This French term, virtually a blow or a stroke in the state, has made a immense career in the planet of politics. For at least respective centuries it has been associated with coups, that is, a change of government on an illegal, non-constitutional, but besides violent, frequently utilizing force. Hence his replacements specified as a coup or a coup.
In the 1930s Curio Malaparte (Kurt Erich Suckert)) in a tiny book "Deputy Technique" he tried to explain the essence of fresh forms of legitimacy of power erstwhile old institutions neglect and democracy is incapable to meet all needs and challenges. In reaching out to Hitler’s example, Malaparte showed that a coupeer could peculiarly search to make legal action look legal. This reflection may be useful in explaining modern camouflage cases and masking the real intentions of the authorities.
According to an American investigator Edward Luttwak, the author of the “handbook” of “the coup”, is simply a form of change in power, motivated by greed, the desire to have it at all costs. Today, the coup is simply a peculiar investigation challenge, as under the cover of gradual and slow dismantling of the state's institutions, it is being seized by oligarchy and patocrat systems. Financial bribery and political corruption are conducive to the " creeping" takeover of power by supporters of authoritarian methods of governance.
The top-down “correction” of the political strategy by legally extending the powers of authorities, specified as the Prime Minister or the President, actually leads to the dismantling of independent institutions, specified as the Constitutional Court. Parliamentary opposition to specified practices remains powerless. Moving towards authoritarianism is facilitated by the awakening of populist claims and nationalistic emotions. The longing for "strong hand" governments is typical of immature societies in the sense of civilian participation in democratic processes. Polish society is mostly in the bonds of authoritarian mentality, inherited from the times of serfdom. It is simply a clientelistic character, it is simply a grace to bribe from power and prone to obtuse manipulation.
Polish tradition of coups...
is possibly not besides spectacular and finds no peculiar condemnation among historians. The adoption of the Constitution on 3 May 1791, whose anniversary was introduced into the calendar of authoritative national holidays, was a violation of the then existing legal order. Eventually, this celebrated constitution never entered into force, but decided to bury the statehood a fewer years later.
In January 1919, just after independency was regained, an effort was made to assassinate a state whose leaders were Colonel Marian Januszajtis and Fr Eustachy Sapieha. However, the biggest echo is inactive reflected today, but it is underestimated, the 1926 May bombing, under the leadership of Józef Piłsudski, who has incurred nearly 400 deaths. It is simply a Polish singularity that the memory of these victims does not give due respect. He worships the perpetrator of the top national hero.
On December 13, 1981, a state of emergency was introduced, in the then nomenclatura called martial law, which in the external reception was considered a coup d'état. If you already operate with these categories, it was a kind of "autozam". His goal was not to change power in the state, but to keep the position quo. How He Proves Marek Bankowicz in a 2009 book (“State Attack. The theoretical study), the essence of the ‘autorotation’ is that 1 state authority is acting against another authorities, resulting in systemic changes. In the case of martial law, all authorities advocated changes that decided to “be or not be”. Thus, it is hard to attribute to the decision of General Wojciech Jaruzelski the characteristics of the "autozamach" (p. 13).
However, this past lesson can be utilized in modified forms. The introduction of 1 of the exceptional states (in the 1997 Constitution there are different options) allows for the application of an "autorotation" when, for example, the existing executive authority (government with the President) does not want to recognise the competences of the recently elected parliament.
Attacks in the Colonial planet
It is worth recalling that in many post-colonial countries in South America, Africa and Asia, coups and military defeats of all kinds have been the primary, even the only form of gaining and legitimizing power for many decades. Interestingly, under the conditions of the “cold war”, erstwhile the interblock confrontation continued, the usurpatory governments appointed alternatively of condemnation, met with the support and designation of an global leader of the global conflict.
The aim of all forms of coup is to neutralise political opponents, which can mean various forms of exclusion, including physical liquidation. A bloody military coup Augusto Pinocheta In Chile, just 50 years ago, he drew thousands of victims, methodically wound up with elaborate torture. someway it is not heard that the modern American administration, who is aware of America's unwilling participation in this drama, has a remorse for it.
State bombings are always accompanied by a certain speech of sensation and surprise. Even erstwhile the coups, coups or palace revolutions take place on the outskirts of the global strategy (as late in distant Niger or Gabon), they always attract the attention of the general public. besides spectacular “March on Moscow” Yevgenija Prigozhina At the head of the branch of the notorious Wagner Army, although it ended tragically for the perpetrator himself, it stimulated the imagination of Russian observers around the planet of a possible conspiracy leading to the Kremlin coup. On the occasion, commentators impatienced by the current situation in Ukraine lay scenarios of abrupt change of power in Kiev in the face of a bleeding war nation.
Experience has shown that all case of illegal and violent takeover or seizure of power requires separate analysis. It is worth noting that it is not only the degree of political conflict within, but besides the readiness to support externally. It is frequently up to the bombers to stay in power. It is not a secret that behind many coups or coups were the peculiar services of abroad states.
In democratic systems, or at least those claiming democracy, civilian control of the military was invented to prevent its autonomy and independency from political power. In non-democratic countries, the military and another sectors of the apparatus of coercion are a support for the political regime. In democratic systems, the military is mostly apolitical, although in practice there are various couplings. Poland is simply a good example of the constant verification of “reliability” and loyalty of the army and peculiar services to power. The worst variant of addiction is their instrumentalisation for the current political conflict (surveillance, intimidation, power demonstration, fear, propaganda campaigns).
The threat from the army is facilitated by the concentration of military command in 1 hand. The conspiracy and conspiracy of generals has been known since antiquity, and spying on all the services in the state is 1 of the fundamental preemptive and prevent political coups by legal authorities. The reliability and loyalty of all sectors of the apparatus is the "salt in the eye" of the ruling at all times. Not without reason in many countries the "obedient" officer corps is shaped not according to the needs of the army, but according to the "likes" and preferences of politicians. Poland is, unfortunately, a disgraceful example.
Acceptance for usurpatory governments by societies is frequently an expression of longing for stability, the restoration of ‘normality’, and the governments of ‘strong leaders’ who have their charisma, ‘legend’ and determination to defend ‘ordinary people’ against enemies (real or imaginary). And this is not just a phenomenon occurring in authoritarian systems. In the United States Donald Trump, a erstwhile president with clear self-healing pulls, continues to gain popularity and endanger to win the 2024 presidential election. Governments of “strong hand” happen in China, Russia and Turkey, but why besides democratic India accept “personal” dictatorship Narendra ModiWho rules from nationalist and anti-liberal positions?
So we are presently dealing with a "recession" of democracy in the world, for which there is not only a increasing consent for the governments of a "strong hand", but besides a "circumvention" of legitimate democratic ways of legitimising power. Elections are secondary to permanent manipulation of masses and sophisticated control of local behaviour. People have become susceptible to populist slogans, their authorities become not people of recognised competence, but embezzlers and haughty men who, like Boris Johnson in the UK, would seem to be profoundly permeated by democratic culture, could lead to a “suspension” of parliament and dismissal of the leadership of their party.
New form of coup
The institution thus blurs out, takes the form of a ‘slami’ tactic, a gradual attachment of state institutions to closed ‘clans’ and perfidious ‘currants’, centered around self-proclaimed ‘mans of providence’. Indeed, the difference between authoritarian and democratic regimes is blurred.
Historically discredited practices resembling “the cult of an individual” return, the law is relativised and public institutions are deprived of the foundation of the law. The anger of the people is directed towards interior and external enemies, the demons of nationalism and xenophobia are revived. The power appeals to fear of the plots of abroad forces (putin, Lukashenko, Germany, the West), making a perversely understood "security" intellectual argument of listening. So manipulated voters do not see that their real safety is falling to the background (money, price stability, public debt, budget deficit, education, health, social order, infrastructure, climate, etc.). They do not participate in the creation of state doctrine (many do not really know what it is) or in the building of material guarantees of their social position.
Leaders make “fathers” of the nation, disdaining the “old” elites, mention to the archetypes of the “simple, grey people” they want to service and help. This is simply a affirmative consequence in this part of society, which, for various reasons, failed in life, and thanks to the spectacular public spending of money, regained religion in the protection of power and the defence of fundamental existential interests. It is not seen that the sympathy of power for the “people” has no connection with the insolent accumulation of immense fortunes by members of the ruling Camaryla and their families. To devotees of the chief speaks his image as an exceptionally modest but hidden, old-fashioned leader, awakening curiosity and excitement.
This authoritarian leader mocks “political correctness”, reaching the expectations of people who want to reconstruct “normality” based on generation-based cultural codes, habits and customs. Thus, they are willing to defend the traditionally understood household as a union of man and woman, the dominant function of the Church and Catholic religion, they stand up against the “sexuality” of children, as well as the incontinence of sex roles. In the event of confrontations of various political camps, the ruling can appeal to the defensive instincts of the nationalist-Catholic identity to date. Even an armed takeover of power in the state will be met with comparatively large support, or at least neutral consent, to order all these threats.
In an electoral run in Poland, the communicative known from the erstwhile era is that erstwhile the government has gained power, they do not intend to hand over the treacherous and irresponsible opposition. They don't hide that sitting on offices is more drunk than the most sophisticated drug. Furthermore, the authorities are not released from their hands due to legitimate fears that there will be a level playing field and painful accounts after her change.
Interestingly, a large part of the electorate, frequently manipulated and stupid, agrees with specified an knowing of the "stability" of the body. It turns out that many citizens, most frequently without cognition and in-steerness, the possible of replacing the erstwhile leadership, and even more so of restoring the erstwhile one, seem not only dangerous, but almost unimaginable. There is simply a increasing belief, not without the engagement of non-political factors, specified as representatives of the Catholic clergy, that the defence of the existing position quo is simply a patriotic and moral order.
A peculiar form of "overturn" is the organisation of prosecution campaigns against opposition politicians and exhibitors of different political visions. Political opponents are imprisoned not only in China and Russia, but besides in many countries allied with the US, specified as the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Mexico. What are the guarantees of maintaining democratic political standards in Poland if the United States itself allows democracy to be treated instrumentally? Ridiculously, Recep erstwhile put it Tayyip Erdogan, that “democracy is like a tram that you drive until you scope your destination” (Getting off the train, The Economist, 6.02.2016). erstwhile a failure in elections deprives the government of rightfulness, it can always be called their consequence "the top election scam in history". Examples of Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanjah are highly informative and contagious in this matter.
Case of Poland AD 2023
Is anyone in Poland seriously considering the effectiveness of the force on the part of the US if the ruling right actually went to the assassination of democracy? It is clear that America is incapable to defend freedom abroad unless it can save its own values. Most of the energy of the current U.S. administration absorbs the pacification of interior unrest. No 1 is able to foretell whether force will be needed to save the “myth of democratic America”. Rusophobic policy and deep commitment to aid Ukraine is simply a adequate warrant for governments in Warsaw that Washington will not interfere in interior political decisions, even if they were an assassination effort on democracy.
In this light, it will be easier to explain the defence of democratic achievements in Poland by the power for which determined and willing people stand for sacrifices. During trips to tiny towns, it can be noted that the "hard" electorate of PiS clearly expresses its support for the policy of valuing layers negatively experienced by the systemic transformation, the elderly, the little educated, the computerically excluded. We must not forget and that behind the Law and Justice there is the strongest political party, which is the “Officers of Mr. B.” Many of them believed in ensuring the leader of the Law and Justice Service that the government's primary concern was to warrant them all material possessions and prevent thousands of uninvited migrants from threatening cultural and spiritual purity of the nation.
The political opposition offensive, which threatens to defeat the rulers in the upcoming elections, could be the origin of a abrupt retreat from democracy, as a strategy that does not warrant "social security" and weakens by political conflict with the government "external security". From specified a diagnosis, a simple way to further experimenting with the illegal appropriation of power in the name of the mitologicalized "state ration", or the rations of the rulers themselves. For only the rulers have real means to guarantee safety for themselves and their supporters. Furthermore, in the context of the war beyond the east border, the current authorities are a more certain choice than the full opposition, which avoids as a fire of speech during the election campaign, how it will cope with increasingly reluctant Poland Ukraine and inactive existing Russia.
The educational regression and the long-established "martyrological" historical policy, including those presently opposed by political parties, the contempt for generations rebuilding Poland after the war, and the cult of "anti-heroes" ("sold soldiers") have caused the public to preserve the worst features of the "nostalgic myth" and the "sarmak idyll" and the "gentle subjection". The past of Poland and Poles has shown many times that the defence of the “Cops of the Holy Trinity” (the fortress of religion and freedom), which directs the nation's energy towards the vassalness and God-fathered nationalism, leads to disaster. So who is going to make a modern "overturn" present to sober up and reverse destructive tendencies before it is besides late to save?
Prof. Stanisław Bielen
photo: Warsaw – coup of Józef Piłsudski in 1926.
Think Poland, No. 39-40 (27.09-1.10.2023)
