the same bust of Lenin.