Word: polander
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...Eventually we [Solidarity] won, not thanks to a bloody slaughter but to the Round Table negotiations," Kutz argues. "It was a great phenomenon." He also praises Jaruzelski's efforts to explain motives and circumstances behind the martial law. Having stepped down in 1990 after serving as president of Poland during the transition period, the general published books and gave numerous interviews about the clampdown, forcing Poles to rethink their recent history. "He is a man who bears his crown of thorns with unusual dignity and unusual strength," says Kutz...
...December of 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law on Poland, orchestrating a brutal crackdown on the pro-democracy Solidarity trade union movement that eventually saw some 90 people killed, and around 10,000 detained in internment camps. But as Jaruzelski and six other former top officials set out their defense in a criminal trial over their coup and crackdown, many of the former leaders of Solidarity have emerged among the general's staunchest defenders. In a bizarre twist of history, the leaders of the very movement Jaruzelski sought to crush 27 years ago now say he was right...
...well as the head of the Communist Party, explained his motivation for declaring martial law this way: In 1981, he argued, the Solidarity movement was in the throes of an internal power struggle between radicals and moderates, with Moscow watching closely, having reinforced the Soviet troop contingent stationed in Poland. The Soviets had previously sent troops to crush a popular rebellion in Hungary in 1956, and to brutally destroy a reformist Czech communist regime in 1968, and Jaruzelski was acutely aware of the danger that Poland could suffer a similar fate. Martial law was "a dramatically difficult decision...
...Solidarity did not want to rein in its political aspirations," the general argued. "Because of the geopolitics, the authorities could not step back. There was a knot which we decided to cut ourselves." The crackdown, however brutal, was a "lesser evil" that spared Poland the a direct Soviet military intervention, he argued. He acknowledged that martial law brought human suffering, for which the general said he "is sorry and takes the responsibility...
...Soviets were ready to start an invasion is still debated by historians, Jaruzelski's background may have made him more prone to fear that Moscow would intervene. As a 17-year-old during World War II, he had been deported with his parents to Siberia after Soviet forces entered Poland. His father was imprisoned, and young Jaruzelski logged trees. "He had no illusions about Russia," says Stefan Chwin, a Polish writer. Even Lech Walesa, the legendary Solidarity leader interned for almost a year during the clampdown, feels empathy for Jaruzelski. "He belongs to an unfortunate generation broken by (historic) circumstances...