Jaruzelski, Wojciech Witold
Jaruzelski, Wojciech Witold
(b. 6 July 1923)
Polish; Polish leader 1981–9, President 1989–90 Jaruzelski was born into a middle-class family in eastern Poland. In 1940, following the Red Army's invasion, he and his family were deported to the Soviet Union, where his father died in captivity. Jaruzelski was made to do forced labour. Thereafter he was educated in the Soviet system, becoming a Communist. In 1944 he served in the Polish forces attached to the Red Army during the campaign in Poland. He continued in the army after the war and in 1956 became the youngest general in the Polish army. He became Chief of the Polish General Staff in 1956, Minister of Defence in April 1968, and a full member of the Politburo in 1971. In 1976 he vetoed the use of the army against demonstrating workers.
On 9 February 1981 Party First Secretary Stanisław Kania appointed Jaruzelski Prime Minister. He tried to find a compromise with the trade union movement Solidarity, who put forward demands for a democratic electoral system and a share of state power. On 18 October 1981 Jaruzelski replaced Kania as Party First Secretary. In a masterfully executed coup he introduced martial law and banned Solidarity on 13 December 1981. In the Gorbachev era Jaruzelski published his autobiography, in which he claimed that he had acted in the national interest in his coup of 1981, since this was the only way left to prevent Soviet military intervention. Because of his early history, he bitterly resented being called ‘a Russian in Polish uniform’. In the 1980s he repeatedly tried to find the social consensus necessary for the implementation of major economic reforms. In 1982 he partially lifted martial law. Yet Jaruzelski was unable to reconcile the workers and intelligentsia who resented his continuing repression of Solidarity and his apparent subservience to Moscow. Though innocent of the crime, Jaruzelski was discredited in October 1984 by the murder of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko by members of the Religious Affairs Department of the Ministry of the Interior. Jaruzelski stopped the collapse of the economy, which had started in 1980, without taking on foreign loans. In 1988 a ‘second stage’ of economic reform was greeted by widespread strikes. At the end of 1988, with Gorbachev's support, he initiated the ‘Round Table Talks’ with Solidarity and the Catholic church. These led to the elections of 1989 after which the Communists lost power and Jaruzelski became a figurehead President. He resigned in November 1990 and was succeeded by Lech Wałȩsa. Since then he has faced a number of court appearances, most recently in 2008, relating to his actions in 1970 over the death of 44 strikers and in imposing martial law in 1981, but the cases remain unresolved.
