Wojciech Jaruzelski

Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski was born on July 6, 1923, in Kurów, Poland. He rose to the rank of general and was sequentially Defense Minister (1968-1983), Prime Minister (February 1981-1985), Polish United Workers' Party First Secretary (1981-1989), and President of the Polish People's Republic and then the Republic of Poland (1989-1990). He died in Warsaw on May 25, 2014.¹

Military Career

Jaruzelski was deported with his family to Siberia following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in 1939, and served in the Polish Army formed on Soviet territory. This formative experience - survival through accommodation with Soviet power - shaped his political career. He rose steadily through the communist military hierarchy, becoming the youngest general in the Polish Army in 1956 and Defense Minister in 1968, a position he held for fifteen years.¹

The Martial Law Decision

By August 1980, when the Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy Solidarność (NSZZ Solidarność) emerged from the Gdańsk shipyard strikes, Lech Wałęsa had transformed what began as a labor dispute into a mass social movement with ten million members. The Polish United Workers' Party faced an organization that had effectively displaced it as the representative of Polish workers.

Jaruzelski became Prime Minister in February 1981 and was named First Secretary in October 1981, accumulating unprecedented personal authority within the communist system. On December 13, 1981, he announced martial law (stan wojenny) under the authority of the Military Council of National Salvation (Wojskowa Rada Ocalenia Narodowego, WRON). Solidarity was suspended; Wałęsa and thousands of Solidarity leaders and activists were interned. The operation was called into effect in the early morning hours with military units deploying across the country.

Jaruzelski maintained for the rest of his life that martial law was necessary to prevent a Soviet military invasion - that the alternative to his own imposition of order was the scenario of 1956 Hungary or 1968 Czechoslovakia. Soviet documents released after 1991 have produced mixed evidence on how imminent Soviet intervention actually was; the debate about his motivations and the reality of the Soviet threat remained contested at his death.²

The Transition

Martial law was formally lifted in July 1983. Wałęsa received the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1983, which Jaruzelski's government could not prevent. Throughout the mid-1980s, repression continued but was unable to eliminate Solidarity's underground organizing or the social authority of the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II.

In 1988-1989, facing economic crisis and renewed strike waves, Jaruzelski authorized roundtable negotiations with the opposition. The negotiations produced an agreement for partially free elections in June 1989. Solidarity won 99 of 100 Senate seats and all freely contested Sejm seats. Tadeusz Mazowiecki became Prime Minister in August 1989 - the first non-communist government head in the Eastern Bloc. Jaruzelski was elected President by the parliament as part of the transition arrangements, serving until Wałęsa defeated him in Poland's first direct presidential election in December 1990.¹

Post-Communist Accountability

In post-communist Poland, Jaruzelski faced repeated legal proceedings related to the martial law declaration and associated deaths of protesters. In 2008, he was indicted for communist crimes. The proceedings extended through his final years; he died in May 2014 before a final verdict was reached. His legacy remained deeply contested in Poland - as a military officer who saved the country from Soviet intervention in the view of some, and as a communist collaborator responsible for political repression in the view of others.²