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

Jaruzelski appeared unmoved. A month later he wrote a remarkable letter to John Paul II saying that he still often thought of their conversations during his visit to Poland because, “regardless of understandable differences in assessment, they were full of heartfelt concern for the fate of our motherland and the well-being of man.”¹²³

In April 1984, two months after Andropov’s death, Jaruzelski was summoned to explain himself at another secret meeting in a railway coach at the border city of Brest-Litovsk, this time with foreign minister Gromyko and defense minister Ustinov. Gromyko gave a grim account of the meeting to the Politburo on April 26:

Concerning the attitude of the Polish Church, [Jaruzelski] described the Church as an ally, without whom progress is impossible. He did not say a word about a determined struggle against the intrigues of the Church.

Andropov’s successor, Konstantin Chernenko, declared that the Church was leading a counter-revolutionary offensive in Poland, “inspiring and uniting the enemies of Communism and those dissatisfied by the present system.” The comments of Mikhail Gorbachev, who was to succeed Chernenko eleven months later, were curiously prophetic. “It seems to me,” he said, “that we don’t yet understand the true intentions of Jaruzelski. Perhaps he wishes to have a pluralistic system of government in Poland.”¹²⁴

As in Czechoslovakia during and after the Prague Spring, every stage of the Polish crisis was monitored by illegals on PROGRESS operations. In Poland, as in Czechoslovakia, there are indications that at least a few of the illegals became sympathetic to the reformers. The evidence is clearest in the case of Valentin Viktorovich Barannik (codenamed ORLOV) and his wife, Svetlana Mikhaylovna (codenamed ORLOVA), who, from 1978 onwards, were sent on a series of assignments in Poland using false West German passports. In the summer of 1982, ORLOV despatched to the center a devastating critique of the nature of the Polish one-party state:

The absence of a legal opposition leads to the fact that only Yes men are successful. Views which are contrary to those of the leadership are not discussed, but suppressed and eliminated.

The whole of the ruling stratum is engaged in a hidden struggle, individually and in groups, for an even higher post, a prestigious appointment and other advantages. Thus, the Party bureaucracy is not in a position to lead the country while taking a comprehensive account of all its problems and needs.

Without creativity and free enterprise, a society is not viable, and it becomes the victim of bureaucracy.¹²⁵

The files noted by Mitrokhin do not record the Centre’s doubtless outraged response. There is little doubt, however, that there were other illegals who agreed privately with what ORLOV dared to say openly.

AS EARLY AS 1980 the Soviet Politburo had been forced into the reluctant recognition that the only effective defense against a Polish counter-revolution was the fear of Soviet military intervention. That fear, however, was a dwindling asset based on memories of Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968 and Kabul in 1979. Once the Politburo secretly turned against the idea of invading Warsaw in 1980, its policy was based on a bluff which could not be sustained indefinitely.