JARUZELSKI INTERVIEW FOR „IZVESTIA”

General Wojciech Jaruzelski with the

President of Russia Vladimir Putin
in Moscow, at the 60th anniversary of the
1945 victory over Nazi Germany in 2005.

Wojciech Jaruzelski: “American missile

shield was not to enhance Poland’s
security”
On Tuesday, October 20, 2009, American Vice President Joe Biden came to
Warsaw to assure that the United States would embrace Poland by its new
system of missile defense (BMD). On the same day, a popular Russian daily
Izvestia printed an interview of General Wojciech Jaruzelski. The interview
granted to Izvestia’s foreign correspondent Oleg Shevtsov was made in Paris,
on September 18, 2009. The title was taken from the response of the General
to a final question: “How do you assess the American withdrawal from
deployment of a BMD system in Poland?” A coincidence? Rather not. From the
very beginning, the Russians strongly opposed a planned building of a U.S.
missile receptor base in Poland and of a U.S. forward radar system in the Czech
Republic and they ditched it with the help of the Obama Administration. The
interview of the last communist leader of Poland presents his biography and
his views on Polish–Russian relations. It is very interesting and that’s why I

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decided to translate it from Russian to English and to publish it. – David
Dastych
[Full text of the interview]

 Former President of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski, is one of the most

controversial figures in the current history of his country. For some
people he is almost a criminal, an organizer of a military coup d’etat,
a strangler of democracy in full and of the activists of the
“Solidarity” trade union in particular. For other, he is a patriot who
had saved his country from an armed intervention of the Warsaw
Pact, and a man, who helped to dismember the world communist
system. And how he, himself, appraises his part in the history? About
this and a number of other questions discusses with General
Jaruzelski an Izvestia’s correspondent in Paris, Oleg Shevtsov.

”Polish ‘troglodytes’ incited Brezhnev to intervene”

Question: You have entered history as “the last dictator of Poland”, the
one who imposed the martial law on the 13th of December 1981. Now
there is going on a criminal trial, where responsibility is put on you for all
that has happened in these years. Do you feel culpable?

Answer: I confess for twelve years now. And then, in 1981, I knew: the
decision to introduce the martial law will hang on me to the end of my
days. I talked about it during the trial. The martial law was a nightmare for
me. But at that time, in my opinion, there was no other variant which
could be better for Poland. I knew the realities of that epoch. I knew what
could menace to us in case we resigned of the introduction of the “law of
war” [martial law]. I can remind to you the known words of Brezhnev: “If
the Polish communists would submit themselves to counter-revolutionary
public feeling, then the fate of Poland, the fate of peace in Europe would
be solved by force.” If I, or you, were a Soviet general and could see the
developments in Poland, I would have decided to intervene.

Q: Was there any other decision? What your comrades of the Party
leadership suggested to you?

A: The martial law – it was an evil, but a smaller evil in comparison to that
catastrophe we stood at the threshold of. There were particular political
reasons for this catastrophe [to happen]. In the Polish Communist Party
there were dogmatists – “troglodytes”, as I named them – who did not
want any reforms and were ready to get rid of them at any price. They
maintained secret contacts with the leaders of the USSR, incited them to
military intervention. In the inner circle of Brezhnev there also were old
dogmatists – Romanov, Grishin. Well, I should be careful [pointing to] old
sclerotics: Brezhnev died at 75, and I am already 86 years old.

There were also economic reasons. At that time USSR, Czechoslovakia and
GDR [East Germany] offered main help to Poland – we needed all:
products, energy, raw materials. Beginning from the 1st of January 1982,

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all supplies of natural gas were to be cut off. Already in December 1981,
we suffered big downfall of the supply of energy-portents. And, finally, the
third threat – the military one. Being the Commander-in-Chief I knew:
Soviet armies were concentrated at our frontiers. I understood too well
what that meant.

I couldn’t forget about still one more factor. Following Yalta, after the year
1945, the [Western] frontier of Poland changed favorably for us. At that
time, the only guarantor of our Western frontier territories was Stalin, who
pushed frontiers Westward to enlarge the zone of Soviet influence.
Western Germany [FRG] opposed this. In 1967, General de Gaulle was the
only one among the Western European politicians, who came to Poland
from the West, entering ten kilometers deep into former [German] Silesia.
By this [move] he confirmed that it was the territory of Poland nowadays.
From Moscow we always received reminders about who guaranteed our
[Western] frontier. And [Russians] let us think: as long as you remain a
socialist state, your [national] territory will not be curbed. And if not,
then…

“Our country was Mediaeval – still in 1945”

Q: As you are coming from a family of landed gentry, don’t you feel
nostalgic about the old, before-the-war Poland?

A: In fact, I have been born to a Catholic family of small land-owning

gentry. I graduated from a private Catholic college. Well, and then
followed – Siberia, the war, I was wounded twice at the front, when I
fought against Germans. The ancestry of our house dates back to the
thirteenth century. Many people in the West don’t realize to what extent
our country was mediaeval [backward] – still in 1945. When my father
visited the places where our estate was located, [peasants] kissed his
hand. Even when I occurred to be there after the war, the villagers
addressed me [by a title] of “my lord” and took off their caps. But there is
no nostalgia in me about that before-the-war past.

One may criticize socialism at free will, but no one can deny that: after the
war Poland made a great social leap forward. [After WWI] we inherited a
country of 24 million inhabitants –- six million perished during the war. But
by 1970 there were counted [in Poland] 38 million people – it was a real
demographical dash. As to the reproductiveness, we outdistanced GDR
[East Germany], and also Czechoslovakia. But social provisions for such a
big population growth began to crumble in the 1970s. As people used to
tell then, in [Polish] shops one could find only vinegar. But [sarcastically]
that vinegar was a strong aphrodisiac, as it brought about the birth of 14
millions of new Poles.

Q: Did the introduction of the martial law accelerate the fall of

communism, or delay it?

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A: On the one hand, the martial law delayed the fall of the Berlin Wall by
eight years. But there’s also an opposite view. The entering of the Warsaw
Pact armies to Poland [in the 1980s] certainly could have solidified the
position of the partisans of a brutal policy line in the leadership of the
USSR. In such case, Gorbachev wouldn’t have assumed power and he
couldn’t begin his reforms. I don’t justify that forced decision [of the
martial law] but it was the least of all evils. There is no subjunctive mood
in history. But we know how ended the coup d’etat of Jozef Pilsudski in
1926, and how ended an unprepared Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Q: Don’t you think of yourself as of a usurper?

A: No, my decision was truly legitimate. The Polish Parliament (The Sejm)
voted for the introduction of the martial law [in 1981]. It was not a coup
d’etat at all.

“I love Russians, Russian nation, Russian culture”

Q: Are normal relations between Poland and Russia possible, considering

our complicated common history?

A: Let me begin from [the fact] that presently there are many divergences
between Poland and Russia – especially on the higher level, in the
academic circles and so on. All that makes me bitter. I will never stop
repeating: I have high respect for Russia, I love Russians, Russian nation,
Russian culture. The Russian nation is close to us, a Slav nation. Russia –
it’s a huge, multi-national country, the whole continent.

In spite of [the fact that] there was a forced exile to Siberia in my life, that
there was taiga – where my Father remained for ages, I am very grateful
to Vladimir Putin for making possible to me to travel to Altayskiy Kray
To pay a visit at the grave of my Father. But regardless of my difficult life
history, I still love Russia, and I think that our mutual relations may be and
can be good. It’s a pity that it isn’t so now. I don’t want to judge which
party is more culpable for that. Now I am far away from politics and I don’t
dispose of full information to be able to formulate a judgment. But, to
begin with, in my opinion, we have to get rid of emotions, of which,
unfortunately, there is a lot in Poland. One can’t build normal relations on
emotions. Different countries can’t understand history in the same way.
But this should not prevent them from living in harmony, moreover when
they are neighbors.

“Myself – I am a staunch Bonapartist”

Q: Now, twelve years after the crush of the Berlin Wall, are there still any
dividing lines in Europe?

A: There will be no wall between Russia and the rest of Europe. All
[countries] have their own traditions and ways to democracy and all need
different timing to walk that long way [to the end]. After the fall of the

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USSR, there was necessary to bring together [again] what had been
dispersed. A time will come, and we will be close [with Russia] again.
Gorbachev didn’t want any new barriers to rise in Europe, and he didn’t
want to disrupt the Soviet Union either. After all, there are other
geopolitical realities – China, the Islamic world. Perhaps in twenty, thirty
years to come we will be together again.
Q: And in 1939, who invaded Poland?

A: Poland was subjected to aggression from both sides [Germany and the
Soviet Union]. And then there was Katyn Massacre, which is very painful
for the Polish national identity. Assessments of the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact had been made from our and from the Russian side. Putin himself
admitted that the agreement with Hitler was immoral.

But this Pact should be examined in the political context of that epoch. At
that time, I was 16 years old and I remember the bitter, unfortunate things
that have been committed, also by us. But the history, the wounds
inflicted by it are not to be quickly healed.

Let me give you an example. When I was President [of Poland], I flew for a
visit to England. In a castle outside London Margaret Thatcher took me to
the attic, where there were stacked on the table old things, some
documents. She picked up an old, worn out thin brown leather folder and
said: “Do you know who it belonged to?” I didn’t know. “To Napoleon. But I
wouldn’t bring a Frenchman to this place!” See: two hundred years have
passed, and the British cannot forget. They live with the French in alliance,
two world wars fought together. Nevertheless, each country retained its
diametrically opposite view of Napoleon, its own version of history. But
this should not prevent cooperation. I am, incidentally, a staunch
Bonapartist myself.

“Gorbachev called Poland ‘a laboratory of reforms’”

Q: Was is possible to act in a different way, not to disrupt to the end – of

the Warsaw Pact, the socialist system, the USSR?

A: Truly, all that could be made in a different way, perhaps something

could be done differently, but it was impossible to solve that differently
then. There are laws of the development of social order, but we stayed
behind schedule. To move to a new [higher] level of civilization, we
needed a qualitative leap forward. Of course, it had to be controlled not to
allow such high social costs, but quite painless it could not have happen.
And communism - in its ideal version, which was badly damaged by the
historical practice – had to be considered as a social experience.

The government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, which acted when I was he head

of the state, began deep reforms. And, theoretically, they could have been
successful. We took a path of a mixed economy. To introduce the
principles of capitalism would end in massive unemployment, which was
not to be allowed for. To conserve the [dominant] role of the state would

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lead to stagnation. So we were searching a third way. We hit upon the
possibility of introducing a third economic factor - cooperatives. All
documents of that time were not only signed by Mazowiecki, but also by
myself. [That’s why] Gorbachev called Poland a “laboratory of reforms.”

Since that time our country has changed very much. I would be lying if I
said: everything that is happening now, I like it. Now no one takes into
account the social costs. Therefore many problems have accumulated.

General Wojciech Jaruzelski, 86, at his office in

Warsaw.

Q: How do you appraise the refusal of Americans to deploy the Ballistic

Missile Defense (BMD) system in Poland?

A: As a professional soldier, from the very beginning I doubted about the

efficacy of that plan. The most of questions evoked its [alleged] targeting
against Iran. Of course, this was [only] a pretext for strengthening the
[U.S.] strategic position against Russia, what gave rise to such
nervousness in the relations between Moscow and Washington.

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An [eventual] deployment of [elements] of the American BMD in Poland by
no means would enhance Poland’s security. One way or the other, we are
members of NATO. And, according to the agreement, each country -
member of the alliance - has the right to collective defense. Therefore a
U.S. bilateral agreement with Poland on missile defense – could be an
unnecessary duplication of the existing security system. So the
[acceptance of the American] missile defense system could be truly a
manifestation of [Poland’s] distrust of NATO. And in the conditions of the
present [economic] crisis, it became still prohibitively expensive.

Translated from Russian by David Dastych

The original Russian version:

http://www.izvestia.ru/world/article3134426/