ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the allegations that Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa collaborated with the communist security services as an agent codenamed ‘Bolek’. The ‘Bolek affair’ shows how the lustration and file issue recurred because it was a particularly controversial and high-profile example of how debates about dealing with the communist past and security service archives were used to legitimate and de-legitimate the post-communist state’s genesis and foundational myths, specific political actors and formations, and the truth-revelation process itself.
