Michael Dobbs - Down with Big Brother

Over the past few days Brzezinski had urged Poles to sink their differences in the face of the Soviet threat. He advised Solidarity emissaries to consolidate their gains rather than risk a showdown. He also encouraged government leaders to tell Moscow they were determined to keep Poland within the Warsaw Pact but would resist a Soviet invasion. Once again his strategy was guided by a desire to avoid the mistakes of the past. The Soviets had been able to act with impunity in Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Brzezinski reasoned, because they knew in advance that there would be no resistance from the Czech army. 105

Concerned that time was running out, the national security adviser now persuaded Carter to get on the “hot line” to Brezhnev. A teletype link between the White House and the Kremlin, the hot line was technologically inferior to the telephone since it did not allow voice communication. (Facsimile machines were installed only in 1986.) But the very fact that an American president was using a device that traced its origins to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis—when communications difficulties had brought the world to a brink of a nuclear war—served to underline the gravity of the moment.

In a few moments a rickety teletype machine down the corridor from Brezhnev’s office was spitting out the president’s message. It began on a note of reassurance: “I WISH TO CONVEY TO YOU THE FIRM INTENTION OF THE UNITED STATES NOT TO EXPLOIT THE EVENTS IN POLAND, NOR TO THREATEN LEGITIMATE SOVIET SECURITY INTERESTS IN THAT REGION.”

Then came the threat: “AT THE SAME TIME, I HAVE TO STATE OUR RELATIONSHIP WOULD BE MOST ADVERSELY AFFECTED IF FORCE WAS USED TO IMPOSE A SOLUTION UPON THE POLISH NATION.” The five-sentence missive was signed, somewhat incongruously, “BEST WISHES, JIMMY CARTER.” 106

At 1621 Washington time—twenty-one minutes past midnight in Moscow—word arrived from the Kremlin confirming receipt of the message.

AS THEY FLEW TO Moscow in answer to a summons from the Soviet leadership, Stanislaw Kania and Wojciech Jaruzelski felt a sense of impending doom. They knew that the armies of their Warsaw Pact allies were camped around Poland’s borders, ready to enter the country at any moment. Live ammunition had been distributed; field hospitals had been set up to take care of the wounded; communication lines were in place. Their attempts to arrange a private meeting with Brezhnev had been rebuffed. The Polish leaders had been excluded from the first day of the emergency Soviet bloc summit at which the fate of their country would be decided.

Kania, who had succeeded Gierek as first secretary of the Polish Communist Party, thought of his son, Mirek, who was serving in the army. 107Nobody knew how Polish soldiers would react in the event of a Soviet invasion. Even if they were confined to barracks, there was a strong possibility of spontaneous resistance, which would almost certainly result in terrible bloodshed. Jaruzelski recalled the many Polish rebellions against foreign rule that had ended in bloody failure. His grandfather and two of his great-uncles had been sentenced to twelve years’ exile in Siberia for taking part in the 1863 insurrection against the tsars. 108

Like Brzezinski, Kania and Jaruzelski thought constantly about how the Soviets had crushed the 1968 Prague Spring. The Czechoslovak reformers, under Dubĉek, had forfeited Moscow’s confidence by talking about “socialism with a human face” and tampering with the holy grail of Marxist-Leninist ideology. The Polish Communists had adopted a different strategy. They presented themselves as trustworthy defenders of Soviet-style socialism in Poland. When other Soviet bloc leaders attacked them, they meekly agreed with the criticism. They acknowledged that the “antisocialist” forces posed a serious threat. At the same time, they argued that they were in control of the situation and had both the means and the will to defeat the enemies of socialism. They even hinted that if events really did get out of control, they themselves would appeal for “fraternal assistance.” 109

The Soviet leaders had selected a villa on top of the Lenin Hills as the site of the inquisition. The view over the winding Moskva River and the gilded domes of the Novodevichy monastery had attracted rulers and would-be rulers of Russia for centuries. From this spot, in September 1812, Napoleon had gazed out over the burning rooftops of Moscow after conquering an entire continent. Confronted with the scorched-earth tactics of the Russian army, he concluded that he had no choice but to retreat back to Paris at the head of his rapidly dwindling Grande Armée . It was the turning point of one of history’s great military campaigns. In the Soviet period the Politburo had built a complex of luxurious guesthouses on top of the hills, surrounded by high concrete walls pierced by heavy wrought-iron gates. It was here that the Polish leadership would be confronted with evidence of the counterrevolution.

The Poles were shown into a large conference room, equipped with translation booths. The curtains were closed. Facing them across a vast square table, beneath heavy chandeliers, were the leaders of the Soviet Union and five other Warsaw Pact countries, who had met in private the previous day. Two of these leaders, János Kádár of Hungary and Gustáv Husák of Czechoslovakia, had come to power as the direct result of Soviet invasions. A third, Erich Honecker, had risen through the ranks of the Communist youth movement as Soviet tanks suppressed a workers’ uprising in Berlin in 1953.

It was Honecker who played the role of Grand Inquisitor. Frightened that the “Polish disease” could spread to East Germany, he had been particularly active in lobbying for Soviet military intervention and was ready to contribute between two and four divisions to ensure its success. Before traveling to Moscow, he had obtained “plenipotentiary powers” from his Politburo colleagues in the event of an invasion. 110

“There is a danger to the constitutional order. The internal Polish solution is almost exhausted. We are ready to help in the struggle with the counterrevolution. The Gdańsk agreement was a mistake, a capitulation to enemy forces. There must be no further retreat.” 111

A physical fitness fanatic, who exercised daily in his private gym, Honecker had plenty of experience defending “the gains of socialism.” As East Germany’s security chief he had supervised the construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. Dubbed the “Anti-Fascist Protection Wall” by the Communists, the one-hundred-mile-long network of concrete, barbed wire, and machine-gun posts was designed to prevent East Germans from fleeing to the West. Its lightning construction—one of Europe’s largest cities was sliced into two halves overnight—was a source of great satisfaction to Honecker. He later recalled that “nothing essential” had been forgotten in an operation that had made the world “take notice” of the German Democratic Republic. 112

Nicolae Ceauşescu, the maverick Romanian dictator feted in Western capitals for refusing to join the invasion of Czechoslovakia, joined in the attack. In an attempt to win popularity at home and dupe the West into granting him trading concessions, the self-styled “Genius of the Carpathians” claimed to be pursuing a policy of “national independence.” In reality his regime was a virtual carbon copy of Stalin’s. As the supreme leader (conducător) of Romania, Ceauşescu owed his power to an omniscient security service, a slavishly loyal party, and a personality cult of absurdist dimensions. He was astute enough to understand that all this could be undermined if the “Polish disease” were allowed to spread.