Lech Walesa, the Communist spy that won a Nobel peace prize.

The world famous "Solidarity" freedom hero, five year Polish president and Nobel Peace prize winner, Lech Walesa, was a paid secret agent who collaborated with Poland’s communist regime and was a Communist spy. For many years historians in Poland have argued that Walesa, code named “Bolek”, was a paid Communist spy, but a package of documents surfaced that proved that he was indeed a Communist spy working for Polish secret Police. The documents were found when On 16 February 2016, a widow of a deceased Polish general who worked with the Polish Communist regime approached the Institute of National Remembrance and suggested selling it the archives for 90,000 zlotys ($23,000). However, according to the Polish law, all documents of political police must be handed in to the state. The administration of the institute notified the prosecutor's office, which conducted a police search of the Communist general's house and seized all the historic documents. The dossier consists of two folders; a "personal file" containing 90 pages of documents, including a handwritten commitment to cooperate with the secret police dated 21 December 1970, and signed "Lech Walesa - Bolek" with a pledge he would never admit his collaboration with secret police “not even to family”.

Lech Walesa's signature (AKA "Bolek") on the incriminating papers.

The file also contains the confirmations of having received funds and a "work file" contains 279 pages of documents, including numerous reports by Bolek on his co-workers at Gdansk Shipyard, and notes by secret police officers from meetings with him. According to one note, Walesa agreed to collaborate out of fear of persecution after the workers’ protest in 1970. However, the documents showed Bolek eagerly provided information on opinions and actions by his co-workers and took money for the information. Polish officials revealed they are certain that papers they received from the widow of Czesław Kiszczak, a Communist-era interior minister, prove that Walesa was a spy for the SB and worked under the code name "Bolek" from 1970 to 1976. The documents' authenticity was confirmed by an archival experts in Poland who had examined them and found the documents to be authentic. Slawomir Cenckiewicz, a historian who wrote a book about Walesa and his connection to the SB, is convinced that the former president truly collaborated with the Communist regime. "The documents are shocking," Cenckiewicz told German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. "They show that Lech Walesa passed on extensive information about many people. His relationship with the SB lasted from December 1970 until spring 1976."

Lech Walesa shaking hands with Czesław Kiszczak, whose widow leaked the "Bolek" documents.

The fact that Walesa was indeed a Communist spy was especially explosive in Poland and outside it was because Walesa was percived to have been a hero of the anti-Communist resistance in Poland in the 1980s. Many prominent historians and journalists in Poland suggest that the reason why he was given such a prominent role before and after the fall of the USSR was because of his links to Poland's Communist rulers and elite and the fact that he was a compormised asset who could be blackmailed by them and help them insure they would retain power even after the fall of Communism. For years Walesa vehemently denied collaborating with the communist secret police and dismissed the incriminating files as forgeries created by the SB to compromise him, though he failed to produce any evidence, proof or any documents to support his claims.