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

WITH MARTIAL LAW as the only solution favored by the Kremlin to deal with the Solidarity crisis, the role of the Polish army became of crucial importance. On February 9, probably as a result of Soviet pressure, the minister of defense, General Wojciech Jaruzelski became Polish prime minister. Slim, erect, habitually wearing dark glasses and an inscrutable expression, Jaruzelski was an enigmatic figure for most Poles. But he had a relatively favorable public image due both to the fact that he had refused to use troops against the workers in 1970 and to the reputation of the armed forces as the most trusted state institution. In KGB reports to Brezhnev, however, Jaruzelski had long been described as “a sincere friend of the Soviet Union.”¹⁷ On his instructions, the chief of military intelligence, General Czesław Kiszczak (later interior minister in charge of the SB), had for some time been meeting the KGB mission in Warsaw every two or three days to provide the latest intelligence reports on the crisis from military sources.¹⁸ As Prime Minister, Jaruzelski retained the defense portfolio.

The period up to December 1981 was to be characterized by recurrent Soviet complaints of Polish inaction and Polish attempts to placate the Soviet leadership. During that period the Kremlin was assailed by recurrent doubts as to whether Jaruzelski really possessed the resolve required to enforce martial law. In the end it concluded that no better candidate was available. Soviet doubts about Kania, however, were to prove much more serious.

On March 4 Kania and Jaruzelski were summoned to the Kremlin to be dressed down by Brezhnev and other members of the Politburo. When, the Soviet leaders demanded, would the Polish comrades impose martial law? And how was it that, alone among the Socialist countries, Poland found it so difficult to control the Church?¹⁹ The dressing-down had little effect. A member of the Polish Politburo, Mieczysław Moczar, informed the KGB that Kania had told him, shortly after his return to Warsaw, “In spite of the pressure from Moscow, I don’t want to use force against the opposition. I don’t want to go down in history as the butcher of the Polish people.” According to another of the KGB’s Polish informants, Kania said that neither the Party nor the government was ready for a confrontation with Solidarity—“and I’ll never ask the Russians for military assistance.”²⁰

“We have huge worries about the outcome of events in Poland,” Brezhnev told the Politburo on April 2. “Worst of all is that our friends listen and agree with our recommendations, but in practice they don’t do anything. And a counter-revolution is taking the offensive on all fronts!” Ustinov, the defense minister, declared that if Socialism was to survive in Poland, “bloodshed is unavoidable.” “Solidarity,” reported Andropov, “is now starting to grab one position after the other.” The only solution was renewed pressure on the Poles to declare martial law:

We have to tell them that martial law means a curfew, limited movement in the city streets, strengthening state security [the SB] in Party institutions, factories, etc. The pressure from the leaders of Solidarity has left Jaruzelski in terribly bad shape, while lately Kania has begun to drink more and more. This is a very sad phenomenon. I want to point out that Polish events are having an influence on the western areas of our country too… Here, too, we’ll have to take tough internal measures.

Next day Kania and Jaruzelski were summoned to meet Andropov and Ustinov in the Soviet equivalent of a Pullman railway coach at the border city of Brest-Litovsk. After caviar and a sumptuous buffet, they were seated at a green-baize-covered table and subjected to six hours of recriminations, demands for the declaration of martial law and threats of Soviet military intervention. Kania and Jaruzelski responded by pleading for more time.²¹ On April 7, four days after the meeting at Brest-Litovsk, Mieczysław Moczar had another conversation with Kania which he reported to the KGB. Kania clearly believed that the threat of military intervention was in deadly earnest. “There would be a tragedy on a huge scale if Soviet forces intervene,” he told Moczar. “It would take two generations of Poles to remedy the consequences.”²²