Comment on the article The Lebedevs are freedom fighters, not Kremlin cronies by Dmitry Muratov in The Times, 17 March 2022. The word ‘former’ is a very important and flexible word in the Communist/Russian dictionary. It is applied on opposite sides of the axis of memory and importance. When used in reference to … Read more
My comment on the article Piecing Together the History of Stasi Spying by Annalisa Quinn and Mustafah Abdulaziz in The New York Times 11 August 2021. It is highly significant that the comment coming from a person targeted by Communists for elimination has been rejected by the NY Times. Lech Borkowski, London, UK Methods used … Read more
Comment on the editorial article Belarusians look to the West in vain for support in The Telegraph, 24 May 2021. The Belarussian ‘opposition’ tv channel Nexta uses the Telegram app provided by a group of Russians from Sankt Petersburg/Leningrad. Telegram is advertised as a safer, encrypted method of communication. They operate their company from Dubai … Read more
Comment on the article Anger after Ryanair flight ‘hijacked’ by Lukashenko to arrest dissident by Marc Bennetts, The Times, May 24 2021. The Nexta channel is run on Telegram, service operated by a Russian team from Dubai, as the company’s website explains: “The Telegram development team is based in Dubai. Most of the developers behind … Read more
Comment on the article Wikipedia has transformed knowledge – so why is it still looked down on? by Simon Ings in The Telegraph, 10 January 2021. English version: Polska Wikipedia i wywiad komunistyczny. Lech Borkowski 10 Jan 2021 7:01PM The article’s author represents an enthusiastic approach to Wikipedia. Quote from the article: Dariusz Jemielniak (author … Read more
My comment on the article George Blake and the meaning of treachery by David Aaronovitch in The Times, 30 December 2020. The author based his article on a false dichotomy. “Was the greatest crime of the Soviet spy, who died last week, betraying his country? Or believing in an inhuman creed?” Conjuction ‘or’ in English … Read more
My comment on the article […] abuse scandal tarnishes John Paul II’s sainthood by Philip Willan in The Times, 16 November 2020. I posted the text around 1 am. It was held until late morning when it was finally allowed to appear. Top picture, full text of the comment. There are also other problems with … Read more
The untold story of Edith Tudor-Hart: ‘grandmother’ of the Cambridge spies by Charlotte Philby in The Telegraph, 3 October 2020. Wersja polska: Ocieplanie wizerunku agentów totalitaryzmu. When thinking about woman’s bravery, I prefer my mother, who was imprisoned by the Communist henchmen in eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Russia after WWII. She was ‘tried’ … Read more
My comment on the article Pope Francis ‘naive’ in deal with China to name bishops by Tom Kington and Didi Tang in The Times, 19 September 2020. Polish translation: Czerwona gwiazda nad Watykanem. This is nothing new in the Vatican. Earlier popes appeased Communists in Eastern Europe in a similar way. It was done under … Read more
My comment on the article My great aunt, the spy Ursula Kuczynski by Rosa Ellis in The Times, 11 September 2020. Here are my reflections. We are served a story of a family of intellectuals who worked for the genocidal Communist regime and who don’t care about responsibility for their actions. It seems they are … Read more
My comment on the article The Pope is Beijing’s unlikely admirer by Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times, 26 July 2020. 4 August 2020 I would like to take issue with a couple of items in this article. the pre-eminent Catholic commentator George Weigel On May 14, 2020 The Wall Street Journal published a false … Read more
My comment on Heart of darkness: classified tapes offer a glimpse into inner workings of the Stasi by Oliver Moody and Sabine Schu in The Times, 15 July 2020. So the woman on tape was an East German Communist Party member and she was teaching the Freie Deutsche Jugend, the youth wing of the SED, … Read more
My two comments on Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum, review: a querulous and flawed analysis of Europe by Philip Johnston in The Telegraph, 26 July 2020. Lech Borkowski 26 Jul 2020 7:04PM Putting it mildly, you have been misinformed by both Anne Applebaum and her husband Radek Sikorski on Poland and the rest of … Read more
My comment on the article Polish president looks for US troops to give him edge in election by Oliver Moody in The Times, 25 June 2020. There is a misunderstanding about the changes of 1989-90. It was not, as it is usually presented, a ‘transition to democracy’. The ruling Communists maintained the same firm grip … Read more
My comment on the article Agent Gustav: Geoffrey Goodman, the Fleet Street titan who spied on Harold Wilson by Gabriel Pogrund, Martin Dixon and Tom Calver in The Sunday Times, 13 June 2020. The text includes the comment I made following the June 8, 2019 article by Jake Kerridge in The Telegraph, ‘Why should my … Read more
My second comment on Niall Ferguson’s farewell article in his Sunday Times column, My crystal ball missed Brexit but got Donald Trump, 24 May 2020. The first comment, Dizzy with success, was blocked by the paper. My yesterday’s comment was blocked. Were my few critical words unbearable for this unabashedly self-promoting article in the old, … Read more
Comment on The Times’ article Putin and Stalin exalted beside angels in Russia’s ‘pagan temple’ by Marc Bennetts in Moscow The appearance of Stalin on the wall of an Orthodox church seems surprising at first. However, if we reflect a little, we will see that it is far from being an isolated incident. The Communist … Read more
Comment on the article Virtual Vatican: Video game that lets you play Pope by Tom Kington in The Times, April 23, 2020. Funny, that game makers haven’t come up with a pre-1990 ‘East-European democratic opposition to communism’ simulation and ‘East-European democracy post-1990’ simulation. I understand that games of this kind might be accidentally revealing too … Read more
Short comment on The inside story of how Putin and his KGB cronies took control of Russia, an article by Catherine Belton in the Sunday Times, March 29, 2020, which is based on her book Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West. Let me quote first: In the … Read more
Ben MacIntyre’s piece in The Times, February 29 2020, Putin’s spies are pulp fiction characters. Here is my comment. In 1968, at about the same time as the Soviet series, similar story was filmed and released as series on Polish Communist tv. It is about an agent of Polish Communist underground infiltrating the war-time Abwehr, … Read more