Bolesław Bierut, Józef Light, and maybe also those who ruled the People's Republic of Poland in the 1980s? The communist kacyks who ruled People's Poland were only doubles, trained by Moscow! This is the sensational hypothesis based on the accounts of a high-ranking NKVD officer. According to him, the governors of the People's Republic of Poland were people with falsified biographies who only played characters. What about the "originals"? These were removed by the Soviet agents
About the so-called Polish public opinion heard matryoszkach for the first time in the 90s of the last century, when the interview of the journalist Bohdan Roliński with the prime minister of the Polish People's Republic - Piotr Jaroszewicz was published. He suggested that the Soviets were "replacing" Polish communists with trained and fully Moscow-dependent doubles.
According to some, in 1949 the real Bierut had been dead for a long time. A double was substituted in his place.
According to Jaroszewicz, it was because of the knowledge of "matryoshkas" that General Karol Świerczewski pseudonym. Walter. The general, who did not bow to bullets, adored by the PRL propaganda as a great hero of World War II, was in fact an irresponsible alcoholic, prone to bravado and sadism. He died right after the war in the Bieszczady Mountains, in not entirely clear circumstances, allegedly during a skirmish with a UPA unit.
Jaroszewicz suggested that Świerczewski, known for his promiscuous language, especially when drunk, which happened to him often, was removed by the NKVD, fearing that the case of matryoshkas would "be revealed".
He was to learn about the doubles from NKVD general Grigory Zhukov. During a drunken party, a Soviet officer reportedly boasted about his knowledge of working in the "Polish section". He claimed to be the only person responsible for contacts with Polish "matryoshkas".
gen. Karol Świerczewski (1946)
Today, although the matryoshka plot sounds like a Hollywood movie, there are historians who believe it. There are also other reports indicating that the "matryoshki" did act on the "Polish section", infiltrating the Polish army, communist organizations, and finally holding the highest positions in the Polish People's Republic ...
Pole's follower
Knowing the wide range of methods of operation and the uncompromising nature of the Soviet secret services, the installation of matryoshkas (also called duplicates) in subordinated countries or infiltrated environments should not come as a surprise.
Soviet intelligence used doubles already during the civil war with "white" generals. People with fictitious identities impersonated the "whites" and penetrated their environments. Then the "original" was liquidated and a double took its place. Similar mechanisms of action were also applied to the Second Polish Republic, as reported by the Polish, pre-war counterintelligence.
In the 1940s, there was a warming on the line between Stalin and the London government, and the dictator allowed the amnesty of Poles in the USSR and the organization of General Anders' army. The Soviet security service could not miss such an opportunity. The training and installation of matryoshkas was undertaken by the aforementioned General Żukov. According to the files of military intelligence and historians 'studies, there were at least a few doubles in Anders' army. In total, however, even several dozen of them could function in the Polish armed forces established in the USSR.
Konstanty Rokossowski
It can be assumed that installing people with fictional biographies, completely slow in Moscow, was especially valuable precisely in the "Polish section". Poles stood out among all the nations enslaved by the Soviets by their exceptional resistance to indoctrination, anti-communism and strong national identification. As the great linguist Stalin colorfully put it - "communism fits Poles like a cow's saddle".
Therefore it was assumed that the so-called the matryoshka should represent a typically Polish culture and mentality. The duplicate should come from a good, gentry, Catholic family - or at least pretend to be someone like that ...
Accepting a fictitious identity or "raising" an agent in the conditions of the war turmoil was not very difficult. Lots of people were losing loved ones. There were many Polish children in orphanages scattered around the USSR. Such people with broken contact with loved ones, preferably without their families, were suitable for matryoshka dolls.
On the one hand, they were indoctrinated, brought up in full locality as a "Soviet man", faithful to the communist doctrine and the state, on the other hand, they underwent processing in the field of Polish customs and Catholic religion (apparently the Soviets also had in the ranks of the agents also priests who trained matryoshkas).
How did it work in practice? An interesting account in her memoirs was provided by prof. Barbara Skarga, who spent more than 10 years in the Home Army - until 1955 spent in Soviet captivity, incl. in a labor camp in Siberia. She mentioned that one of the Polish women was offered by the Russians to play the role of a repatriate and to return to post-war Warsaw. The girl had to learn all the facts in order to pretend to be 'pre-war'. She learned street names from before the occupation, the names of shopkeepers, and lots of other details to make her "legend" credible.
The phenomenon of identity falsification, although more overt, also concerned the post-war "Polish" army. There was no shortage of the so-called POPs - that is, "acting Pole". This was the name of the Red Army officers who built the army of the People's Republic of Poland after the war. People with Polish roots (real or far-fetched), or at least with Polish-sounding surnames, were selected. The idea was to at least pretend that the army was a native Polish entity, independent of Moscow. The most important so-called The POP was Konstanty Rokossowski - the Marshal of Poland until 1956.
In the case of doubles of communist dignitaries, the matter was much more difficult. The make-up was going to go very far. The idea was to replace the original with a duplicate quickly and imperceptibly in the event of disloyalty. The look-alike was supposed to be confusingly similar to a specific person. He was also supposed to know the biography and be able to act out the manner of expressing himself, as well as the behavior, habits and customs of the man in whom he was incarnated.
Biernacki Rutkowski becomes the president of Poland
One of the most mysterious figures among the Polish communists of the Stalinist era was undoubtedly Bolesław Bierut - the president of the People's Republic of Poland, and in fact an NKVD agent trained and literally delivered by Moscow to the future PRL. Bierut's biography does not lack white spots, which lead to the thesis that there were two Bieruts and the latter ruled People's Poland as president. Piotr Jaroszewicz, the former prime minister of the People's Republic of Poland, mentioned in an interview already in the 90s about Bieruut as a "matryoshka".
Bolesław Bierut was born in a village near Lublin in a Polish peasant family. He completed 5 years of primary school. Before he got involved in the left-wing movement, he was a bricklayer. Later, when he joined the PPS - Lewica, he began to change names. Once he introduced himself as Bielak, another time Iwaniek. He was also Birkowski, Rutkowski, and Biernacki. For his fellow communists, in turn, he was called Comrade Tomasz. In the 1920s, the party sent him to Moscow for training several times. After his education at the International Lenin School in Moscow, under the name of Iwaniek, he acted as a Soviet spy in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Austria.
Bolesław Bierut
After returning to Poland in 1933, Comrade Tomasz was arrested by the Sanacja authorities. He went to Bereza Kartuska. Paradoxically, the maximum security prison allowed him to survive the Stalinist purges. In the 1930s, Stalin, suspecting a conspiracy, decided to preventively "replace the cadres" of Polish communists. Those called to talks to Moscow never returned from them. Bierut was lucky not to go.
And here the plot begins to thicken. Was he really not in Moscow? Well, according to a certain Alexander Orlov, a former NKVD resident in Spain, who, fearing Stalinist purges, fled to the USA, a certain Bolesław Rutkowski - an officer of a special NKVD department - in 1935, i.e. at the time when Bierut should rot in Bereza Kartuska, conducted interrogations at Lubyanka in Moscow.
Is it imprecise information or maybe…. There were two Bieruts?
If this was the case, the question remains as to when the matryoshka started to replace the original.
In 1943, Bierut suddenly appeared in occupied Warsaw, and despite the fact that he was an outsider, he began to make a meteoric career in the communist environment. He entered the National National Council, the puppet seed of the future Polish government, fully dependent on Stalin. According to some historians, it was then that the understudy appeared on the scene, which at least temporarily replaced the original Bierut, and of course he probably also supervised its activities on behalf of Moscow.
According to various reports, in those years Comrade Tomasz was acting strangely, differently than before.
- (...) there are strong indications that Bierut, thrown to Poland in 1943, was not a pre-war Bolesław Bierut, but a Soviet agent, Bierut's understudy. The real Bierut was later dropped and they worked together for some time, because the understudy was a well-trained, perfect double of the original - recalled in an interview for "Dziennik", historian Paweł Wieczorkiewicz.
The real takeover of the helm by a matryoshka girl, however, was to be the events of Kraków in January 1947. According to Wieczorkiewicz, it was then that Bierut's "original" was definitely replaced with a "copy".
Even before Bierut's death, a double was supposed to replace him during some official speeches.
There were shots fired at the Hotel Francuska (French) in Krakow. Bierut fell to the ground, wounded by bullets of an assassin, a member of the anti-communist underground, disguised as an NKVD officer. Apparently he died in front of many people. The injured body of the companion was carried out of the building. The news of his death at the hands of the bomber spread quickly among the hotel staff, but what was their surprise when a dozen or so minutes later Bierut entered the hotel again! Safe and sound!
Apparently, from that moment on, Bierut's transformation was clearly visible. He ceased to recognize some of the people around him, his way of being, speaking, even writing has changed. Allegedly, he could not get rid of the manner in which he used the Cyrillic alphabet ...
In the same year, Bolesław Bierut was elected President of the People's Republic of Poland by the Legislative Sejm. Before taking office, he took an oath, ending with the words, So help me God.
Was Poland headed by a Soviet helper at that time?
Although there are premises and even accounts (the story of the attack on Bierut was told by his former bodyguard) that make such a scenario more probable, there are also serious doubts, for example regarding his private life. From 1921, Bierut was associated with his wife Janina Górzyńska. For years he also had a lover - Wanda Górska. Is it possible that the double would go unnoticed by women? Or maybe one was visited by the real and the other by fictional Bierut?
According to Paweł Wieczorkiewicz, Soviet intelligence was capable of anything, even such a masquerade. It was also possible because Bierut, already as president of the People's Republic of Poland, had very rare contact with his family.
End of show
If Bierut was a figurehead, it is also possible that his stage role was deliberately ended when the production director ended his activity.
In 1956, three years after Stalin's death, Bierut visited Moscow to participate in the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the same congress, Nikita Khrushchev, the new party leader in the USSR, delivered a speech condemning the Stalinist era. Apparently, Bierut was shocked. He never came back from the trip. Two weeks after the Moscow congress, the Soviet side informed about the death of Bolesław Bierut. Supposedly he died of a respiratory disease - flu or pneumonia.
In Poland, there was little faith in the official version of events. There was no shortage of opinions that comrade Bolesław did not leave this world alone.
Who was really given a solemn funeral in 1956? Bierut or his double?
Did the Soviets, as part of the replacement of personnel after Stalin, also remove the matryoshka, which they no longer needed for anything? Perhaps we will never know the answer to this question, but it would not change the perception of this character in any way. Whether real or changed, Bolesław Bierut remained only a Soviet agent, Stalin's puppet, fully faithful to him and fully obedient. He went down in the history of the Polish People's Republic as a criminal, supporter of brutal Sovietization of the country, one of the most disgusting figures of this dark period in Polish history.
And the matryoshkas? Apparently there were many more of them. Also among the communists, who still ruled Poland in the 1980s, they were supposed to be doubles ... On the other hand, those who knew about the helper ended tragically. After "Walter", did Jaroszewicz himself, who was brutally murdered with his wife in his villa in Anin, Warsaw in 1992, paid for his knowledge of matryoshkas? This is another question that arises regarding the Soviet henchmen managing People's Poland.