who lived in Poland at that time remembers the fears that any little damage to the interest of the Warsaw Pact might become a pretext for intervention. Possible difficulties in military transport would, after all, be a classic violation of the rules according to which the strategic infrastructure of the bloc functioned. This is what was constantly on our minds. Let the fact that I stated, publicly in the Sejm as well as during a Central Committee plenary meeting, that the Polish Army takes responsibility for the smooth functioning of this transportation infrastructure attest to how important and sensitive this point was. Imputing that a concern that this transportation should function smoothly (especially under the conditions of martial law) meant looking for help from the outside is not only absurd, but politically and strategically infantile.

On pages [7-8] is another example of how Mr. Kramer is being led up a "blind alley." He is, as far as I am aware, a historian by profession and therefore I assume that he will read the addendum I have enclosed in the proper spirit. It will become clear to him from it how thin the different arguments are of people wishing at any cost to accuse the so-called authors of martial law, if they are reduced to using such "evidence."

On page [11] Mr. Kramer also suggests that Gen. Siwicki and I attempt to make secret Polish documents public. There are already many documents (particularly protocols from the PUWP Politburo meetings, different materials from other institutions and bodies) that have been made public in different ways, but Mr. Kramer is clearly not interested in them. On the other hand, it is true that there is no access to many documents, particularly those of the Ministry of National Defense. Perhaps Prof. Andrzej Paczkowski did not have time to inform Mr. Kramer that several times I addressed the organizers of the Jachranka conference and asked for access to be made possible in Polish institutions. I even wrote statements which were intended to help in those efforts. Unfortunately, in many cases these efforts ended unsuccessfully (it is true that I did not at the time foresee the possibility that after the conclusion of such an important international conference some kind of "work notebook" would be "pulled out of a pocket" and become a "decisive" source for Mr. Kramer).

However very distasteful-to use just such a term—is this statement about our notes (Gen. Siwicki's and mine) "assuming they still exist and have not been tampered with." So only Polish generals would falsify things, while Soviet notes are above any suspicion? I would like to ask here whether we really can treat them [i.e., the Anoshkin notes] as reliable "evidence" (Mr. Kramer calls it "decisive") for describing events of great political, historical, and moral importance? At the same time, considering the threats and announcements coming even from the highest offices and leading political circles, should one treat the suggestions of an American historian as a welcome gesture in this campaign? I trust that this was not Mr. Kramer's intention. All the more so, since

when he wrote his article he did not know many of the circumstances, facts, and arguments I have presented here. I understand that Mr. Kramer's article is based exclusively on words written then as well as years later. But this is only a partial base. I do not deny the necessity and importance of his research. But to make the picture objective, one needs to look also at evident facts, phenomena, and symptoms from the time in question. Many of them have been presented by many witnesses who testified before the Commission of Constitutional Oversight under the rules of the Penal Code. I did not notice even a trace of those testimonies in Mr. Kramer's article. But the most important thing is to avoid a situation of "if the facts indicate something different, then too bad for the facts."

Therefore, counting on the support of Prof. Andrzej Paczkowski, an outstanding specialist in contemporary history, I would like to ask Mr. Kramer to reevaluate the text of the inaugural brochure, the main substance of which is to be Anoshkin's “working notebook." Gen. Siwicki, myself, and other people have a number of important comments about it, which we will present at a later point. I am ready for conversations which will lead to better mutual understanding, will confront and verify views, and above all, which will bring us closer to the very complex truth.

To conclude: We are facing a paradoxical situation. Many people who for years were sworn enemies of the USSR, who suspected its leaders and officials of all kinds of wrongdoing, including lies and falsities-I am not talking of Mr. Kramer, of course, since I don't know his views are suddenly turning into defenders of the USSR. Everything that comes from that country is true and constitutes evidence. But what is puzzling is that this [tendency] seems exclusively to concern things that make it possible to condemn and accuse the Polish People's Republic, including the so-called authors of martial law. I always have said and to this day keep saying openly that the Soviet Union was our ally within the "sick" reality of those years and with all the heavy load of limited sovereignty. To the Soviet Union we owe what is actually the most advantageous configuration of Polish territory in history (although I admit that such a configuration suited Soviet interests). For many years, the Soviet Union was the sole guarantor of that territory. I respect and like the Russians. I think that the relations between our countries which are now equal should be good and mutually advantageous. Also, when I look back at those years I try to keep a rational distance, since as a politician and a general I know the ruthless logic of that divided world. I used to say that if I had been a Soviet marshal or general I would have perceived Poland as a territory endangering the bloc, with all the consequences of that for us, of course. We were fully aware of that situation, which was assessed similarly in the American documents disclosed at Jachranka. All this required from us, the Polish authorities, the appropriate measures and countermeasures.

Their effectiveness was proved by life itself. We imposed and carried out martial law alone, and then, walking along a rough road, reached the Round Table [of 1989] and the groundbreaking changes which became an impulse and model for other countries of the region.

Wojciech Jaruzelski

Warsaw, 27 April 1998

Appendix

The supposition that Poland was interested in socalled "fraternal aid" is disgraceful and absurd. People included in the Preliminary Summons, the witnesses, and some historians have explained this in detail. However, some members of the Commission (Parliament member Jacek Taylor in particular) during the Commission's deliberations referred to a "document" from the MSW (Ministry of Internal Affairs) files which can presently be found in the Sejm archives (file 228/IB). The document is called An Assessment of the Current Situation in the Country on 25 November 1981." The following passage can be found in appendix No. 2 to that Assessment of the Situation:

Implementation of martial law may result in the following developments:

Scenario 1: Political organizations submit to the requirements of martial law. At the same time, there is a possibility of small-scale strikes and limited hostile propaganda.

Scenario 2: Massive strikes are organized in some parts of the country without workers leaving the workplace.

Scenario 3: A general occupation strike, with workplaces taken over; some workers go out in the streets; there are street demonstrations and attacks occur on buildings housing party offices and state administration, on police stations, etc. Strong intervention of police and armed forces takes place. Aid from Warsaw Pact troops is not out of the question.

People who attempt to use this [document] as evidence against those included in the Preliminary Summons are misusing it. The reasons I say this are as follows. First, [the document was] in a file in which only loose, preliminary materials can be found. Secondly, the said Assessment of the Current Situation is really only a draft, without any filing number, without any annotations, and was not signed by anybody or distributed anywhere. There is also another telling factor, one that remains conveniently not mentioned, which proves the ill will of the people who insist on the basis of such material the contention that Poland allegedly expected so-called “aid.” This is the fact that in the same file-about which there was no mention there is another, later document, called An Assessment of the Current Situation in the Country and

Proposals for Solutions, dated 5 December 1981. There is not even one word concerning any kind of "aid" there. However, unlike the earlier document of November 25, there are many hand-written comments and corrections of Czeslaw Kiszczak, who was at the time the Minister of Internal Affairs. And although that document has not been signed or distributed either, the very fact that the Minister made many annotations on it makes it more trustworthy. But in spite of that it remains unmentioned.

It is necessary to add here that although the Commission had access to an enormous amount of different material and documents, no traces of expectations or requests for this so-called "military aid" have been found. On the contrary, the claim that we need to solve our Polish problems on our own appears repeatedly in many secret as well as public statements made by the representatives of the PPR government at the time. Therefore, using the said "Assessment of the Situation" of 25 November 1981 as an argument is evident manipulation. Perhaps it was hoped that nobody would be inclined to go through the pile of files where less important, loose materials were kept.

The selective character of omissions described above can be further illustrated by the following fact. Solidarity activists have been claiming that all kinds of anti-Soviet excesses, such as the desecration of monuments and graves of soldiers were provocations organized by the State Security. But surprisingly enough, in the Assessment of the Situation of November 25 (appendix no. 1), is the information that from the Fourth Plenum of the Central Committee (18 October 1981) until the time the said Assessment was written, 26 criminal investigations concerning the above mentioned acts were started. At that time eighteen people had been found who had vandalized monuments in Jedrzejow and one person who had desecrated the graves of Soviet soldiers in Gryfin. Remembering these facts is not convenient now. Nor is remembering (in accordance with the described

Assessment) that on November 25, eleven public buildings were under occupation, and a note made of plans to occupy another fourteen.

[Translated from Polish by Anna Zielinska-Elliott and Jan Chowaniec.]

Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski served as prime minister of Polish People's Republic from 1981-1985.

'Editor's note: For the Jachranka conference, see Malcolm Byrne's introduction to this Bulletin section and Ray Garthoff's report in CWIHP Bulletin 10 (March 1997), pp. 229-232

2 Editor's note: The conference organizers are planning to publish the Jachranka proceedings; transcription of the audio tapes of the conference is in progress.

3 Editor's note: On this document, see also the article by Pawel Machcewicz in this Bulletin.

By Pawel Machcewicz

I

he document published below can be
regarded as one of the key Polish sources,

far declassified, regarding the preparations for martial law in Poland in 1981. The document was released (upon appeal by the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences) by the Ministry of Interior in connection with the international conference, "Poland 1980-1981: Internal Crisis, International Dimensions" which took place in Jachranka (outside Warsaw) in November 1997. The "Supplement No. 2" was prepared as an attachment to the document "Assessment of the present situation in the country as of 25 November 1981" ("Ocena aktualnej sytuacji w kraju wg.stanu na dzien 25 listopada br.")

"Supplement No. 2" (original title "Zalacznik nr 2: Zamierzenia Resortu Spraw Wewnetrznych") is not signed, but both its content and classification ("Secret, For Special Use. Single Copy"), suggest that it is a top-level document, presumably prepared in the highest ranks of the Polish government or Communist Party. "The Supplement" considers various possible developments of the political situation and the alternative strategies to suppress the "Solidarity" movement. The special legislative act on extraordinary measures, mentioned in the first paragraph, was never passed in the parliament, and the only option which was implemented was martial law. The repressive strategy which prevailed was Option 2 of the "Supplement"-the mass-scale internments of Solidarity and opposition activists.

However, the most revealing part of the "Supplement" is its last paragraph. Option (Contingency) No. 3 predicts that in case of massive and violent resistance to the imposition of martial law, "assistance of Warsaw Pact forces is not ruled out." The importance of this statement consists in the fact that it is the only Polish document thus far declassified which explicitly mentions potential Soviet military help as part of the martial law planning.' It seems to contradict the basic argument, upheld by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski and his supporters, that the decision to introduce martial law was exclusively Polish and that its ultimate goal was to keep the Soviets away from Poland. This idea-specifically that the operation started on 13 December 1981 was aimed at saving the nation from Soviet intervention, which would inevitably lead to the bloodshed-was the core of the martial law propaganda (obviously, given the circumstances, it used subtle but perfectly understandable language). To present day it remains the main line of Jaruzelski's political struggle to defend his past actions.

There is abundant evidence, coming mostly from the Russian side, suggesting that the real situation was quite

different. Many Soviet documents, including the diary of General Victor Anoshkin's (Marshal Kulivov's personal adjutant) presented at the recent Jachranka conference,3 describe several occasions on which Jaruzelski or his aides insisted on obtaining guarantees of "fraternal" help in case the imposition of the martial law encountered excessive difficulties. As Jaruzelski and others, however, point out, the Russian archives have thus far released only selected minutes of the CPSU Politburo meetings. All of them suggest that the Soviet leadership rejected the idea of intervening militarily in Poland. But what about the minutes of other Politburo meetings? Do they mention other options? Without free access to the Russian documentation, the discussion on the Polish crisis will remain inconclusive. It heightens the significance of Polish documents, among them "Supplement No. 2," which reveal the planning for and the mechanisms of martial law.

SECRET, FOR SPECIAL USE Single Copy

SUPPLEMENT NO.2

PLANNED ACTIVITY OF THE INTERIOR MINISTRY

1. Taking into account the current course of events in the country as well as the need to discipline society and reinforce the execution of power, it is necessary to introduce a legislative act (without an introduction of the martial law) on extraordinary means of action. The latter act foresees, among others:

- heightened responsibility for the public goods which one is in charge of, including a prohibition on using factory goods for purposes not associated with the duties which are carried out;

- extension of the rights of the managers of workplaces to give orders to their employees including ones exceeding their area of responsibility;

- attaching conditions to the rights of strike action such as the requirement of an earlier exhaustion of compromise ways of settling arguments, pursuing secret ballots, receiving approval from a higher trade union organ; - complete prohibition of the right to strike action in certain units of the national economy and institutions as well as authorization of the Council of State to introduce a prohibition of strike and protest action for a predetermined period in part or in the whole territory of the state;

- limitation of the right to hold public meetings (also those of trade unions). Legal use of the means of direct

enforcement is provided for in order to dissolve public meetings. The latter means can be used in the case of illegal taking over of a building (apartment);

- introduction of the curfew, a ban on artistic, entertainment and sports events as well as on public collections (except carried out by the Church), suspension of the activity of selected associations as well as limitation of the post, telecommunications, personal and cargo traffic with foreign countries;

- stepping up of censorship of selected publications and a ban on leaflet-poster type propaganda;

- authorization of the voievodes to turn to the military for assistance in certain situations of danger to public order; - transfer of cases concerning certain violations of law into the domain of military prosecutors and courts.

Passing the above legislation as well as its implementation will allow the government of the Polish People's Republic as well as the organs of state administration and the units of the public economy to take special actions aiming at strengthening the national economy, preventing anarchy and hindering the activity of counterrevolutionary forces. They will also lead to an increase of social discipline and public order—as conditions necessary for eliminating the consequences of the crisis which threatens the normal functioning of the state and the vital needs of the people.

The legislative act will create conditions for the gradual (selective) introduction of bans and orders (limitations of citizen freedoms and placement of obligations) in part or on the whole territory of the country depending on the development of the situation. Authorization to introduce certain degrees of limitations will also be given to the territorial organs of the authorities and the state administration (voievodes and mayors of voievodeship cities).

The passage of the act and its subsequent introduction will undoubtedly cause various social repercussions-both positive and negative ones. It will certainly strengthen the morale and attitudes of the party members and all advocates of the socialist system so as to participate in the defense of the state. On the other hand, it will stimulate greater activity of the extremist and anti-socialist elements in the direction of destructive actions, for example the calling of a general strike and other things.

2. If the application of the act on extraordinary measures in the interest of the protection of citizens and the state is not effective, the introduction of martial law will be necessary. The extension of the preparations of the Interior Ministry in the case of the introduction of martial law has been stipulated in relevant documents.

Among the fundamental tasks which will determine the efficient functioning of martial law and which ought to be carried out at the moment of its introduction or several hours in beforehand, are:

a) internment of persons who threaten the security of the state-which is the principle endeavor. Two variations of

implementing this operation are being considered:

Option 1

- internment of particularly dangerous persons in the main centres of the opposition such as Warsaw, Katowice, Szczecin, Wrocław, Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk;

Option 2

- simultaneous internment of all specified persons in the whole country. Internment would cover 1,500-4,500 persons. The feasibility of this operation will be determined by the course of events.

The most effective factor to ensure the successful conclusion of the operation would be if it came as a complete surprise to the opponent. It is only possible if the operation were to be carried out sufficiently in advance of the introduction of the martial law.

The operation can also be carried out as a response to the specific activity of the opponent, although its impact would be limited.

It is assumed that the internment operation would be accompanied by an inclusion of the public use of telecommunications and preventive warning conversations with less sinister persons as well as the taking of initiative in the branches of "Solidarity" by people with moderate views (replacement structures-work is in progress on this question).

b) the remaining important endeavors are:

- introduction of censorship of postal and telecommunication correspondence as well as control of telephone conversations, especially in the public network;

- introduction of limitations in the cross-border traffic, changes in place of residence, the activity of selected associations, the freedom of movement and activity of personnel of diplomatic missions of capitalist countries, correspondents from capitalist countries; making it impossible for Polish citizens to enter diplomatic missions of the capitalist countries;

- withholding of armed weapons as well as radio broadcasting and broadcast-receiving equipment from certain citizens;

- extension of protection over 441 sites of the national economy by the Polish armed forces and protection over 891 sites mainly of the food-supply sector by the Citizen Militia (MO);

- protection and defense of the sites of the central authorities by the Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry forces;

- mobilization of the maneuver units of the Citizen Militia (MO), countryside outposts of the MO, WOP and NJW MSW-it has been planned to draft about 46,000 reserves; engaging in actions some selected ORMO members, including combined sub-units.

Some of the aforementioned endeavors will be carried out with the participation of the armed forces. Those questions are agreed upon with the Ministry of Defense and an action concept has been jointly worked out.

XXX

The introduction of martial law may-among other things cause the following development of events: Scenario 1

- subordination of political and socio-economic organizations to the demands of the martial law with the simultaneous possibility of limited strike action and restricted hostile propaganda activity.

Scenario 2

- in some regions of the country, mass strikes are organized with the tendency to extend beyond the workplace. Sabotage activities take place. Scenario 3

- general labor strike, some workers go out onto the streets, there are street demonstrations and attacks on party buildings and those of the state administration, the Citizen Militia and others. It leads to a sharp intervention of the MO forces and the military. The assistance of Warsaw Pact forces is not ruled out.

[Source: Centralne Archiwum Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnetrznych, t. 228/1 B. Translated by Pawel Machcewicz]

Dr. Pawel Machcewicz is a research fellow at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. A

former CWIHP fellow, Dr. Machcewicz spent the academic year 1997/98 on a Fulbright grant in Washington, D.C.

For the discussion of other evidence of the Polish Party, the military and the Ministry of Interior's counts on the Soviet and Warsaw Pact participation in the implementation of martial law see the report by Andrzej Paczkowski: "The Conditions and Mechanisms Leading to The Introduction of Martial Law: Report to the Commission on Constitutional Oversight" (translated from Polish by Leo Gluchowski), in "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," Working Paper No. 21, Preliminary Conference Edition, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, November 1997 (Polish original in: "O Stanie Wojennym. W Sejmowej Komisji Odpowiedzialnosci Konstytucyjnej, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Sejmowe, 1997).

2 For the detailed and updated analysis of the Soviet evidence see: Mark Kramer, "Jaruzelski, the Soviet Union and the Imposition of Martial Law in Poland: New Light on the Mystery of December 1981," paper delivered at a seminar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2 April 1998, and Kramer's articles in this Bulletin.

3 For the analysis of the findings of the Jachranka conference see: Pawel Machcewicz and Malcolm Byrne, "Revealing a New Side of Poland's Martial Law," Los Angeles Times, 14 December 1997.