Christopher Andrew - The Sword and the Shield

Pavlov and Aristov continued to press for more arrests and trials of counter-revolutionaries. At a meeting with Kiszczak on July 7, Pavlov denounced the policy of the interior ministry and the SB as “weak and indecisive.” Kiszczak replied that there were 40,000 Solidarity activists, and it was impossible to prosecute them all. 99Four days later Aristov brought Jaruzelski a personal message from Brezhnev and repeated the Soviet demand for more prosecutions. Jaruzelski argued that to try Wałęsa would be impossible because of the international as well as Polish outcry it would produce, and that a trial of leading opposition figures which excluded Wałęsa would lack credibility. 100The Polish decision in December to suspend (though not yet formally end) martial law caused predictable dismay in Moscow. When pressed by Aristov to keep it in force, however, Jaruzelski delivered something of a lecture, which was duly reported to Moscow:

We cannot continue martial law as if we were living in a bunker; we want to pursue a dialogue with the people… Glemp’s latest statements are such that they could even be printed in Trybuna Ludu [the Party newspaper]. He appeals for calm, restraint and realism… We are, of course, playing a game with the Catholic Church; our aim is to neutralize its harmful influence on the population. The aims of the Church and my aims are still different. However, at this stage we must exploit our common interest in stabilizing the situation in order to strengthen Socialism and the positions of the Party. 101

Jaruzelski’s attitude to Moscow had become visibly less deferential since operation X a year earlier. The KGB mission reported that he had declared on one occasion, “The Soviet comrades are mistaken if they think that the Polish section of the CPSU Central Committee will make Polish policy as in the days of Gierek. This will not happen. [Those] days are over.” 102Jaruzelski was, initially, favorably impressed by the signs of a new, less hectoring style in the Soviet leadership after Brezhnev’s death. He told Kiszczak after a meeting in Moscow with Andropov, Brezhnev’s successor, in December 1982:

This was a genuine conversation on an equal footing between the leaders of the two Parties and countries, not a monologue as was the case earlier with Brezhnev. In a conversation lasting three hours, Andropov said that all Socialist countries must take account of the specific conditions of Poland. The Polish problems were not the concern of one country alone; it was a world problem.

Andropov did, however, express concern about the continued presence of Rakowski and his fellow moderate, Barcikowski, in the Polish leadership. Jaruzelski asked Andropov to trust his judgment on how long to keep them in office. The fact that Andropov appeared so well informed about the Polish situation, Jaruzelski believed, was due chiefly to reports from the KGB mission in Warsaw. 103

The KGB mission remained deeply suspicious of revisionist tendencies in the Polish leadership. It telegraphed the Centre at the end of 1982:

Rakowski continues to influence Jaruzelski. They meet constantly to exchange views, not only at work, but also at home, and Rakowski was the first person Jaruzelski met immediately after his return from Moscow. 104

KGB distrust of Jaruzelski continued to grow during 1983. The Warsaw mission reported that he had given a dangerously defeatist address to the PUWP central committee on January 12:

Gierek’s slogans about the moral and ideological unity of the Poles, the development of Socialism—all this is a fantasy and dreamworld. We have a multiparty system. There is an uneven rate of development of capitalism, but there is also such a thing as the uneven rate of development of Socialism… In [the current] situation tactics must prevail over strategy.

Even Lenin, at various moments of his career, had engaged in tactical retreats. Poland, Jaruzelski claimed, must do the same. 105Pavlov believed that Jaruzelski intended to retreat much too far. The danger that he would do so was greatly increased by the Polish regime’s capitulation to Church pressure for a second visit by John Paul II in June. According to Pavlov:

The episcopate, and right-wing forces within the PUWP and the country at large, seek to influence Jaruzelski and intimidate him with the might of the Church. There are many signs that the right wing and the Church are succeeding in this. 106

Among other worrying signs of Jaruzelski’s susceptibility to right-wing pressure was his willingness to allow family farms and the private ownership of land to be enshrined in the Polish constitution. 107The Soviet embassy condemned a report presented to the PUWP Politburo on February 1 on “The Causes and Consequences of Social Crises in the History of the Polish People’s Republic” as the product of “bourgeois methodology”:

[The report] reduces the essence of the class struggle in the Polish People’s Republic to conflicts between the authorities and society, thereby deliberately excluding the possibility of analyzing the actions of anti-Socialist forces, and their connections with the West’s ideological sabotage centers. There is not a word about the USSR’s help in restoring and developing Poland’s economy.

After extensive lobbying by the Soviet embassy, which had received an advance copy, the report was rejected and it was agreed that a revised version should be prepared, emphasizing Poland’s supposed achievements in Socialist construction under the leadership of the PUWP. 108Aristov continued, however, to complain that “ideological work remains a most neglected sector of the PUWP’s activity,” and that the PUWP leadership was failing to master “the revisionist right-wing opportunist bias in the Party.” The press was deeply tainted by revisionism and Eurocommunism, while Polish translations of Soviet textbooks were openly disparaged:

Currency has been given to the idea that the Soviet model is unsuitable for Poland; the PUWP is incapable of solving contradictions in the interests of the whole of society, and a “third path” needs to be worked out. There is increasing criticism of real Socialism. 109

As the time for John Paul II’s return to Poland approached, the official mood in both Warsaw and Moscow became increasingly nervous. On April 5, 1983 Pavlov forwarded to Viktor Chebrikov, the KGB chairman, a request from Kiszczak for “material and technical assistance in connection with the Pope’s visit”: 150 rifles of the kind used for firing rubber bullets, 20 armed personnel carriers, 300 cars for transporting plain clothes personnel and surveillance equipment, 200 army tents and various medical supplies. 110According to Pavlov, Kiszczak was close to panic, declaring that he could no longer “rely on anyone.” SB sources in the Vatican reported that, though statements drafted for John Paul II were usually moderate, he tended to depart from prepared texts, improvise and get carried away. Kiszczak feared that he would do the same in Poland.

The SB’s only ground for optimism was the decline in the Pope’s health since the assassination attempt in the previous year. “At the present time,” said Kiszczak, “we can only dream of the possibility that God will recall him to his bosom as soon as possible.” Kiszczak seized eagerly on any evidence which suggested that the Pope’s days were numbered. According to one improbable SB report, which he passed on to the KGB, John Paul II was suffering from leukemia but used cosmetics to conceal his condition. 111Two years earlier the KGB had received an equally inaccurate report from the Hungarian AVH which claimed that the Pope was suffering from cancer of the spinal column. 112About a fortnight after Kiszczak’s appeal for help from the KGB, Aristov reported further evidence that the Polish authorities were wilting under papal pressure. Having at first refused to allow large open-air masses at Kraków and Katowice, they had given way and agreed to both—thus running the unacceptable risk “of inflaming religious fanaticism among the working class.” 113