Polish solidarity hero Lech Walesa has flatly denied he was ever a paid Communist informant amid a fresh allegation triggered by newly-found files.

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.

But despite admitting he had made mistakes, he called on a mystery person who he said 'should reveal the truth about the past.'

Legendary: Lech Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his defiant opposition to the communists and became Poland's first democratically-elected president after the 1989 fall of communism. He is pictured delivering a speech during a special session of Venezuela's National Assembly in Venezuela today

Lech Walesa raises his arms to a cheering crowd as he leaves the shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, where he worked in June 1983

Former Polish President Lech Walesa is carried on the shoulders of his Solidarity comrades after delivering papers for official registration of the Solidarity Trade Union at a court in Warsaw in September 1980

The 72-year-old wrote on his blog: 'They didn't break me in 1970 and I didn't cooperate with the SB (secret police), I never took money, and I never ratted on anyone either verbally or in writing.

'I made a mistake, but not this (collaboration), and I vowed not to reveal it, certainly not yet, not now,' he said, enigmatically.

But he added: 'There is a person – a perpetrator, who is still alive who should reveal the truth and I'm counting on it. I had a soft heart.'

Walesa is the icon of Poland's and Eastern Europe's drive for freedom that abolished communism and brought down the Iron Curtain without bloodshed.

He founded and led Solidarity from 1980, when it was born out of shipyard worker protests on the Baltic Sea coast, and through communist-imposed martial law.

He led Solidarity in round-table negotiations with the communists in 1989 that ushered in massive democratic and economic changes.

Walesa has long admitted that he signed a document in the 1970s agreeing to provide information to the generally-hated communist secret police

Walesa is the icon of Poland's and Eastern Europe's drive for freedom that abolished communism

Walesa was democratic Poland's first popularly elected president from 1990 to 1995, but, following a term of office when his style was perceived as authoritarian, he painfully lost a re-election bid to ex-communist Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Walesa has long admitted that he signed a document in the 1970s agreeing to provide information to the generally-hated communist secret police.

However he insisted he never informed on anyone and never took any money. In 2000, he was cleared by a court, which said it found no evidence of collaboration.

Walesa suggested that the new papers, which were revealed publicly on Thursday, were fake and vowed to fight to clear his name.

'There can exist no documents coming from me,' Walesa said in a written message from Venezuela, where he is traveling. 'I will prove that in court.'

Former Polish President and Solidarity founding leader Lech Walesa shows v-sign in front of a Solidarity poster during his presidential campaign in Plock in 1989

Lech Walesa (top left) speaks to workers at Gdansk shipyard during a strike in this 1980 file photo

Communism and strong controls by Moscow were imposed on Poland and other Eastern European nations after World War II — measures despised and opposed by most people in the region.

The secret service was the regime's harshest tool for keeping people under its control, using personal information to blackmail and discredit opponents and dissidents.

But the secret police also fabricated information on people, a fact that calls for meticulous confirmation of the authenticity of any compromising documents that emerge.

The fate of the files was a major concern after the communists lost power in 1989, with reports saying that secret agents at the time were fabricating new documents and burning or hiding others.

The newly discovered evidence implicating Walesa was found among documents seized this week from the home of the last communist interior minister, the late Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak, said Lukasz Kaminski, the head of the National Remembrance Institute, a state body that investigates Nazi and communist-era crimes.

Former Polish President Lech Walesa (left) talks to Polish Vice Premier Mieczyslaw Jagielski (right) of the Communist party at the Gdansk shipyard in this August 1980 file photo

Former Polish President Lech Walesa (centre) stands next to next to Polish Vice Premier Mieczyslaw Jagielski (thirf left) of the Communist party as he addresses Solidarity and Communist party members at the Gdansk shipyard

Kaminski said they include a commitment to provide information that is signed with Walesa's name and codename 'Bolek'. There are also pages of reports and receipts for money, signed 'Bolek' and dated from 1970-76.

Kaminski said the 279 pages of documents on Walesa seem to be authentic and will be made public in due course. He said historians need time to analyse the contents.

Antoni Dudek, the institute's leading historian and an expert on Walesa, predicted that the impact would not be that great unless some evidence emerged that Walesa continued to be an informant after he had founded the Solidarity freedom movement in 1980.

'Lech Walesa is the symbol of Poland's struggle for freedom. He is the symbol of Solidarity and nothing can destroy that, unless we learn that he continued that collaboration,' Dudek said.

The papers concerning Walesa came to light when Kiszczak's widow offered to sell the institute documents concerning secret informer 'Bolek'.

The newly discovered evidence implicating Walesa was found among documents seized this week from the home of the last communist interior minister, the late Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak. The papers came to light when Kiszczak's widow offered to sell the institute documents concerning secret informer 'Bolek'

She demanded 90,000 zlotys (£15,000) for them but prosecutors seized the documents the same day

She demanded 90,000 zlotys (£15,000) for them. Prosecutors seized the documents the same day because the law requires that important historic or state papers be handed over to authorities.

According to Kaminski, the institute seized five more packets of documents but these have not yet been opened. Prosecutors and police also searched Kiszczak's summer house on Thursday.

Walesa has withdrawn officially from politics, though he comments publicly on current events. He is a sharp critic of Poland's new conservative ruling party, the Law and Justice party, whose leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is a longtime political foe of Walesa's.