The Sword and the Shield

by Christopher Andrew

  This was a genuine conversation on an equal footing between the leaders of the two Parties and countries, not a monologue as was the case earlier with Brezhnev. In a conversation lasting three hours, Andropov said that all Socialist countries must take account of the specific conditions of Poland. The Polish problems were not the concern of one country alone; it was a world problem.

  Andropov did, however, express concern about the continued presence of Rakowski and his fellow moderate, Barcikowski, in the Polish leadership. Jaruzelski asked Andropov to trust his judgment on how long to keep them in office. The fact that Andropov appeared so well informed about the Polish situation, Jaruzelski believed, was due chiefly to reports from the KGB mission in Warsaw.103

  The KGB mission remained deeply suspicious of revisionist tendencies in the Polish leadership. It telegraphed the Centre at the end of 1982:

  Rakowski continues to influence Jaruzelski. They meet constantly to exchange views, not only at work, but also at home, and Rakowski was the first person Jaruzelski met immediately after his return from Moscow.104

  KGB distrust of Jaruzelski continued to grow during 1983. The Warsaw mission reported that he had given a dangerously defeatist address to the PUWP central committee on January 12:

  Gierek’s slogans about the moral and ideological unity of the Poles, the development of Socialism—all this is a fantasy and dreamworld. We have a multiparty system. There is an uneven rate of development of capitalism, but there is also such a thing as the uneven rate of development of Socialism… In [the current] situation tactics must prevail over strategy.

  Even Lenin, at various moments of his career, had engaged in tactical retreats. Poland, Jaruzelski claimed, must do the same.105 Pavlov believed that Jaruzelski intended to retreat much too far. The danger that he would do so was greatly increased by the Polish regime’s capitulation to Church pressure for a second visit by John Paul II in June. According to Pavlov:

  The episcopate, and right-wing forces within the PUWP and the country at large, seek to influence Jaruzelski and intimidate him with the might of the Church. There are many signs that the right wing and the Church are succeeding in this.106

  Among other worrying signs of Jaruzelski’s susceptibility to right-wing pressure was his willingness to allow family farms and the private ownership of land to be enshrined in the Polish constitution.107 The Soviet embassy condemned a report presented to the PUWP Politburo on February 1 on “The Causes and Consequences of Social Crises in the History of the Polish People’s Republic” as the product of “bourgeois methodology”:

  [The report] reduces the essence of the class struggle in the Polish People’s Republic to conflicts between the authorities and society, thereby deliberately excluding the possibility of analyzing the actions of anti-Socialist forces, and their connections with the West’s ideological sabotage centers. There is not a word about the USSR’s help in restoring and developing Poland’s economy.

  After extensive lobbying by the Soviet embassy, which had received an advance copy, the report was rejected and it was agreed that a revised version should be prepared, emphasizing Poland’s supposed achievements in Socialist construction under the leadership of the PUWP.108 Aristov continued, however, to complain that “ideological work remains a most neglected sector of the PUWP’s activity,” and that the PUWP leadership was failing to master “the revisionist right-wing opportunist bias in the Party.” The press was deeply tainted by revisionism and Eurocommunism, while Polish translations of Soviet textbooks were openly disparaged:

  Currency has been given to the idea that the Soviet model is unsuitable for Poland; the PUWP is incapable of solving contradictions in the interests of the whole of society, and a “third path” needs to be worked out. There is increasing criticism of real Socialism.109

  As the time for John Paul II’s return to Poland approached, the official mood in both Warsaw and Moscow became increasingly nervous. On April 5, 1983 Pavlov forwarded to Viktor Chebrikov, the KGB chairman, a request from Kiszczak for “material and technical assistance in connection with the Pope’s visit”: 150 rifles of the kind used for firing rubber bullets, 20 armed personnel carriers, 300 cars for transporting plain clothes personnel and surveillance equipment, 200 army tents and various medical supplies.110 According to Pavlov, Kiszczak was close to panic, declaring that he could no longer “rely on anyone.” SB sources in the Vatican reported that, though statements drafted for John Paul II were usually moderate, he tended to depart from prepared texts, improvise and get carried away. Kiszczak feared that he would do the same in Poland.

  The SB’s only ground for optimism was the decline in the Pope’s health since the assassination attempt in the previous year. “At the present time,” said Kiszczak, “we can only dream of the possibility that God will recall him to his bosom as soon as possible.” Kiszczak seized eagerly on any evidence which suggested that the Pope’s days were numbered. According to one improbable SB report, which he passed on to the KGB, John Paul II was suffering from leukemia but used cosmetics to conceal his condition.111 Two years earlier the KGB had received an equally inaccurate report from the Hungarian AVH which claimed that the Pope was suffering from cancer of the spinal column.112 About a fortnight after Kiszczak’s appeal for help from the KGB, Aristov reported further evidence that the Polish authorities were wilting under papal pressure. Having at first refused to allow large open-air masses at Kraków and Katowice, they had given way and agreed to both—thus running the unacceptable risk “of inflaming religious fanaticism among the working class.”113

  On the eve of the Pope’s arrival on June 16, 1983, the underground Warsaw weekly Tygodnik Mazowsze expressed the hope that his visit would “enable people to break through the barrier of despair, just as his 1979 visit broke through the barrier of fear.” In his first words after his emotional homecoming at Warsaw airport, John Paul II reached out to those imprisoned and persecuted by the regime:

  I ask those who suffer to be particularly close to me. I ask this in the words of Christ: “I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.” I myself cannot visit all those in prison [gasps from the crowd], all those who are suffering. But I ask them to be close to me in spirit to help me, just as they always do.114

  At every stage during the next nine days, as during John Paul II’s first visit four years earlier, the gulf between his immense moral authority and the discredited one-party state was plain for all to see. Even Jaruzelski sensed it during his first meeting with the Pope in the ornate surroundings of Belweder presidential palace. Though a nonbeliever, Jaruzelski later admitted that, “My legs were trembling and my knees were knocking together… The Pope, this figure in white, it all affected me emotionally. Beyond all reason…”115

  For millions of Poles, the visit was equally unforgettable. Many walked across Poland to see John Paul II, often sleeping by the roadside during their journeys. Wherever the Pope stopped, there were rarely less than half a million people waiting for him.116 “We have to deal with the most famous Pole in the world,” grumbled Kiszczak, “and, unfortunately, we have to do it here in Poland!”117 Though the Pope could not meet the leaders of the illegal Solidarity underground during his visit, he had sent an emissary, Father Adam Boniecki, to see them before he arrived and convey his gratitude and admiration to them.118 At first the authorities refused to allow Wałęsa to meet the Pope; then, on the final day of his visit, they gave way and Wałęsa was flown to a meeting in the Tatra mountains. An underground cartoon of the time showed SB agents disguised as sheep and goats clutching boom microphones as they tried to listen in to the conversation.119

  The formal ending of martial law a month after the Pope’s visit did little to mend the regime’s tattered reputation. Nor did Rakowski’s visit to address Gdańsk shipyard workers on the third anniversary of the August 1980 accords. Having arrived to proclaim Solidarity dead and Wałęsa a has-been, he found himself upstaged by Solidarity hecklers. Wałęsa, in an admittedly st
umbling statement, had the workers on his side when he accused Rakowski and his colleagues of using the 1980 strikes to lever Gierek out of power and advance their own careers. It was probably this débácle at Gdańsk which finally persuaded the regime to broadcast the libelous video of Wałęsa concocted by the SB at the end of the previous year. Film footage taken by a hidden SB camera of Wałęsa eating a birthday meal with his brother Stanisław was used as the basis of a bogus “documentary” entitled Money, which purported to expose Wałęsa’s greed and corruption. The dialogue was constructed by splicing together some of Wałęsa’s public statements, misleading extracts from the stolen tape-recording of his birthday celebrations and words spoken by a Warsaw actor imitating Wałęsa’s voice.120

  The Polish files seen by Mitrokhin end just too early to clarify who exactly was involved in the decision to go ahead with an active measure begun over a year earlier. Kiszczak later tried to put the blame on his SB subordinate, Adam Pietruszka, but he must certainly have been among those who authorized the use of the video. The film dialogue included a fabricated exchange about Wałęsa’s supposed fortune in the West:

  LECH WAŁĘSA: You know all in all it is over a million dollars… Somebody has to draw it all and put it somewhere. It can’t be brought into the country, though.

  STANISŁAW WAŁĘSA: No, no, no!

  LECH WAŁĘSA: So I thought about it and they came here and this priest had an idea that they would open an account in that bank, the papal one. They give 15 percent there… Somebody has to arrange it all, open accounts in the Vatican. I can’t touch it though or I’d get smashed in the mug. So you could…

  Part of the purpose of the SB active measure was to sabotage Wałęsa’s prospect of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The actor impersonating Wałęsa explains that the prize is worth a lot of money, then complains, “I’d get it if it weren’t for the Church! But the Church is starting to interfere.” “Yeah,” says his brother, “because they’ve put up the Pope again.”121

  On October 5, however, came the news that Wałęsa had indeed been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. To counter the SB’s attempt to portray him as a corrupt fortunehunter, Wałęsa announced that he was giving his prize money to a Church scheme to help private farmers modernize and mechanize the countryside.122 Though now terminally ill, Andropov could barely contain his fury. From his sickbed he despatched a furious letter to Jaruzelski:

  The Church is reawakening the cult of Wałęsa, giving him inspiration and encouraging him in his actions. This means that the Church is creating a new kind of confrontation with the Party. In this situation, the most important thing is not to make concessions…

  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.

  Gorbachev’s rise to power in 1985 hastened the moment when the bluff would be called. In some of his first meetings as general secretary with east European leaders, he warned that they could no longer expect the Red Army to come to their rescue if they fell out with their fellow citizens. Gorbachev conveyed the same message more formally at a meeting of Comecon leaders in Moscow in November 1986.126 Though the east European regimes were, predictably, unwilling to share the secret with their subjects, it was only a matter of time before they discovered it. It did not occur to Gorbachev, however, that he might be opening the way to the end of the Communist era in eastern Europe. He expected the hardliners, when they could hold out no longer, to be succeeded by a generation of little Gorbachevs anxious to emulate the reforms being introduced in Moscow. Few peacetime miscalculations have had such momentous consequences. Once a new crisis arose within the Soviet Bloc and it became clear that the Red Army would stay in its barracks, the “Socialist Commonwealth” was doomed.

  The end game began in Poland. By the beginning of 1989, with the economy in dire straits and the return of labor unrest, the Polish Politburo was discussing new austerity measures which threatened to produce an explosion of discontent reminiscent of that in 1980. Jaruzelski refused to consider a return to martial law, convinced that it would lead to much greater loss of life than in 1981. The only option, he believed, was to hold discussions with the still-illegal Solidarity in return for its help in preserving the peace. Though Jaruzelski had the support of Czesław Kiszczak, interior minister in charge of the SB and one of the leading hardliners of 1981, he was able to push his proposal through the Politburo only by threatening to resign. Two months of tortuous negotiations led to Solidarity’s relegalization and to general elections in June under rules which, though calculated to produce a large Communist majority, would give Solidarity a place in parliament. To the stupefaction of both itself and its opponents, however, Solidarity won a sweeping victory. A few months earlier the government spokesman, Jerzy Urban, had dismissed Solidarity as a “non-existent organization” and Wałęsa as a “private citizen” of no political significance. After the Communist defeat he told the outgoing government, “This is not just a lost election, gentlemen. It’s the end
of an age.”127

  The end came more quickly than anyone thought possible. Any remaining doubts about Moscow’s willingness to tolerate the removal of the Communist old guard disappeared during Gorbachev’s visit to East Berlin in September to attend the fortieth birthday celebrations of the now-doomed “German Democratic Republic.” He told Honecker in a phrase quickly made public by the Soviet delegation, “In politics life punishes severely those who fall behind.” Honecker himself fell from power six weeks later. Even when it became clear that the whole Communist order, and not merely the old guard, was at risk in eastern Europe, Gorbachev did not draw back. He sent his close adviser Aleksandr Yakovlev to the capitals of the disintegrating Socialist Commonwealth “to make the point over and over again: We are not going to interfere.” Yakovlev said later:

  Please, we told them, make your own calculations, but make sure you understand that our troops will not be used, even though they are there. They will remain in their barracks and will not go anywhere, under any circumstances.128

  After delirious East German crowds surged through the Berlin Wall on November 9 it took only the last seven weeks of the year for the remaining one-party states to topple like a house of cards.

  The Centre accepted the collapse of the Soviet Bloc with far less equanimity than Gorbachev. Though the KGB devised active measures in a desperate attempt to stave off the downfall of the Communist regimes, it was refused permission to implement them. According to the head of the FCD, Leonid Shebarshin, the leaders of eastern Europe were told to fend for themselves. “But,” he complains, “they were educated only to be friends of the Soviet Union; they were never prepared to stand on their own feet. They were just thrown to the wolves.”129