Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980–1981
Encyclopedia
The Polish crisis of 1980–1981, associated with the emergence of the Solidarity mass movement in Poland
, challenged the Soviet
control over the satellite countries of the Eastern Bloc
.
For the first time however, Kremlin
abstained from military intervention unlike on previous occasions such as the Prague Spring
of 1968 or the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and thus left the Polish leadership under General Wojciech Jaruzelski
to impose martial law
to crush the opposition on their own.
Contrary to the interpretations of the US intelligence, no preparations were underway for even a minimal Soviet support force at the time martial law was imposed according to the declassified Soviet archives. On August 25 a special commission was created in Moscow
to formulate policy towards the latest developments in Poland. It was headed by senior Communist Party
ideologist Mikhail Suslov
and included: KGB
chairman Yuri Andropov
, foreign minister Andrei Gromyko
and defense minister Dmitriy Ustinov
. They were somewhat reluctant to resort to military countermeasures in Poland, and wary of the danger of repetition of the Polish 1970 protests
and of the troubles with the ongoing Soviet war in Afghanistan
.
However, the East German and Czechoslovak
communist leaders, Erich Honecker
and Gustáv Husák
, were enthusiastic about forced suppression of Solidarity along the lines of the previous crackdowns. The aging Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
agreed with Honecker and Husák, leaning towards intervention. The planned joint Soviet, East German and Czechoslovak attack under the pretext of the Warsaw Pact
military exercise 'Soyuz-80' was set to start on December 8, 1980.
Deeply concerned Polish communist leaders, who initially demonstrated leniency, slowly began to consider forced suppression of the popular movement on their own as a probable option. On October 22 Polish defense minister Jaruzelski launched secret planning for the imposition of martial law.
The United States intelligence was well aware of the Warsaw Pact plans. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
compelled President Jimmy Carter
to disclose the Warsaw Pact military build-up publicly and repeatedly warn the Soviet Union of the gravest consequences of its actions.
On December 5 at the insistence of Honecker, the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries held a summit in Moscow. The Polish leader, first secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party
Stanisław Kania, promised to do his best to uproot the opposition by domestic means. Brezhnev didn't insist on armed intervention, and during subsequent talks Kania managed to persuade him that a foreign intervention would inevitably lead to a full-scale national uprising. The invasion was thus postponed indefinitely to allow the Polish leadership to suppress the opposition on their own.
At the 14th annual meeting of the Committee of Ministers of Defense of the Warsaw Pact, which took place in Moscow on December 1-4, Jaruzelski's deputy Florian Siwicki
on behalf of the former proposed to issue a bluffing strong statement pledging support of the Warsaw Pact armed forces to the Polish authorities in order to give a "cold shower for the counterrevolution" and to deny western claims that Jaruzelski didn't have backing of his allies. The Soviet, East German, Czechoslovak and Bulgaria
n ministers, Dmitriy Ustinov, Heinz Hoffmann
, Martin Dzúr and Dobri Dzhurov, supported the proposal. However, it failed to pass because Romanian minister Constantin Olteanu, who was not aware that the plans for invasion had already been discarded and took the threat for real, vetoed the draft after consultations with Nicolae Ceauşescu
, and his Hungarian counterpart Lajos Czinege
was not ready to agree unless everyone else did.
At the Politburo meeting of December 10, 1981, the Soviet leadership was outraged to learn that Jaruzelski was still making his crackdown on Solidarity conditional on a promise of a Soviet military intervention if anything went wrong. The Politburo firmly and unanimously rejected the demand for military backing. Andropov, one of the most influential figures in the Politburo, who would become the Soviet leader in less than a year, wary of the threat of Western political and economic sanctions, made it clear to his fellow Politburo members that he was ready to reconcile himself to the possible loss of the Soviet control over Poland to Solidarity, however unpleasant it might be, if the Soviet communications with East Germany via Poland continued uninterrupted:
Chief ideologist Suslov supported him, considering the possibility of invasion after the Soviet support of détente
in the 1970s as a severe blow to the Soviet international standing. The Brezhnev Doctrine
was effectively dead.
and Soviet ambassador Boris Aristov for military assistance once again, on December 13, 1981, Jaruzelski finally proclaimed martial law
. To justify the emergency measures, Jaruzelski was still playing on the public fear of Soviet invasion. However, there was no significant resistance to the martial law and any foreign military backing proved unnecessary. Ever since Jaruzelski himself has denied that he invited Soviet troops, insisting that, on the contrary, the martial law was aimed at prevention of a Soviet military intervention.
on the Soviet role in the Polish crisis of 1980-1981, where Solidarity, Polish communist, Soviet and American participants of the events, including Jaruzelski, Kania, Siwicki, Kulikov and Brzezinski, took part. Jaruzelski and Siwicki maintained that the Soviets had been preparing for invasion all the time, Kania and Brzezinski opined that the plans for invasion had been discarded by the second half of 1981 and Kulikov denied the existence of any plans to intervene even in 1980.
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, challenged the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
control over the satellite countries of the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
.
For the first time however, Kremlin
Kremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
abstained from military intervention unlike on previous occasions such as the Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
of 1968 or the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and thus left the Polish leadership under General Wojciech Jaruzelski
Wojciech Jaruzelski
Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski is a retired Polish military officer and Communist politician. He was the last Communist leader of Poland from 1981 to 1989, Prime Minister from 1981 to 1985 and the country's head of state from 1985 to 1990. He was also the last commander-in-chief of the Polish People's...
to impose martial law
Martial law in Poland
Martial law in Poland refers to the period of time from December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983, when the authoritarian government of the People's Republic of Poland drastically restricted normal life by introducing martial law in an attempt to crush political opposition to it. Thousands of opposition...
to crush the opposition on their own.
Initial reaction
Contrary to the interpretations of the US intelligence, no preparations were underway for even a minimal Soviet support force at the time martial law was imposed according to the declassified Soviet archives. On August 25 a special commission was created in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
to formulate policy towards the latest developments in Poland. It was headed by senior Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
ideologist Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial Chief Ideologue of the Party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and the separation of power...
and included: KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
chairman Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.-Early life:...
, foreign minister Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the...
and defense minister Dmitriy Ustinov
Dmitriy Ustinov
Dmitriy Feodorovich Ustinov was Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union from 1976 until his death.-Early life:Dimitry Feodorovich Ustinov was born in a working-class family in Samara. During the civil war, when hunger became intolerable, his sick father went to Samarkand, leaving Dimitry as head...
. They were somewhat reluctant to resort to military countermeasures in Poland, and wary of the danger of repetition of the Polish 1970 protests
Polish 1970 protests
The Polish 1970 protests were protests that occurred in northern Poland in December 1970. The protests were sparked by a sudden increase of prices of food and other everyday items...
and of the troubles with the ongoing Soviet war in Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
.
However, the East German and Czechoslovak
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
communist leaders, Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1971 until 1989, serving as Head of State as well from Willi Stoph's relinquishment of that post in 1976....
and Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
, were enthusiastic about forced suppression of Solidarity along the lines of the previous crackdowns. The aging Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
agreed with Honecker and Husák, leaning towards intervention. The planned joint Soviet, East German and Czechoslovak attack under the pretext of the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
military exercise 'Soyuz-80' was set to start on December 8, 1980.
Deeply concerned Polish communist leaders, who initially demonstrated leniency, slowly began to consider forced suppression of the popular movement on their own as a probable option. On October 22 Polish defense minister Jaruzelski launched secret planning for the imposition of martial law.
The United States intelligence was well aware of the Warsaw Pact plans. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
compelled President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
to disclose the Warsaw Pact military build-up publicly and repeatedly warn the Soviet Union of the gravest consequences of its actions.
On December 5 at the insistence of Honecker, the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries held a summit in Moscow. The Polish leader, first secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party
Polish United Workers' Party
The Polish United Workers' Party was the Communist party which governed the People's Republic of Poland from 1948 to 1989. Ideologically it was based on the theories of Marxism-Leninism.- The Party's Program and Goals :...
Stanisław Kania, promised to do his best to uproot the opposition by domestic means. Brezhnev didn't insist on armed intervention, and during subsequent talks Kania managed to persuade him that a foreign intervention would inevitably lead to a full-scale national uprising. The invasion was thus postponed indefinitely to allow the Polish leadership to suppress the opposition on their own.
Final decision
However, the Kremlin was discontent with how leniently this suppression proceeded, and on October 18, 1981, forced the Polish United Workers' Party to replace Kania with Jaruzelski. The latter promised to impose martial law, but demanded backing his action by a promise of Warsaw Pact military intervention if he failed to control the situation. On October 29, Jaruzelski's demands were discussed at a session of the Soviet Politburo, where Andropov confirmed the consensus that no Soviet troops would be sent to Poland.At the 14th annual meeting of the Committee of Ministers of Defense of the Warsaw Pact, which took place in Moscow on December 1-4, Jaruzelski's deputy Florian Siwicki
Florian Siwicki
Florian Siwicki is a Polish military officer, diplomat and a communist politician, as well as a General of the Polish Army . Throughout his career he held a number of posts, including military attaché in China, commanding officer of the 2nd Polish Army during the invasion of Czechoslovakia in...
on behalf of the former proposed to issue a bluffing strong statement pledging support of the Warsaw Pact armed forces to the Polish authorities in order to give a "cold shower for the counterrevolution" and to deny western claims that Jaruzelski didn't have backing of his allies. The Soviet, East German, Czechoslovak and Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n ministers, Dmitriy Ustinov, Heinz Hoffmann
Heinz Hoffmann
Heinz Hoffmann was Minister of National Defense in the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic, and since October 2, 1973 Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party .-Youth:Hoffmann came from a working class family...
, Martin Dzúr and Dobri Dzhurov, supported the proposal. However, it failed to pass because Romanian minister Constantin Olteanu, who was not aware that the plans for invasion had already been discarded and took the threat for real, vetoed the draft after consultations with Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, and his Hungarian counterpart Lajos Czinege
Lajos Czinege
Lajos Czinege was a Hungarian military officer and politician, who served as Minister of Defence from 1960 to 1984.-References:*...
was not ready to agree unless everyone else did.
At the Politburo meeting of December 10, 1981, the Soviet leadership was outraged to learn that Jaruzelski was still making his crackdown on Solidarity conditional on a promise of a Soviet military intervention if anything went wrong. The Politburo firmly and unanimously rejected the demand for military backing. Andropov, one of the most influential figures in the Politburo, who would become the Soviet leader in less than a year, wary of the threat of Western political and economic sanctions, made it clear to his fellow Politburo members that he was ready to reconcile himself to the possible loss of the Soviet control over Poland to Solidarity, however unpleasant it might be, if the Soviet communications with East Germany via Poland continued uninterrupted:
Chief ideologist Suslov supported him, considering the possibility of invasion after the Soviet support of détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
in the 1970s as a severe blow to the Soviet international standing. The Brezhnev Doctrine
Brezhnev Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Soviet Union foreign policy, first and most clearly outlined by S. Kovalev in a September 26, 1968 Pravda article, entitled “Sovereignty and the International Obligations of Socialist Countries.” Leonid Brezhnev reiterated it in a speech at the Fifth Congress of the...
was effectively dead.
Martial law
After unsuccessfully begging Warsaw Pact commander-in-chief Viktor KulikovViktor Kulikov
Viktor Georgiyevich Kulikov was the Warsaw Pact commander-in-chief from 1977 to 1989. He has held the rank of the Marshal of the Soviet Union for over 30 years, since January 14, 1977.Kulikov was born into a peasant family and joined the Red Army in 1939...
and Soviet ambassador Boris Aristov for military assistance once again, on December 13, 1981, Jaruzelski finally proclaimed martial law
Martial law in Poland
Martial law in Poland refers to the period of time from December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983, when the authoritarian government of the People's Republic of Poland drastically restricted normal life by introducing martial law in an attempt to crush political opposition to it. Thousands of opposition...
. To justify the emergency measures, Jaruzelski was still playing on the public fear of Soviet invasion. However, there was no significant resistance to the martial law and any foreign military backing proved unnecessary. Ever since Jaruzelski himself has denied that he invited Soviet troops, insisting that, on the contrary, the martial law was aimed at prevention of a Soviet military intervention.
1997 Jachranka conference
In November 1997 a conference was held in JachrankaJachranka
Jachranka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Serock, within Legionowo County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Serock, north of Legionowo, and north of Warsaw....
on the Soviet role in the Polish crisis of 1980-1981, where Solidarity, Polish communist, Soviet and American participants of the events, including Jaruzelski, Kania, Siwicki, Kulikov and Brzezinski, took part. Jaruzelski and Siwicki maintained that the Soviets had been preparing for invasion all the time, Kania and Brzezinski opined that the plans for invasion had been discarded by the second half of 1981 and Kulikov denied the existence of any plans to intervene even in 1980.