The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

Even if you left Wyszýnski [the Polish primate] and Wałęsa in peace, Wyszýnski and Wałęsa would not leave you in peace until either they had achieved their aim, or they had been actively crushed by the Party and the responsible part of the workers. If you wait passively… the situation slips out of your control. I saw how this happened in Hungary [in 1956]. There, the old leadership waited for everything to normalize itself, and when, at last, it was decided to act, it turned out that no one could be relied upon. There is every reason to fear that the same may happen in Poland also, if the most active and decisive measures are not now taken.

This is a struggle for power. If Wałęsa and his fascist confederates came to power, they would start to put Communists in prison, to shoot them and subject them to every kind of persecution. In such an event, Party activists, Chekists [the SB] and military leaders would be most under threat.

You say that some of your comrades cannot take on the responsibility of taking any aggressive measures against the counter-revolutionaries. But why are they not afraid of doing nothing, since this could lead to the victory of reaction? One must show the Communists, and in the first place the Party activists, the Chekists [the SB] and the military comrades that it is not just a question of defending socialist achievements in Poland, but a question of protecting their own lives, that of their families, who would be subjected to terror by the reaction, if, God forbid, this came to pass.

Sometimes our Polish comrade say that they cannot rely on the Party. I cannot believe this. Out of three million Party members, one can find 100,000 who would be ready to sacrifice themselves. Wyszýnski and Wałęsa have roped in the free trade unions and are securing more and more new positions in various spheres in Poland. There are already the first signs that the counter-revolutionary infection is affecting the army.

Comrade Brezhnev says that we must be ready for struggle both by peaceful means and by non-peaceful means.

When Andropov had finished his tirade, Milewski asked him, “You have convinced me, but how am I to convince our comrades back in Warsaw?” Andropov’s reply is not recorded.¹⁰