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.As a consequence,elimination of the communist nomenklatura through a ruthless lustrationwas practically out of the question.Nevertheless, the first postcom-munist government, led by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, dismantled the com-munist secret police (Służba Bezpieczeństwa, SB) in 1990, replacing itwith the Office for State Protection (Urząd Ochrony Państwa, UOP), andordered a verification of its members, which led to the dismissal of over6000 people (Stan 2009a: 78).In the same year it set up a commission,consisting of prominent historians and members of the anti-communistopposition, including Adam Michnik, to research the files of the SB inorder to decide what to do with them.The commission decided thatit should not be made public, on the grounds that some files weredestroyed, others were incomplete and many were unreliable due to thewidespread practice of adding to the list of secret informers the names ofpeople who were not, in order to protect the real collaborators (Woleński2007; Czuchnowski 2009).The decision not to allow ordinary people tomake up their minds about the content of the SB archive led to accu-sations that the so-called  Michnik Commission and the governmentprotected the members of the current political elite who in communisttimes behaved less than nobly.It was followed by online publicationon the internet of various lists of secret collaborators, which includedLech Wałęsa (Stan 2009a: 81).This man, to whom the world is largelyindebted for overthrowing communist rule, in the postcommunist periodwas repeatedly accused of being a communist agent with the pseudonym Bolek (Cenckiewicz and Gontarczyk 2008).Verification of the members of the SB and the destruction of some ofits files, which took place in 1990, prompt the narrative of Psy (Dogs,1992) by Władysław Pasikowski.Unlike The Lives of Others, the filmdid not become an international hit, partly because Polish history isless internationalised than German history and partly because it tar-geted the domestic audience.Indeed, Dogs became one of the greatestsuccesses in post-1989 Polish cinema.In the first two weeks after itspremiere it was watched by 300,000 people in Poland (Fiejdasz 2006),a record for a Polish film in this year, and in due course it sparked a fran-chise, Psy 2.Ostatnia krew (Dogs 2, 1994) and Demony wojny wedlug Goi222 European Cinema and Intertextuality(Demons of War according to Goya, 1998), a unique phenomenon in EastEuropean cinema.Dogs also became a cult film, as testified by fragmentsof dialogue entering the idiom of young men in the 1990s (Lisowski1997).The popularity of this film would not come as a surprise if notfor the fact that it was almost universally explained by the attractive-ness of its main character, Franz Maurer, a secret policeman, popularlyknown in Poland as ubek (from Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, UB  the earliername of the Polish secret police).In the 1990s, he became a role modelfor young people.Even in the 2000s, Polish film critics complained thatthere was nobody to replace Maurer; he was the last superhero of Polishcinema (Janowska 2005).The period when Dogs had its premiere, 1992, played a part in itsenthusiastic reception.At the time the old Solidarity camp fell apart,the economic situation in Poland worsened and the majority of societytreated politicians of Solidarity pedigree with distrust, even hostility.Thiswas combined with a widespread nostalgia for communist times, whichbecame associated with the period of stability and relative prosperityfor all.A year later, in 1993, the main postcommunist party, SLD, wonthe parliamentary elections in Poland and, two years later, the postcom-munist politician Aleksander Kwaśniewski became the Polish President.Dogs was thus made at the peak of the Polish version of Ostalgie and,although this nostalgia did not include yearning for interrogations andimprisonment by the secret police, it facilitated the forgiveness of func-tionaries of the old system.Pasikowski sets his film shortly after the fall of communism, repre-sented as a time of great upheaval.The old dissidents become the newtop dogs and demand all the perks connected with political power.At the same time, those who previously enjoyed some privileges (whichwere modest, as Pasikowski suggests), attempt to find a place for them-selves in the new reality.There is a sense that big fortunes can be madeor broken and this depends on one s speed of reaction: one false moveand one is metaphorically or even literally dead.This sense of confusionand hope is felt most acutely among the secret police.As members ofthe most disgraced institution in Poland, they are aware that their newmasters have no reason to prolong their service, but hope that they willbe moved to a civil police.Verification is meant to establish who fromthe old SB should be allowed such a transition.Pasikowski shows howthis mechanism affects a group of ubeks working in Warsaw and, whiledoing so, he universalises and dignifies their plight.Whenever theubeks talk about their problems, it sounds like the talk of ordinary Polescomplaining about the difficulties they encounter following the fall ofSecret Agents, Collaborators and Secret Files 223communism.They are concerned about losing jobs and employmentprivileges, such as free housing and having to learn new skills.Theirmeetings in the SB canteen are full of talk about what proportion ofthe employees of SB were sacked in different regions of Poland and onecan imagine similar talks taking place in the canteens of many factoriesacross the whole country.It is worth mentioning that in the first halfof the 1990s Polish filmmakers avoided the subject of unemployment;films about this problem erupted only in the following decade.Thusthe director of Dogs was at the forefront of the postcommunist cinemaof social concern.The ubeks contrast their situation marked by struggle for material sur-vival with that of the politicians who fight for power and discuss loftyideas (this was during the time of the heated discussion about the rightto abortion) in their own circles.When one of the ubeks says, standingon top of a rubbish heap,  Politics is us, here, on this rubbish heap, heexpresses the disappointments of many ordinary people who felt aban-doned by the new class of politicians.His utterance is reminiscent ofMaciek Chełmicki, the protagonist of the famous film by Andrzej Wajda,Popiół i diament (Ashes and Diamonds, 1957), who died on a rubbish heap,which symbolised the new authorities forgetting about former membersof the Home Army [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]