A CRIME OF MARTIAL LAW TO THE ORDER OF MOSCOW

Józef Szaniawski

30 years ago, on the overnight of 12 and 13 of December 1981, at midnight when people sleep peacefully and are defenceless, a group of communist and Soviet and even russified Polish generals attacked the nation and Poland unexpectedly, introducing the martial law.

Communists declared war on their nation in a treacherous way! The martial law was introduced on 13 December 1981, to the order of Moscow and today we know that orders were given to Jaruzelski and other generals of the Military Council of National Rescue (Pol. WRON) not only by Breżniew but also a well-known leader of KGB (The Committee for State Security) Andropow, as well as marshals Ustinow and Kulikow. The communist military dictatorship - WRON was not a 'lesser evil' at all. The martial law was introduced in the Polish People's Republic (Pol. PRL) for the sake of the Soviet reasons of State and imperial plans and the global policy in Kremlin. And, therefore, after the end of the martial law in 1984, the rulers of Kremlin rewarded their faithful servant gen. Jaruzelski with a platinum-gold Order of Lenin, the highest Soviet award. None of Poles, apart from Jaruzelski, received such an award. Similarly as other communists ruling Poland for half a century, Wojciech Jaruzelski concealed traces of his crimes very carefully, as well as his close contacts and relationships with his Soviet superiors in Moscow. General Jaruzelski and other generals of WRON, as well as Polish communists ruling the Polish People's Republic before, were the traitors of the Nation, renegades and the Targowicians of XX century. Despite destroying the most important documents, despite concealing traces, it is impossible to conceal the terrible truth of the martial law and the betrayal of our homeland.

A secret decision in village Brześć

Very few people know that the decision about introducing the martial law was made on 8 April 1981 during a secret meeting in a special train carriage near village Brześć, at the Bug River, on the Soviet side of the border. The meeting was attended by the leaders of the Polish People's Republic (Pol. PRL) Stanislaw Kania and Wojciech Jaruzelski and the leader of the Soviet KGB Jurij Andropow and the Defence Minister - Marshal Dmitrij Ustinow. On behalf of the Soviet Polit-bureau they recommended the introduction of the martial law in Poland on such a date and in such conditions that the operation would be successful. The plan of the martial law in its basic outline was prepared in Moscow, whereas Kania and Jaruzelski were only supposed to work out the details and decide on a suitable date. In the saved Soviet transcript concerning the meeting in Brzesc, there is an explicit sentence - the command by Marshal Ustinow: 'We must sign the plan prepared by our comrades!' What is more, during this meeting - as we read in the transcript of the Soviet Polit-bureau: 'Comrade Jaruzelski repeated his request for releasing him from the post of Prime Minister (of the Polish government). We explained him clearly that he should stay in the same post and fulfil his duties with dignity, because the opponent mobilizes his strengths in order to gain the authority'. It was so indeed! The Prime Minister of the Polish government did not resign his post not before the Polish Seym but his actual superiors from Moscow who had made him General, the Defence Minister, the Prime Minister before and now they assigned another function for him in Brześć - a dictator of the martial law against his own Nation. And Jaruzelski fulfilled commands from Kremlin. It was a betrayal of our Homeland; it was Targowica of XX century!

Targowica of XX century

Introducing the martial law on 13 December 1981 the leader of the communist-general's WRON, gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski in his famous speech stated clearly that it was directed against 'the extremists of 'Solidarity', because he wanted to protect the country against 'the civil war'. Who was going to fight with whom in that war, if the weapon belonged only to one party and another one was completely defenceless? Jaruzelski did not say that. On December night he became a real dictator of Poland - as the first secretary of the Central Committee (Pol. KC) of the communist party, the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, the representative of KOK and the representative of WRON. At that time, in 1981, the general did not refer to the danger from the Soviet intervention. The theory of the 'lesser evil' appeared later. The martial law was allegedly going to protect Poland against the 'bigger evil', that is, an armed aggression of the division of the Red Army. The revealed so-called documents of the Committee of Susłow of 1981, after the fall of the Soviet Union, completely crushed Jaruzelski and his subordinates. These absolutely credible historical documents were quoted many times, so, let's remember only the most important statements of the Soviet leaders, the members of the Political Bureau in Kremlin:
Andropow (the leader of KGB, the secretary of KC): 'We cannot take a risk. We cannot, do not intend to bring army to Poland'.
Gromyko (the Foreign Minister): 'We will have to try to stifle the attitude of Jaruzelski and other leaders of Poland as far as bringing our army is concerned. It can not be allowed to bring the army to Poland. Bringing back the order in Poland is the matter of the Polish United Labour Party (Pol. PZPR)
Susłow (number 2 in Kremlin, the secretary of KC): 'Let the Polish comrades decide by themselves what action they are supposed to take'.
Ustinow (the Defence Minister of ZSRR): 'The Polish Political Bureau unanimously made a decision about the introduction of the martial law'.
Rusakow (the secretary of KC, responsible for the international issues): 'The Polish comrades hope that other countries will help them to bring military forces to Poland'. It is worth quoting other examples proving that Polish generals fulfilled the orders from Kremlin in the interest of the imperial strategic purposes of ZSRR. The most prominent Polish history expert in the West - a British professor Norman Davies writes directly: '(...) Jaruzelski, already as the leader of the Main Political Board of the Polish Army, was the MAN OF KGB. (...) If we consider the political system present in Poland, the question whether Jaruzelski acted from his own initiative or the initiative of Moscow, becomes a rhetorical question. If Jaruzelski had worked out an action plan by himself, as a loyal communist, he would anyway have had to ask the Soviet comrades for a green light. But if this plan had appeared in Moscow, the general would have had to promise his obedience (...) Jaruzelski was an officer who served to the Soviet empire from his youth till retirement. We have to call the thing by name. The pro-Russian element has always been quite stronger than Poles want to admit it. There were too few periods in history when a normal honourable Pole could be loyal to the Russian or Soviet system with his pure conscience. Jaruzelski is a man - mask but there is no face behind the mask but there is another mask. The assassination on 13 December 1981 was performed professionally and without any blood shed. Jaruzelski is undoubtedly the best assassin of XX century. He is on the list of the biggest assassins not heroes. A special certificate was given to Jaruzelski by - Stalin's right hand and co-signatory of IV partition of Poland of 23 August 1939 - Wiaczesław Mołotow. Reaching nearly the age of 100, he wrote in his diaries (completely unknown in Poland): 'in the recent few years a great our achievement - our, that is, of communists, has been the appearance of two people. The first nice surprise was Andropow (...). The second man is Jaruzelski. For example, I had never heard such a surname before I saw him in the role of the first secretary' - mentions Mołotow. After that he states, literally commenting on the introduction of the martial law in Poland: 'There were very few Bolsheviks among Poles. Jaruzelski replaced us'. The Prime Minister in the Polish People's Republic (Pol. PRL) for many years - Jaroszewicz, a man of Kremlin himself, wrote about the dictator of the martial law in this way: 'Jaruzelski, who had dealt with the security and military matter for many years, and had relationship with the KGB apparatus, was convinced that the authority in the country of real socialism is based on the apparatus of police, security and army'. The Interior Vice-minister and the Security Force general Pożoga describes how it was in 1982. The leader of WRON submitted reports on Poland to the leader of KGB: 'General Jaruzelski gave important messages to general and the leader of the Soviet residency of KGB in Poland Pawłowow in my presence. The messages concerned the fight against the opposition and clergy.
I was surprised by the aggressiveness in the statement of the General, brutal treating his political opponents and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. He imparted the surnames of the main opponents to the representative of KGB, he characterized them in details, emphasizing their weak and strong points. He was speaking at length about the activity of each particular person, pointing to their Anti-Sovietness. He discussed our intentions towards the opposition, informed what humiliating materials we had about particular people. Similarly, he presented the matters connected with the Church. It was not a nice piece of information even for me. The presentation of the opposition and the Church in such a black light was exaggerated in my opinion, and even harmful. I was irritated by the precision with which the General noted down every word'.

The mine 'Wujek'

'Silesia was a place of the most determined and longest opposition against WRON 30 years ago - the communist military dictatorship, it was Silesia which historically incurred the most victims in the fight against the regime of the martial law, and the mine 'Wujek' became a symbol of heroism. I join the prayer and musing, in order to pay tribute to the victims of that bloody massacre of the memorable December in 1981. I want to believe that the surnames of miners killed during the defence of the human dignity will be in the Pantheon of national heroes, whose highest sacrifice of their life brought the independence of Poland closer to all of us. (...) I also join the voices of resentment and protests against the helplessness of the organs of justice in the Third Polish Republic in judging those who are guilty of the committed crime. Forgiving in a Christian way - yes, which does not mean to justify, acquit or forget. As on a rotten fundament you cannot erect a solid building, you cannot build a country of law basing on the human injustice'. Colonel Ryszard Kukliński wrote so in a message from America to miners, while he was burdened with the sentence of death penalty by the regime of the martial law, upheld by other governing groups in the Third Polish Republic. The massacre in the mine 'Wujek' was not accidental - just this place and this mine were selected on purpose. The aim was to show force, intimidate Silesia, and consequently the whole Poland. If the aim had been only to force miners into finishing their strike, it would have been enough to turn off the inflow of electric current or water and miners would have left the mine by themselves. But the communist authority needed blood, the killed and the wounded in order to intimidate the whole Poland until the authority would withdraw. Therefore, the big mine was selected and not anywhere in Silesia but in its capital - in Katowice! During the massacre, during the military actions against miners, the army officers and the Security Force did not allow ambulance doctors to approach the wounded! Because was the number of victims still too low at that time? The regime of gen. Jaruzelski directed several military units against the miners on strike in the mine 'Wujek'; nearly 3 thousands people, brutes ready to fulfil orders of killing their own fathers and mothers. Those were forces not only of the Civic Militia, not only ZOMO (Motorized Reserves of the Citizens' Militia), not only Security Forces but also regular linear combative units of People's Polish Army armed with dozens of tanks, machine weapon, military helicopters, destructive bullets and acute ammunition. There was also a special platoon of snipers among them, murderers chosen to eliminate the leaders of strikes and manifestations, anticipated by Jaruzelski, Kiszczak and other generals of 'WRON'. Nowhere in Poland was it as obvious as in the mine 'Wujek' that communists had declared a war on their own nation! The 30th anniversary of the introduction of the martial law should be an important occasion to remind Poland, Europe and the world of everything the communists wanted to conceal, as well as the tragic battle for freedom of our Homeland, dignity and rights of the man which was fought by Polish miners of the Coal Mine 'Wujek' in Katowice in December 1981.

Unknown victims of the martial law

Gen. Jaruzelski and gen. Kiszczak are personally responsible for giving orders for the so-called the technology office of the Interior Ministry and technical board of the counterintelligence of the Military Internal Service about total turning off the telecom system in the whole country. According to various reports (among the others, by Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski), the preparation of the infrastructure and logistics of the martial law in Spring and Summer in 1981 was one of the basic tasks, which Jaruzelski and Kiszczak gave to the Security Service (Pol. SB) and the Military Internal Service. The result was to paralyse the Nation completely, the society, 'Solidarity'. And it happened so. Before midnight, on the overnight of 12 and 13 December, by virtue of a formal command by the generals of WRON all telephone centrals in Poland were switched off, except for military, militia, railway and secret lines of governmental connections as well as special ('wucze') connecting main centres of the government of PRL (KC PZPR, MSW, MON, URM) with their counterparts in Moscow.
It was a completely unprecedented fact in the civilized world! Even Gestapo did not do any total switching off the telephone net during the Nazi occupation. Even during the Warsaw Uprising the Germans did not switch off telephony. The telephone system was working till the second half of August 1944, when it was destroyed, as a result of bombardment, not deliberate switching off. The exceptional state in ZSRR during unsuccessful coup d'etat in August 1991 could have finished with success if KGB had decided to switch off telephones. But KGB did not make this decision like its Polish comrades in Warsaw. The Polish leadership of the martial law did not have any doubts. The generals of WRON, however, must have realized that switching off telephones in the whole Poland is aimed against not only innocent people but also those who are the weakest: women during their last hours of pregnancy, seriously ill of heart and blood circulating system, people in the state of infarct and the fit of kidneys, seriously ill children and even people suffering from the ordinary appendicitis. These are the most typical cases of ill people requiring immediate ambulance and hospital help. These kinds of accidents mostly occur and are registered by the Health Service in normal conditions. In the first weeks of the martial law (till the end of December 1981) according to the statistic data of doctors of Krakow emergency department, not les than 500 seriously ill people had to die without any medical care! There are estimations concerning the whole martial law. According to them the number of unknown victims of the martial law exceeds 1150. The deaf telephone handset is one of the elements of terror which was introduced by junta of WRON. The terror for the seriously ill and their families was the curfew - tyrannical prohibition of going out into streets in the evenings and at nights in the whole Poland, even in order to call for medical help from a far hospital. The obstacle in helping was also the general lack of petrol, closed petrol stations especially in the beginning of the martial law.

A theory of the lesser evil

The disgraceful argument used to explain the crime of the martial law is a theory of the lesser evil. A bigger evil was to be allegedly the military intervention by the Russians and invasion of Poland by the soldiers of the Red Army. The problem was that the Russians did not want and were not interested in the armed intervention but only the political repression. The Russians did not need to 'invade' Poland, because they were in Poland! There was the stationed so-called Northern Military Group of the Soviet Army on the territory of the Polish People's Republic (Pol. PRL), consisting of dozens of excellent divisions, including units of famous Spetznas. The Soviet leader Leonid Breżniew and other members of Polit-bureau ruling in Kremlin did not have any doubts that in PRL there was a revolt, the anti-communist and anti-Russian uprising of Poles. This uprising of 'Solidarity', according to the superiors of gen. Jaruzelski was to be stifled just by him and Polish communists. The Soviet Russia never pacified Poles by the military force. The Red Army pacified the uprising of the Hungarians in 1956 in a bloody way, the Germans in NRD in 1953, the Czechs and Slovakians in 1968. Everywhere the forces of the local communists were too weak to keep the nation in the obedience towards Moscow. The dreary paradox was the fact that in Poland and not only Poland communists were so strong that that they were able to pacify their own nation in 1956, 1986, 1970 and 1976, and finally, during the martial law. The Russian influences and the tradition of Targowica were so effective in PRL that there was enough strength for half a century to destroy and stifle Independence aspirations of Poles with the hands of Polish traitors, renegades and Targowica of XX century. It was just the famous 'lesser evil'. It was a criminal, treacherous doctrine which was used by Jaruzelski and generals of the martial law in order to have their political alibi towards Poles. In fact, the 'lesser evil' was in the imperial interest of Moscow and it was introduced on the order of Kremlin. I have experienced the 'lesser evil' personally and I know it from my painful experience. I have my own situations of wrongs with gen. Jaruzelski and I know how this dictator of the martial law understood the term 'lesser evil'. A document of 1985 has been retained in which the chief military prosecutor informed Jaruzelski about my illegal-independence activity, defining it as spying. In the conclusion, the prosecutor stated that in the accusation act he would demand a life sentence of 15 or 25 years for me, because 'Szaniawski 's activity was aimed against the same fundaments of the Polish People's Republic and Polish and Russian alliance. On the first page of this prosecutor's newspaper a hand- written decree of Jaruzelski has been retained: 'Ten years are enough. W. Jaruzelski'. And these years were meted out by the court of the martial law, and I was serving a sentence of 'only five' years' imprisonment, in fact. The general turned out to be extremely merciful to me, simply a good man. He punished me very mildly and it was to be the 'lesser evil' to me. I was brought to trial according to the article which stated the death penalty, whereas the communist dictator sentenced me to only 10 years of imprisonment. Jaruzelski and his supporters still maintain the theory of the 'lesser evil' nowadays, because the martial law was comparably mild. That is true that several miners, one secondary school graduate, one priest were killed, in fact a few thousands of people were arrested but they were not prisoners, only the internees. There were only a few death sentences as well. The lesser evil whereas it could have been a bigger evil! By the way, how is it possible that the communist dictator of the martial law had personally time to be busy with my modest person - an unknown Szaniawski at that time, and, allegedly, had nothing in common with the murder of Fr. Popieluszko, tortures of Przemyk, the massacre of miners from KWK 'Wujek' or death sentence on Colonel Kukliński, how is it possible?

To General

For the word filthy by lie
For the blood-stained uniform of mate
For hands disconnected by force
For the nation exhausted by hunger
You proclaim your party triumph in glory
The nation thanks you, General
For the pogrom of your brothers without mercy
For the honor of the troops desecrated
For the terrible agony of helplessness
For the pain of separation from her husband and his wife
For the tears and the despair of loneliness
You enjoy that you have worked so well
The nation thanks you, General
For the broken bones with a stick
For the nightmare of a brother fighting with a brother
For the sowing of hatred and anger
You have set up a permanent monument of your merits
The nation thanks you, General
For the shackles put on hands again
For the camp of the crime on Polish land
For the false speeches threadbare
For the ignominy of traitors
For the banned language of truth
You stick out your chest in the Kremlin for the medals
The nation thanks you, General
The nation sends its thanks
To you, which are lying like stones
You accept them hurriedly without hesitation
Your conscience may be awaken by them
Because you, General, do not know the hour
When before the supreme commander of the world
You will make a final report for the acts
With the stigma of Cain - the blood of his brother

The anonymous poem written by young people from a pastoral group of Fr. Sylwester Zych, secretly distributed in leaflets in the first months of 1982

Józef Szaniawski - Dr. of history, political scientist, journalist, professor at the University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and the Higher School of Social and Media Culture. The author of monographs, including 'Redoubt - Poland between history and geopolitics', 'Colonel Kukliński - Secret Mission', 'Polish Victory - Marshal Piłsudski in defense of Europe' and 'Russia - the evil empire'. In the years 1973- 1985 he led the Polish independence movement and secretly collaborated with Radio Free Europe. Detected by the security police was sentenced by a court of the martial law for 10 years in prison. Released from the imprisonment and acquitted by the Supreme Court in 1990, as the last political prisoner of the PRL. In 1993-2004 he was an agent and friend of Colonel Ryszard Kukliński.

(AA)

"Niedziela" 50/2011

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl