Waldemar Sobczyk and Nasz Znak – Sabotage in the People’s/Peasants’ Movement Abroad

Waldemar Sobczyk and Nasz Znak – Sabotage in the People’s/Peasants’ Movement Abroad In 1956 Sobczyk was recruited for cooperation with the intelligence of the People’s Republic of Poland (Polska Republika Ludowa, PRL). The secret service began subsidizing Nasz Znak, which changed its political profile. It criticized the policy of the government-in-exile, advocated cooperation between the govern- ment-in-exile and the country and praised the communist rule in Poland. The secret service’s activities intensified the controversies in the PSL and weakened its chairman’s position. Mikołajczyk became Nasz Znak’s public enemy no. 1. In the early 1960s the paper supported the initiative to create an organization competitive toward the PSL put forward by the activists expelled from the party by Mikołajczyk. Anti-Vatican, anticlerical and anti-German accents became a constant feature of the monthly. Consequently, in 1957 Sobczyk was excluded from the party. Suspected of spying for the People’s Republic of Poland intelligence, he was detained and investigated on several occasions by the Swedish police. Tadeusz Rozmanit, Henryk Polowiec or Klaudiusz Hrabyk were just a few authors who contributed to Nasz Znak apart from Sobczyk. In the mid 1960s, when the PSL chairman’s political activity subsided, the intelligence heads began to consider gradual liquidation of Nasz Znak. The paper aimed mostly at discrediting Mikołajczyk and destroying the people’s movement abroad ceased to be useful. The escape to the West of lieutenant colonel Janusz Kochański, who a few years earlier maintained contact with the agent, also contributed to the termination of the cooperation with Sobczyk. The last issue of Nasz Znak went out in 1967. Despite the termination of the cooperation he still tried to maintain contact with the PRL intelligence. He left for FRG in 1970 where he has lived ever since