By ED WIGHT IN WARSAW, POLAND FOR MAILONLINE and JENNY STANTON and SARA MALM FOR MAINLINE PUBLISHED: 14:36 GMT, 22 February 2016 | UPDATED: 16:10 GMT, 22 February 2016

'I undertake to cooperate with the secret police in detecting and combating enemies of communism. Signed, Lech Walesa.':

Documents which PROVE Poland's solidarity hero was spying for Moscow released Papers show Lech Walesa was a paid informant for a regime he later fought

New Right-wing leaders are using the claims to revive conspiracy theories

Say the communist-era regime staged its own demise in 1989 to hold onto power behind the scenes

Solidarity hero Walesa has flatly denied he was ever a regime agent

Documents showing the signature of Solidarity hero Lech Walesa apparently agreeing to work for the Communist secret police were released today.

The documents which were handed over to authorities in Warsaw by the widow of Poland's former Interior Minister last week, contain 183 pages of a personal file on an agent codenamed Bolek and 576 pages of work carried out by the agent between 1970-1976.

The files suggest that Poland's first post-communist president served as a paid spy for the same regime he later fought and brought down.

Mr Walesa who led Poland to freedom in 1989 has always denied having worked for the secret police.

But his signature appearing on a declaration in which he agreed to 'cooperate with the secret police in detecting and combatting enemies of communism' will add further clout to the accusations.

The declaration, released by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) Monday afternoon, says: 'The undersigned, Lech Walesa, the son of Boleslawa and Feliks born in 1943 in Popowo, Lipno, agrees to maintain the strict secrecy of talks held between him and employees of the security services.

'At the same time he undertakes to cooperate with the secret police in detecting and combating enemies of communism. He will pass on the information in writing and it will be truthful.

'The fact that he cooperates with the secret services he undertakes to keep strictly confidential and to not disclose even to his family.

'The information will be signed with the pseudonym 'Bolek.'

Mr Walesa's signature appears at the bottom of the document just above the codename Bolek.

In the wake of World War II, Poland ended up under Russian control, with Stalin creating a subservient communist state - People's Republic of Poland.

Soviet control lessened after Stalin's death but did not cease completely until after the fall of communism in Poland in 1989.

Another document released Monday was a note made by a case officer identified as Capt. Edward Graczyk.

In the document the secret policeman explained how he recruited Walesa and that their first meeting was on 22 November 1970.

He wrote: 'After finishing the conversation L. Walesa wrote a commitment with the Security Service [and was given] the codename 'BOLEK.'

The institute says the documents are authentic papers produced by the secret police of the time, although it's not yet clear if the police fabricated them — a common practice then.

The papers surfaced last week after being kept for decades in the home of the last communist interior minister, Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak, who died last year.

His widow Maria Teresa Kiszczak informed the institute about them, seeking money in return. Authorities immediately seized them, acting on a law that gives them the right to critical historical documents.

Walesa is renowned worldwide for negotiating a bloodless end to communism in Poland in 1989. The move triggered the country's first democratic elections since World War II, ushering Walesa into the presidency a year later.

On Thursday, Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, which is responsible for prosecuting communist-era crimes, revealed a newfound 1970s secret police file allegedly showing Walesa was a paid collaborator codenamed 'Bolek'.

Walesa admitted on Friday he had 'made a mistake', but flatly denied he was ever a regime agent. He was cleared of suspicion by a special vetting court in 2000.

The 72-year-old did not elaborate on what his mistake was, but pointed to a mystery person who 'should reveal the truth' about the past.

Poland's new Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski says he is not convinced.

Walesa was a regime 'puppet' and the new secret police files can prove that 'the project to free Poland was orchestrated by the regime,' Waszczykowski told Poland's commercial TVN 24 news channel on Friday.

'We must try to find out... whether decisions made at the time were independent and in line with national interests or whether they were concocted by foreign or domestic secret services.

It can show us that we were wrong in thinking we made the revolution and that our decisions were independent.

'This casts a shadow over the creation of an independent Poland and its political elites.'

Poland's TVP public broadcaster, which recently saw the PiS install loyalists in top management, aired interviews with several historians on Friday who said the files confirm their convictions that Walesa was indeed a regime collaborator.

During the interviews, TVP also showed communist-era pictures of Solidarity leader Walesa engaging in friendly meetings with regime top brass.

Walesa supporters have hailed his historic role in Poland's transition to democracy, but admit he could have caved in to secret police pressure while still a young electrician at the Gdansk Shipyard, later the cradle of the Solidarity trade union.

Communist-era dissident Henryk Wujec insists Walesa 'never betrayed' fellow anti-regime activists to the secret police.

Grzegorz Schetyna, a former dissident and leader of the liberal Civic Platform (PO) official opposition, said the controversy surrounding Walesa was rooted in political 'vengeance' and dubbed it a 'real Polish hell'.

'It's a classic example of how Poles are able to bring out the worst in each other,' he added.

EU president Tusk, a communist-era dissident and former Polish premier, insisted that Walesa never hid the fact that he was questioned by the regime's secret police.

'It's all very unfortunate for Poland's image, for its great traditions and the legend of Solidarity and Lech Walesa,' he told Polish media on Friday in Brussels.

Poland's image abroad has already suffered in recent months because of controversial reforms introduced by the right-wing government that critics say undermine the independence of state media and the constitutional court.

In the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, editor-in-chief Jaroslaw Kurski traces the history of ill will between Kaczynski and Walesa, which goes back to 1991 after earlier friendlier ties.

'To reduce Lech Walesa, victor over communism, our greatest contemporary historic symbol, to the level of secret agent? No one in the world will understand,' Kurski wrote.

'What are the Poles doing to their own history?'

Walesa himself, on a trip to Venezuela and the U.S., defended himself, saying: 'On the path I chose, I had to hold all kinds of discussions. And in the end, those discussions led to victory.

'If I had chosen another path, we would have ended up like Ukraine, or even worse,' he told reporters in Caracas, Venezuela, on Thursday.


Read more: Documents PROVE solidarity hero Lech Walesa was spying for Moscow | Daily Mail Online