Dictator
of the Month: June 2004:
Dictator
of the Month: June 2004:
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Wojciech Jaruzelski
Take me to the Picture
Gallery! Fact Sheet Name: Wojciech Jaruzelski Score Card (click
here for the explanations) Charisma/ Popularity: 2.36
Browse Books on Wojciech Jaruzelski!
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Biography: Born July 6, 1923, into a family of landed gentry, Jaruzelski was
educated at an exclusive Catholic school during the 1930s. During the
German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Jaruzelski and his family were
captured by the Soviet army and deported to the Soviet Union. There,
Jaruzelski performed forced labor in the Karaganda coal mines in
Kazakhstan before being chosen by Soviet authorities for Soviet Officer
Training School. He participated in the liberation of Warsaw and Berlin
as an officer in the First Polish Army, a Soviet-sponsored corps. He
further credited himself in Soviet eyes by fighting against the
anti-communist Polish Home Army from 1945 to 1947. Jaruzelski joined the
Communist Party in 1947. After graduating from the Polish Higher Infantry School and general
staff academy, Jaruzelski rose quickly through the ranks. He became
minister of defense in 1968, shortly before the Warsaw Pact invasion of
Czechoslovakia in which Polish troops participated. In 1970 and 1976,
when riots broke out due to government-imposed increases in food prices,
Jaruzelski did not use the army to shoot at striking workers. He
supposedly asserted in 1976, "Polish troops will not fire on Polish
workers." However, he has since been charged in Polish courts with
partial responsibility for the 1970 shooting of demonstrators by the
secret police. Jaruzelski rose in party ranks, becoming a candidate
member of the Politburo in December 1970 and a full member in 1971. By the end of 1980, the Polish Communist Party came under increasing
pressure from Solidarity, which threatened strikes, and in turn from the
Soviet Union, which massed more than 20 divisions on the Polish border
for the stated purpose of regularly scheduled maneuvers. In addition to
his position as minister of defense, Jaruzelski was appointed to the
highest positions in both the party and the state as prime minister of
Poland (February 1981) and first secretary of the Communist Party
(October 1981). On December 13, 1981, after 10 months of high tension
between the government, Solidarity and the populace, Jaruzelski declared
martial law, arresting thousands of Solidarity members as well as
Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. Martial law was not lifted until July
1983, although Solidarity remained outlawed. However, neither the imposition nor lifting of martial law solved
Poland's economic problems, which continued to plague the government. By
the close of the 10th plenary session in December 1988, the Communist
Party had decided to broach leaders of Solidarity for talks. These
talks, which became known as the "roundtable talks," with 13
working groups in 94 sessions from February 6 to April 15, radically
altered the shape of the Polish government and society. The talks
resulted in an agreement in which real political power was vested in a
newly created bicameral legislature and in a president who would be the
chief executive. Solidarity was legalized. After the elections, the
Communists, who were guaranteed 65 percent of the seats in the Sejm (the
parliament), did not win a majority, and Solidarity-backed candidates
won 99 out of 100 freely contested seats in the Senate. Jaruzelski,
whose name was the only one the Communist Party allowed on the ballot
for the presidency, won by just one vote. Although Jaruzelski tried to persuade Solidarity to join the
Communists in a "grand coalition," Walesa refused. Jaruzelski
resigned as general secretary of the Communist Party but found he was
forced to come to terms with a government formed by Solidarity. In 1990
Jaruzelski resigned as Poland's leader. 1990. In 1993, Jaruzelski was
charged with criminal conduct in a 1970 incident in which demonstrating
workers were killed after he allegedly ordered soldiers to fire on them,
but court proceedings, which began in 1996, have progressed slowly
because of delays and disputes. This article is from www.wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojciech_Jaruzelski and is subject to the GNU-FDL license for free documentation List of authors at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wojciech_Jaruzelski&action=history
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