Michael Dobbs - Down with Big Brother

Jaruzelski’s official biography makes clear that he played a part in the bloody settling of accounts with the anti-Communist Home Army in the years immediately after World War II. He was a protégé of the Soviet generals who supervised the Polish Defense Ministry. According to one account, he was the only Polish general to vote against the dismissal, in 1956, of the Russian-born defense minister Marshal Konstantin Rokossowsky and his recall to the Soviet Union. 146Jaruzelski was subsequently put in charge of political education in the armed forces, an extremely sensitive post reserved for someone who could get along with the Russians. When he was appointed defense minister in 1968 in succession to the nationalistically inclined Marian Spychalski, the Soviets were delighted. 147

In his memoirs Jaruzelski describes himself as a “fanatical believer” in the doctrine of communism. “It went without saying that we had to defend our church and its dogmas.” 148

Soviet leaders occasionally complained that Jaruzelski lacked “courage” and “decisiveness.” But they had no doubts at all about his “moral-political reliability.” 149They had studied his personal dossier thoroughly, and they knew their man.

STEP BY STEP JARUZELSKI had accumulated all the leading positions in the Polish People’s Republic. He was commander in chief of the armed forces, prime minister, and first secretary of the Communist Party. All that remained was for the onetime “Soldier of Mary” to declare himself military dictator. But he could not make up his mind.

After his appointment as prime minister Jaruzelski had moved into the office of Poland’s last military dictator, Marshal Piłsudski, on Ujazdowskie Avenue. 150It was here that Piłsudski had organized his program of “national purification” following the coup d’état of 1926. The ghost of his right-wing predecessor seemed to haunt Jaruzelski as he struggled to find a solution to Poland’s problems. As the crisis deepened, he frequently spent entire nights in the second-floor corner office, sleeping on a camp bed. Crushed by a sense of terrifying responsibility, he lay awake for hours. On several occasions he opened the drawer to his desk, where his service revolver lay. He gazed at the gun for minutes at a time, before closing the drawer again. 151

Pressures were growing from all sides. There were rumors—yet again—of Soviet troops massing on the borders. Jaruzelski had no illusions about what would happen to him in the event of an invasion. He remembered how Brezhnev had ordered Dubĉek’s arrest a few days after kissing him warmly on both cheeks. The image of the Czechoslovak Communist leaders being brought to Moscow under arrest had obsessed him from the outset of the crisis. 152The invasion of Czechoslovakia would be a picnic compared with the bloody catastrophe that would result if Soviet troops entered Poland.

The economy was another source of worry. Production had fallen by 12 percent in 1981, on top of the 4 percent drop in 1980 and 2 percent in 1979. The output of coal, Poland’s principal hard-currency export, had plummeted as a result of the introduction of a forty-hour week for miners. The foreign exchange reserves were practically zero. Poland was almost entirely dependent on Moscow for supplies of raw materials. A few weeks earlier the Kremlin had threatened to slash gasoline exports to Poland by two-thirds. Deliveries of natural gas, phosphorus, iron ore, and cotton would be reduced by 50 percent. Without these supplies Polish industry would grind to a halt. 153

Jaruzelski knew Western countries would react harshly to a crackdown on Solidarity. But he also had reason to believe that the newly formed Reagan administration would breathe a quiet sigh of relief over an “internal solution” to the Polish crisis. He knew that Washington was exceptionally well informed about the behind-the-scenes drama in Poland. His trusted aide Colonel Kukliński had defected to the West in early November with a complete blueprint of plans for martial law. Polish leaders feared that the Reagan administration would alert Solidarity to the coming danger, but nothing happened. Jaruzelski interpreted Washington’s silence as tacit approval of his plans. He reasoned that the United States regarded martial law as a preferable alternative to a Soviet invasion, which would have devastating consequences for East-West relations. 154

There is another explanation for the Reagan administration’s failure to act on Kukliński’s information: old-fashioned interagency rivalry. The handful of senior CIA officials who knew about Kukliński’s existence were determined not to share their knowledge with anyone else in the U.S. government—even after their source had escaped from Poland. They themselves treated his warnings about martial law with skepticism, trusting the instinct of Solidarity leaders who believed that Jaruzelski would not dare send the Polish army against civilians. 155

WHAT JARUZELSKI LATER DESCRIBED as “the most difficult day of my life” began, as usual, with his top military aides. 156At 9:00 a.m. he summoned the men charged with implementing the state of war (stan wojenny) to his office. The task of rounding up thousands of Solidarity activists and smashing any protest action fell to the interior minister, Czesław Kiszczak, a politically astute general who had previously served as head of military intelligence. Florian Siwicki, the armed forces chief of staff, would be responsible for the military aspects of the operation, including coordination with Soviet forces. Another longtime Jaruzelski protégé, Michał Janiszewski, was responsible for drafting martial law regulations and overseeing the state bureaucracy. Together these four generals formed the inner core of the new Military Council for National Salvation.

The generals fully expected Solidarity to unleash its ultimate weapon, a general strike. Workers would occupy their factories, just as they had done in August 1980. This time, however, the authorities were well prepared. There would be no need to order Polish soldiers to fire on Polish workers, something Jaruzelski had vowed never to do. In great secrecy the regime had assembled a force of thirty thousand professionally trained riot police, known by the Polish acronym ZOMO. Dressed to look like a swarm of Darth Vadars, with Plexiglas shields, gas masks, and water cannon, the ZOMO had the job of methodically breaking one strike after another. Poland’s 320,000-strong armed forces would perform a backup role, providing security for government installations and intimidating the population with a massive show of military might. Moving thousands of tanks out of their barracks served the additional purpose of showing Soviet leaders that Jaruzelski was not in need of “fraternal assistance.” 157

Browbeaten by the Kremlin and pushed into a corner by Solidarity, the Polish high command was convinced that martial law represented the only way out of the crisis. In five days’ time the opposition was planning to hold a huge protest demonstration in Warsaw. In another few days tens of thousands of soldiers would complete their military service, to be replaced by untrained conscripts, tainted by the Solidarity experience. The time to act was now, at the weekend, while the factories were empty. 158

Jaruzelski had already succeeded in linking Operation X to promises of a Soviet economic bailout. At his insistence the Kremlin had sent its top planner, Nikolai Baibakov, to Warsaw a few days before to discuss a two-billion-dollar Polish wish list. As a result of these talks, a tacit understanding had been reached. If the Polish government took tough action to crush Solidarity, Moscow would help the country out of its economic mess. 159Before issuing the final go-ahead for martial law, the general wanted to clarify Soviet military intentions toward Poland.