General Staff, General Florian Siwicki. Jaruzelski instructed Siwicki to urge the assembled ministers and Warsaw Pact commanders to issue a strong statement "demonstrating to the whole world that the Polish Communists are not alone." Drafts of the proposed statement referred to "the fulfillment of alliance obligations by the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact member states" and pledged "complete support for the Polish people" in their "struggle against counterrevolution."29 These formulations sparked a protracted discussion, but in the end the meeting failed to produce the type of statement Jaruzelski had sought. The Romanian and Hungarian defense ministers, ColonelGeneral Constantin Olteanu and Army-General Lajos Csinege, argued that their governments had not given them authority to endorse such a statement, and the other ministers decided it would be inadvisable to release a document that was not approved unanimously.30

When Siwicki informed Jaruzelski about the disappointing results of the meeting, the Polish leader complained that "the allies have forced us into an impasse" and "left us on our own.' "31 He could not understand why "the allies do not want to shoulder any of the responsibility even though they have constantly asserted that the Polish problem is a problem for the whole Warsaw Pact, not just for Poland." Jaruzelski added that he was "still hoping for a miracle," but could sense that his "options [were] running out."32 Implicit in all these comments was Jaruzelski's distinct lack of confidence that martial law could be imposed without external military support.

Even more intriguing, for an assessment of Jaruzelski's position in late 1981, is the transcript of a Soviet Politburo meeting on 10 December, barely two days before martial law was imposed. A number of the participants in the meeting were dismayed that Jaruzelski was seeking—or at least they believed he was seeking a military guarantee. Among those putting forth this view was Konstantin Rusakov, the CPSU Secretary responsible for intra-bloc affairs, who had been keeping close track of the situation from Moscow and was the main contact point in December 1981 for high-ranking Soviet officials in Poland who needed to convey information to, or receive instructions from, the CPSU Politburo:

Jaruzelski intends to stay in close touch about this matter [martial law] with his allies. He says that if the Polish forces are unable to cope with the resistance put up by "Solidarity," the Polish comrades hope to receive assistance from other countries, up to and including the introduction of armed forces on the territory of Poland. 33

Rusakov noted that "Jaruzelski, in expressing this hope, has been citing remarks by Cde. Kulikov, who supposedly said that the USSR and other socialist countries would indeed give assistance to Poland with their armed forces. However, as far as I know, Cde. Kulikov did not say this directly, but merely repeated the words

voiced earlier by L. I. Brezhnev about our determination not to leave Poland in the lurch."34

If Jaruzelski was indeed citing Kulikov at this point, as Rusakov reported, that would be interesting in itself. It is possible that Kulikov did in fact say something to Jaruzelski on 8 December-if only inadvertently—that seemed (in Jaruzelski's view) to be a pledge of Soviet military assistance if the martial law operation collapsed. During at least one previous occasion when Kulikov was in Poland in 1981 he brought up this very matter with Jaruzelski. In a conversation with East German military officials on 7 April 1981, Kulikov said he had indicated to Jaruzelski and Kania a few days earlier that "unless [the Polish authorities] used the Polish security organs and army [to impose martial law], outside support could not be expected because of the international complications that would arise." Kulikov said he "emphasized to the Polish comrades that they must first seek to resolve their problems on their own." However, he was careful to add that "if the Polish authorities tried to resolve these problems on their own and were unable to, and were then to ask [the Soviet Union] for assistance, that would be a very different situation from one in which [Soviet] troops had been deployed [to Poland] from the outset."35 Kulikov probably did not intend these remarks to be regarded as an ironclad pledge of a Soviet military guarantee, but he certainly may have given Jaruzelski and Kania the impression (whether rightly or wrongly) in April 1981 that they could count on Soviet military help if the martial law operation went awry. Although there is no evidence that Kulikov said something identical when he met with Jaruzelski in December 1981, Jaruzelski may have construed some of Kulikov's remarks at that time as a reaffirmation of what Kulikov had been saying to him earlier in the year. A misunderstanding in a tense situation like this would hardly be unusual. (Nor is it inconceivable that Kulikov mistakenly went beyond his brief in December 1981 and gave Jaruzelski the wrong idea about Soviet policy.)

Whatever the case may be, Jaruzelski's invocation of Kulikov's remarks (as Jaruzelski interpreted them) tends to bear out the hypothesis that—at least in Rusakov's view-the Polish leader expected and wanted to receive Soviet military backing.

That same inference can be drawn from a comment by Yurii Andropov at the 10 December meeting of the Soviet Politburo. Andropov voiced dismay that "Jaruzelski has made the implementation of martial law contingent on our willingness to offer... military assistance," and he urged his colleagues to resist any temptation to fulfill Jaruzelski's request:

Although we support the notion of internationalist assistance and are alarmed by the situation in Poland, the matter must entirely and unequivocally be handled by the Polish comrades themselves. We do not intend to introduce troops into Poland. That is the proper position, and we must adhere to it until the end.36

Andropov's sentiments were echoed by Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who argued that "we must somehow try to dispel the notion that Jaruzelski and other leaders in Poland have about the introduction of [Soviet] troops. There cannot be any introduction of troops into Poland. I think we can give instructions about this to our ambassador, asking him to visit Jaruzelski and communicate it to him."37 Andropov's and Gromyko's statements were endorsed by others at the meeting, all of whom agreed that Jaruzelski's last-minute effort to receive external military support for the martial law operation should not induce the Soviet Politburo to alter its stance.

Taken together, the documents and memoirs that were just cited provide powerful evidence that Jaruzelski was calling for and expecting Soviet troops to be sent to Poland in December 1981. Even so, a number of doubts—or at least differences of interpretation—could remain. For example, one could argue, after poring over these materials, that Soviet leaders might have misperceived Jaruzelski's actions, or that Jaruzelski was raising the question of Soviet military intervention not because he wanted it to occur, but because he was probing Soviet intentions. One also might argue that without precise records of what Jaruzelski was doing and saying at the time, it would be impossible to reconstruct his motives with any certainty.

Fortunately, a first-hand, contemporaneous record of Jaruzelski's behavior in the last few days before martial law-including his repeated requests for Soviet military support and the consternation he felt when those requests were turned down-is now finally available. It turns out that Marshal Kulikov's personal adjutant, LieutenantGeneral Viktor Anoshkin, kept daily notes of Kulikov's phone calls, telegrams, conversations, and meetings.38 As Commander-in-Chief of the Warsaw Pact armed forces, Kulikov had been a frequent envoy to Poland throughout the 1980-81 crisis, performing sensitive missions on behalf of the CPSU Politburo. He and Anoshkin had been in Warsaw in late November 1981 when the final preparations for martial law were completed, and they were again in Poland from 7 to 17 December 1981, when the preparations were transformed into action. Anoshkin's records of Kulikov's interactions with Jaruzelski in the lead-up to martial law show that Jaruzelski wanted and requested Soviet military assistance, and that he was distraught when Soviet leaders informed him that no troops would be sent.

Among other things, Anoshkin's notebook reveals that Jaruzelski spoke by phone with Brezhnev early in the morning of 10 December, right after a late-night meeting at the Polish General Staff where Jaruzelski and other top Polish military commanders unanimously approved a final decision to proceed with martial law.39 The Polish leader informed Brezhnev that the decision had been adopted, and he then asked "whether Poland can count on [Soviet] military assistance if the situation in the country becomes critical." Brezhnev evaded a direct response, but just a few hours later Kulikov received specific instructions from

Ustinov to let Jaruzelski know that "the Poles themselves must resolve the Polish question. We are not preparing to send troops onto the territory of Poland." When Jaruzelski received this message, he expressed concern that "you [the Soviet Union] are distancing yourselves from us," and he tried to find out whether the decision could be reversed.40 The following day, Jaruzelski sent an urgent request to Moscow via the Soviet ambassador in Poland, Boris Aristov. In that cable, the Polish leader again flatly asked: "Can we count on assistance of a military sort from the USSR the additional sending of troops?" Rusakov promptly transmitted a response to Warsaw: "No troops will be sent." When Aristov informed Jaruzelski that his request had been turned down, the Polish leader exclaimed: "This is terrible news for us!! A year-and-ahalf of chattering about the sending of troops went onnow everything has disappeared." Jaruzelski's comment here, as recorded by Anoshkin, says more about the Polish leader's stance in December 1981 than do all other documents combined. Any notion that Jaruzelski was simply probing Soviet intentions no longer seems tenable.

Jaruzelski's profound disappointment upon learning that he would not receive external military assistance was due to his continued lack of confidence that the martial law operation would succeed. According to Kania, Jaruzelski had long feared that chaotic turmoil might ensue and that Polish units would be unable to cope with violent upheavals on their own. .41 He was convinced that if opposition forces withstood the "first stage" of the crackdown, the whole operation would collapse unless external aid were forthcoming. Although Jaruzelski may have "continued to hope for a miracle" (as he himself put it in a conversation with Siwicki), he could no longer contain his misgivings when the decisive moment arrived in December 1981. Having led himself to believe that the "first stage" of the operation would be unsuccessful, he desperately hoped that Soviet troops would come bail him out, just as Gribkov had claimed.

When Jaruzelski suddenly realized that "the Poles [would] have to fend for themselves," he seemed at a loss about what to do. Rather than steeling himself for the impending martial law crackdown, he repeatedly tried to persuade Soviet leaders to change their minds. In addition to conveying his "great concern" to Kulikov that "no one from the political leadership of the USSR has arrived to consult with us about large-scale... military assistance," Jaruzelski spoke by secure telephone with Andropov, warning him that military support was urgently needed. These overtures, however, bore no fruit, as Andropov bluntly informed the Polish leader that "there can be no consideration at all of sending [Soviet] troops."

Following this second rebuff, Jaruzelski was more unnerved than ever. Soviet officials had already been complaining, at the CPSU Politburo meeting on 10 December, that Jaruzelski seemed "extremely neurotic and diffident about his abilities" and was "back to his vacillations" and "lack of resolution."42 Those qualities

became even more pronounced after the exchanges on 11 December. At Jaruzelski's behest, Siwicki met with Kulikov on the evening of the 11th and warned him that “we cannot embark on any adventurist actions [avantyura] if the Soviet comrades will not support us." Siwicki noted that Jaruzelski seemed "very upset and very nervous," and that "psychologically,... Jaruzelski has gone to pieces [rasstroen]." Siwicki emphasized that Jaruzelski would rather "postpone the introduction of [martial law] by a day" than proceed without Soviet military backing.

The possibility of delaying the crackdown had already been broached by Jaruzelski the previous day in an exchange with Konstantin Rusakov. Rusakov informed the Soviet Politburo on 10 December that Jaruzelski was "not presenting a clear, straightforward line" about the date of "Operation X,” the code name in Moscow for the martial law operation:

No one knows what will happen over the next few days. There was a conversation about “Operation X." At first, they said it would be on the night of 11-12 December, and then this was changed to the night of the 12th and 13th. And now they're already saying it won't be until around the 20th.43

Actually, Siwicki was proposing to defer the martial law crackdown by only a day-indeed, he emphasized several times that a delay of more than a day would be infeasible-but Rusakov may have suspected that a daylong postponement would be extended indefinitely.

In any case, Kulikov's discussion with Siwicki reveals that Jaruzelski's motivation for a possible delay, of whatever length, was to persuade Soviet leaders to send troops to Poland. The implication was that if the Soviet Union failed to respond, the whole operation might have to be called off. Underscoring this point, Siwicki declared: "[I]f there will be no . . . military support from the USSR, our country might be lost for the Warsaw Pact. Without the support of the USSR we cannot go forward or take this step [of imposing martial law]." All these statements are essentially identical to comments recorded by Gribkov in his 1992 article.44

In response, Kulikov argued that the martial law operation would succeed if Jaruzelski implemented it as planned, and he sought to disabuse Siwicki of the idea of postponing the operation. The Soviet marshal pointed out that Polish leaders had repeatedly "insisted that Poland is able to resolve its problems on its own," and that Soviet officials had accepted and agreed with that view. Kulikov expressed dismay that Jaruzelski's position had now changed: "Why has this question of military assistance arisen? We already went over all aspects of the introduction of martial law." Kulikov added that "you carried out a great deal of work in preparing for the introduction of martial law" and "you have enough strength" to succeed. "It's now time to act," he argued. "The date should not be postponed, and indeed a

postponement is now impossible." Kulikov also expressed concern that the talk about a postponement and about the need for Soviet military support might signify that Jaruzelski was backing away from his "final decision" to impose martial law. "If that is so," Kulikov declared, "we would like to know about it."

Siwicki assured Kulikov that "the decision has been made," and that Jaruzelski was not going to renege on his plans to introduce martial law. At the same time, he emphasized, once again, that "without [military] help from outside, it will be difficult for us, the Poles," to sustain martial law. Siwicki said that both he and Jaruzelski hoped that Soviet leaders would “look upon these matters with understanding" and would "consider [our] requests," but Kulikov displayed no inclination to consider any changes in the earlier arrangements, which stipulated that Polish units would introduce martial law on their own. By the time the meeting ended, Siwicki had pledged to embark on "a resolute struggle against the counterrevolution," as Soviet leaders had long demanded. Even so, Anoshkin could tell that "Siwicki left here dissatisfied because he got nothing new and heard nothing new from [Kulikov]."

The extent of the Polish leaders' continued nervousness and dissatisfaction became clear the following day (12 December) as the hour approached for the introduction of martial law. Despite what had happened over the previous two days, Jaruzelski was still urging the Soviet Union to "provide military help." So insistent were Jaruzelski's pleas that Kulikov began to suspect that the Polish leader was trying to "make the introduction of martial law dependent on the fulfillment of [his demand for Soviet intervention]." Although Soviet officials eventually were able to convince Jaruzelski that no direct military support would be forthcoming, the fate of the martial law operation seemed in doubt just hours before the crackdown was due to begin. Arrangements had even been made for a high-level Soviet delegation, led by Suslov, to fly to Warsaw for urgent consultations at Jaruzelski's request, but at the last minute this visit was called off, apparently because Suslov's phone conversation with Jaruzelski obviated the need for a direct visit.

Anoshkin's notebook continues after 12 December into early 1982, reporting on the martial law crackdown and the various units involved. But on the specific question of what Jaruzelski was seeking in the lead-up to martial law, the crucial entries are the ones Anoshkin jotted down on 11 and 12 December, as translated below. These notes, combined with the other evidence mentioned above, overwhelmingly suggest that Jaruzelski's role in December 1981 was very different from the portrayal he offers in his memoirs. Far from having "saved" Poland from a Soviet invasion, Jaruzelski was desperately promoting the very thing he now claims to have prevented.

None of this is meant to gloss over the excruciating pressure that Jaruzelski had been encountering throughout

the crisis. From the fall of 1980 on, Soviet leaders had kept up a relentless campaign of intimidation and belligerent reproaches. It would have taken enormous strength and courage to withstand that pressure. Kania was not a particularly strong leader, but somehow he was continually able to defer the implementation of martial law. He repeatedly assured Brezhnev that "decisive measures" would soon be imposed, but invariably he refrained from carrying out his pledges. Jaruzelski in some ways was a stronger figure than Kania, but, unlike Kania, he was willing in the end to comply with Moscow's demands. His compliance initially gave rise to final preparations for the "lesser of two evils”—that is, martial law-but when the critical moment came in late 1981, he seems to have embraced the "greater of two evils," Soviet military intervention. By December 1981 (and perhaps earlier), Jaruzelski was pleading with Soviet leaders to send troops into Poland to assist with the martial law operation, and by all indications he was devastated when his requests were turned down. For Jaruzelski, it seems, Soviet interests ultimately took precedence over all else.

The evidence provided by the Anoshkin notebook and by the other materials cited above will serve an especially useful purpose if it prompts Jaruzelski and Siwicki to seek the declassification of Polish documents that would shed additional light on the events of December 1981. Jaruzelski's and Siwicki's own contemporaneous records of their meetings and conversations with Soviet officials during that crucial period have not yet been made available (assuming they still exist and have not been tampered with). It is at least remotely possible that such materials, if they exist, would result in a more favorable assessment of the Polish leaders' actions.

Jaruzelski, in particular, should have a strong incentive to pursue the release of new documents, for he is well aware that the issue is of more than purely historical or scholarly interest. Since leaving office in December 1990, Jaruzelski has been viewed with respect, even admiration, by a majority of Poles. Although charges were filed against him in the early 1990s for his role in imposing martial law, and although he was required to testify a number of times before the Polish Sejm's Commission for Constitutional Oversight, the last of the charges relating to the 1980-81 crisis were dropped in 1996, when the Sejm voted to pardon Jaruzelski and other former leaders who had been due to go on trial for violating the constitution.45 (Separate charges were retained against Kiszczak and 22 former members of the security forces for one specific incident-the deaths of miners in Katowice on 13 December 1981-but all the defendants were eventually acquitted.) After the September 1997 parliamentary elections in Poland, a court in Gdansk proposed to resume its proceedings against Jaruzelski and four other former officials, but this case pertained only to the shootings of workers in December 1970. No suggestion was made of reinstating charges related to the 1981 crackdown.

No doubt, the lenient treatment of Jaruzelski has been based primarily on a widespread belief that he did indeed. choose the "lesser of two evils" in December 1981 and spared his country great bloodshed and a military occupation. That view may yet be borne out. But if, as the evidence above suggests, Jaruzelski was actually urging, rather than opposing, Soviet military intervention in late 1981, his status in Poland today-not to mention his place in history-deserves a full-scale reassessment.

Mark Kramer is the director of the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies, Harvard University. He is grateful to Richard T. Davies for his valuable advice.

A preliminary discussion of the new evidence is Mark Kramer, “Poland, 1980-81: Soviet Policy During the Polish Crisis," Cold War International History Project Bulletin No.5 (Spring 1995), pp. 1, 116-126. A much more extensive analysis will be presented in my forthcoming CWIHP Working Paper. 2 For example, at a Soviet Politburo meeting in January 1981, Soviet defense minister Dmitrii Ustinov argued that "constant pressure on the Polish leadership" would not work unless "we make clear that we have forces ready" to move in at short notice. Cited from "Zasedanie Politbyuro TSK KPSS 22 yanvarya 1981 g.: Ob itogakh poezdki delegatsii partiinykh rabotnikov KPSS vo glave L. M. Zamyatinym v Pol'shu," 22 January 1981 (Top Secret), in Tsentr Khraneniya Sovremennoi Dokumentatsii (TsKhSD), Moscow, Fond (F.) 89, Opis' (Op.) 42, Delo (D.), 36, List (L.) 5. Similarly, at a Politburo meeting on 16 April 1981, the Soviet Communist Party leader, Leonid Brezhnev, said it was "necessary to exert constant pressure" on the Polish authorities through political contacts and the staging of military exercises, though he added that "we should not harass them needlessly or increase the level of tension so much that they would just give up." Cited from "Zasedanie Politbyuro TSK KPSS 16 aprelya 1981 g.: O razgovore L. I. Brezhneva s Pervym sekretarem TsK PORP S. Kanei (po telefonu),” 16 April 1981 (Top Secret), in TsKhSD, F. 89, Op. 42, D. 41, Ll. 1-3.

3 This has been the basic theme of all of Jaruzelski's comments on the subject since late 1991, including his two volumes of memoirs: Stan wojenny dlaczego (Warsaw: BGW, 1992); and Les chaines et le refuge (Paris: Lattes, 1992). Until 1990, Jaruzelski staunchly denied that the Soviet Union had intended to invade Poland in 1981; and even as late as September 1991, in an interview in Novoe vremya (Moscow), No. 38 (21 September 1991), pp. 26-30, he was evasive about the matter. No doubt, his discretion prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union was attributable to his long-standing deference to Soviet wishes. 'Army-General A. I. Gribkov, “Doktrina Brezhneva' i pol'skii krizis nachala 80-kh godov," Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal (Moscow), No. 9 (September 1992), p. 52. 5 Ibid.

"Centrum Badania Opinii Spolecznej, Opinie o generalu Jaruzelskim i pulkowniku Kuklinskim (Warsaw: CBOS, October 1992), pp. 1-4. See also Leonid Kornilov, "Dlya bol'shinstva polyakov Yaruzel'skii ostaetsya patriotom,” Izvestiya (Moscow), 30 October 1992, p. 5.

7 "Ironiczny grymas historii,” Prawo i zycie (Warsaw), No. 49 (December 1992), p. 11.

8"Gorbaczow o stanie wojennym w Polsce: General Jaruzelski postapil prawidlowo," Trybuna (Warsaw), 9 November 1992, pp. 1, 2.

9 Ibid., p. 2.

10 M. S. Gorbachev, Zhizn' i reformy, 2 vols. (Moscow: Novosti, 1996), vol. 2, pp. 336-351.

Il "Gorbaczow o stanie wojennym w Polsce," p. 2. See also "Wywiad z Michailem Gorbaczowem: 'Jestem inny, niz probuja mnie przedstawic'," Rzeczpospolita (Warsaw), 23 October 1992, p. 9.

12 Among the interviews, see "Dostep do wszystkiego," Polityka (Warsaw), No. 8 (20 February 1993), p. 15; and Leon Bojko, “A wejsc nie chcieli?” Gazeta wyborcza (Warsaw), 10 February 1993, p. 6. The Polish version of Pavlov's memoirs is Bylem rezydentem KGB w Polsce (Warsaw: BGW, 1994); the Russian version is Rukovoditeli Pol'shi glazami razvedchika (Moscow: Terra, 1998). Pavlov published a second volume of memoirs in Russia, which also features some coverage of the Polish crisis, Operatsiya “Sneg”: Polveka vo vneshnei razvedke KGB (Moscow: TOO-Geya, 1996).

13 Bylem rezydentem KGB w Polsce, p. 185.

14 "Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak," Polityka (Warsaw), No. 8 (20 February 1993), p. 15.

15 Witold Beres and Jerzy Skoczylas, eds., General Kiszczak mowi: Prawie wszystko (Warsaw: BGW, 1991), pp. 129-130.

16 Most, but not all, of the declassified transcripts are stored in Fond 89 at TsKhSD. My annotated translations of an initial batch (as well as my translations of some East German documents) appeared in “Declassified Documents on the Polish Crisis," Cold War International History Project Bulletin No.5 (Spring 1995), pp. 117, 129-139.

17 A sample of these documents was included in a briefing book edited by Malcolm Byrne, Pawel Machcewicz and Christian Ostermann, for the conference on "Poland 1980-1982: Internal Crisis, International Dimensions,” in Jachranka, Poland in November 1997, which was co-organized by the National Security Archive, the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP), and the Institute for Political Studies (ISP) in Warsaw. Many other documents pertaining to the 1980-81 Polish crisis are stored in the Magyar Orszagos Leveltar (MOL) in Budapest, the Statni Ustredni Archiv (SUA) in Prague, the Vojensky Historicky Archiv (VHA) in Prague, the Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv, Zentrales Parteiarchiv der SED (SAPMDB/ZPA) in Berlin, the Bundesbeauftragte fur die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheits-dienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit Zentralarchiv (BUS-MSZ) in Berlin, the Militarisches Zwischenarchiv (MZA) in Potsdam, the Tsentralen Durzhaven Arkhiv (TSDA) in Sofia, and the Arhiva Comitetului Central al Partidului Comunist Roman (Arh. CCPCR) in Bucharest. A useful selection of relevant documents from the former East German archives can be found in Michael Kubina and Manfred Wilke, eds., "Hart und kompromisslos durchgreifen:" Die SED contra Polen 1980/81 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995).

18 For a complete record of the KOK meeting on 13 September 1981, see the handwritten notes by General Tadeusz Tuczapski, the secretary of KOK, “Protokol No. 002/81 posiedzenia Komitetu Obrony Kraju z dnia wrzesnia 1981 r.," 13 September 1981, now stored in Centralne Archywum Wojskowe (CAW), Posiedzenia Kok, Teczka Sygn. 48. A translation of this document was published as an appendix in Andrzej Paczkowski and Andrzej Werblan, On The Decision To Introduce Martial Law In Poland In 1981: Two Historians Report to the Commission on Constitutional Oversight of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, Cold War

International History Project Working Paper 21 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1997). Tuczapski was the only one at the meeting who was permitted to take notes. Until his 10-page account was released at the Jachranka conference in November 1997, it was generally thought that no formal record of the meeting had been kept. The importance of the KOK meeting was first disclosed by Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski in his lengthy interview, "Wojna z narodem widziana od srodka,” Kultura (Paris), 4/475 (April 1987), pp. 32-33. Kuklinski, a senior officer on the Polish General Staff and a top aide to Jaruzelski in 1980-81, was part of a small group responsible for planning the martial law operation. He also was a crucial intelligence source for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), having provided invaluable information to the West since the early 1970s about Warsaw Pact military developments. (He had to escape from Poland in early November 1981, and now lives in the United States.) Several years after the interview with Kuklinski appeared, Stanislaw Kania briefly discussed the KOK meeting in his memoirs (after being asked about it by the interviewer who compiled the book); see Zatrzymac konfrontacje (Wroclaw: BGW, 1991), pp. 110-111. More recently, it has come to light that Kuklinski sent a long cable to the CIA on 15 September 1981-two days after the KOK meeting-outlining the plans for martial law and warning that Operation “Wiosna” (the codename of the martial law crackdown) would soon follow. In May 1997, with help from Richard T. Davies, the former U.S. ambassador to Poland, I obtained a copy of the Polish text of Kuklinski's cable and then translated it for the briefing book for the Jachranka conference and this issue of the Bulletin.

19 "Jelentes a MSZMP Politikai Bizottsagnak," memorandum from Jozsef Garamvolgyi, Hungarian ambassador in Poland, to the Politburo of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, 19 September 1981 (Top Secret), in MOL, 288, F. 11/4400, o.e., fol. 128-134. This document records a conversation with Kania and exchanges between Kania and the Hungarian leader, Janos Kadar.

20 Ibid., fol. 133-134.

21 "Oswiadczenie KC KPZR i rzadu ZSRR przedstawione kierownictwu KC PZPR i rzadu PRL," Trybuna Ludu (Warsaw), 18 September 1981, p. 1.

22 "Zasedanie Politbyuro TSK KPSS 29 oktyabrya 1981 g.: Ob itogakh poezdki K. V. Rusakova v GDR, ChSSR, VNR i BPR," 29 October 1981 (Top Secret), in TsKhSD, F. 89, Op. 42, D. 48, LI. 3-4.

23

A contingency plan devised in 1980 would have brought up to fifteen Soviet divisions into Poland to "provide military assistance." Ostensibly, the Soviet troops would have been taking part in military exercises, but in reality they would have joined with the Polish army and security forces to impose a crackdown. The plan evidently was conceived as early as August 1980 (see my translation below of a key Soviet document from 28 August 1980), and preparations for it gained momentum in early December 1980, as is evident from the cable that Kuklinski sent to the United States at that point (which I also have translated below). Subsequently, the contingency plan was updated and refined, becoming a full-fledged operational plan. In mid-1981, according to Vitalii Pavlov (in Bylem rezydentem KGB w Polsce, p. 219), the operational plan was largely set aside; but as late as the fall of 1981 Soviet military planners evidently retained—at least on paper-the option of sending Soviet troops into Polish territory under the guise of military exercises scheduled for November 1981. The existence of the updated plan was divulged to the U.S. government in the fall of 1981 by two high-ranking Polish military intelligence officials who defected, Colonel Jerzy Suminski and Colonel Wladyslaw