J Jaruzelski, Wojciech (1923– ) president of
Gdansk and other cities. Jaruzelski ordered troops in to restore order, but fighting broke out and 44 people died. He has since denied authorizing the use of deadly force against fellow Poles. By 1971 Jaruzelski’s reputation allowed him to be elected to the Politburo, Poland’s senior decision-making body. By then the regime of WLADYSLAW GOMULKA had failed to improve the sagging national economy or eroding standards of living. Disturbances continued with increasing regularity and culminated with the founding of the Solidarity Labor Union under Lech Walesa in 1980. Walesa took a militant stand toward communist rule, led a series of crippling strikes, and made wage demands that the cash-strapped nation could not meet. Such defiance initiated a shake-up of the communist elite, and in 1981 Jaruzelski assumed the portfolios of prime minister and party first secretary, in addition to his military functions. This rendered him the single most powerful figure in the country. He tried negotiating with Walesa over worker’s rights and living conditions, but compromise proved impossible. Worse, such large-scale unrest alarmed Soviet authorities in Moscow, and they demanded that communist supremacy be restored immediately. Jaruzelski, mindful of 250 Soviet divisions stationed outside Poland’s border, felt he had little recourse but to comply and avert disaster. On December 31, 1981, he imposed martial law on
Poland Wojciech Jaruzelski was born in Kurow, eastern Poland, on July 6, 1923, the son of an army officer. He was educated at Jesuit schools until the German invasion of September 1939, when his family fled to Lithuania. However, in 1940 they were forcibly deported to Siberia by Soviet officials. Both of Jaruzelski’s parents died during the internment, and he himself was impressed into the coal mines. After 1943 the Soviets raised an army of Polish expatriates, and he became an infantry officer. Jaruzelski fought with distinction, was heavily decorated for bravery, and after the war attended the Polish Higher Infantry School near Warsaw. In keeping with his sterling reputation for performance and loyalty, he joined the Polish United Worker’s (Communist) Party in 1948, and by 1956 he had emerged as the nation’s youngest brigadier general. When he became a major general in 1968, he was elected to the party’s Central Committee, and also gained appointment as minister of national defense. Jaruzelski commanded Polish troops that invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968 to crush the liberalizing regime of ALEXANDER DUBCˇEK. The event underscored for him Russia’s determination to keep its Warsaw Pact allies in the communist fold by any measure. But within two years, worker discontent in Poland led to outbreaks of illegal strike activity in
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