The general Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski (born the July 6th 1923 with Kurów, province of Lublin) is a Politician and soldier Polish.

Principal leader of communist Poland of 1981 to 1990, it is especially known for the long arm wrestling which opposed it to the trade union Solidarnosc chaired by Lech Walesa. Repression proving to be impotent, it negotiated finally the peaceful transition towards the democracy. Its former enemy replaced it with the head of the country.

Biography

Family origins

The family of Wojciech Jaruzelski is a noble family which goes down from the Slepowron knight (from where the weapons of this family - the blazon “Slepowron”) to which in 1224 the prince Conrad de Mazovie gave land goods of Jeruzale (called later Jaruzele) in reward of its participation in the wars against the pagan tribe of Sudaves. The grandfather of the general, also fore-mentioned Wojciech (lat. Adalbert) took share with the insurrection of January (1863) and was off-set in Siberia by the Russian State to have taken part there (condemned to 12 years, it returned from there after 8 years following an amnesty of the tsar). The father of the general took part as a volunteer in the Russo-Polish war of 1920.

In the storm of the Second world war

September 10th, 1939, fleeing the projection of the German armies, the Jaruzelski family takes the direction of the east. September 17th, it is with the turn of the Red Army to invade Poland - the family, which had sheltered in a manor (Jagnieszczyce) in the surroundings of the town of Lida makes half-turn and, to escape the Soviets, moves this time towards the west. Jaruzelski are pilot hard combat of Dereczyn and, after having crossed the Niémen, of the battle for the town of Grodno. It is of accuracy that they escape the Soviet armoured tanks and, on September 23rd, 1939, they pass the Lithuanian border, where they find refuge.

After the invasion of the Republic of Lithuania by the Red Army in 1940, in order to avoid the deportation which strikes hundreds of thousands of Pole under the Soviet occupation, the father of Wojciech Jaruzelski lodges with the authorities a Soviet request for citizenship. However, on June 14th, 1941 (one week before the German attack), Jaruzelski are stopped by the NKVD, which confiscates inter alia with these “enemies of the people” 99 marks German, 3 roubles imperial out of gold, a Finnish knife with sleeve and a Kodak apparatus.

Transported initially by truck, the family is then separate (the children remain with the mother and the father finds himself in another transport): in the livestock wagons, Wojciech Jaruzelski with his/her mother and her sister are sent towards the Mountains of Altaï, while his/her father takes the direction of the Gulag n°7 (territory of Krasnoïarsk, in the middle of Siberia). The voyage lasts approximately a month - after being last by Omsk, Novossibirsk, Jaruzelski are found assigned in the Touratchak hamlet in the mountains of Altaï, to 180 km of the town of Biïsk.

Deportation in the USSR with the army of communist Poland

To provide, in absence of the father, with the needs for the family (her mother quickly falls sick), the young person Wojciech Jaruzelski works with the demolition of the trees in taïga. Released by the amnesty of the Poles caused by the signature in London of the agreements Sikorski-Maïski (which stipulate the amnesty for the hundreds of thousands of off-set Poles of the part annexed by the USSR at the time of the aggression of Poland by the USSR and Reich, then allied), the father of Wojciech arrives at Biïsk, where Wojciech and its mother join it after having succeeded in escaping from Touratchak in January 1942. The father tries to engage his young person wire in the Polish army formed in the USSR by the Anders general, but it encounters a refusal of the Soviet authorities which, in spite of the agreements in force, prevent at the local level the departure of the Poles. June 4th, 1942, the father of Wojciech Jaruzelski dies in Biïsk of dysentery; he will be buried with the cemetery of the city.

After an unfruitful attempt to integrate the Polish army of the Anders general (thanks to which 125000 Poles will succeed in leaving the USSR for Iran then Iraq and Palestine, to fight thereafter in Italy), Wojciech Jaruzelski made of the studies at the school (Soviet) of the officers of Riazan, then it is versed in the 2nd Division of infantry (" Henryk Dombrowski") new Polish army " populaire" formed under the auspices of the Soviets after the departure of the USSR of the Anders army. It becomes there commander of a group of recognition. In the capacity as assistant of the chief of staff of the 5th Regiment of infantry, it follows the course of the 1st Polish Army (" populaire"). It takes share with the combat of the Vistula in the surroundings of Warsaw and with the catch of the strengthened line of Poméranie, then with the combat of the Baltic and Oder. In the years 1945-1947, Wojciech Jaruzelski takes part in the fight against Polish resistance anticommunist in the surroundings of Częstochowa and Piotrkow Trybunalski. According to documents being with the files of the National institute of Memory (IPN), he collaborates at that time as an agent adviser (pseudo - " Wolski") with Military information (IW - Informacja Wojskowa ), body of completely pledged against-espionage in the USSR functioning in Poland in the years 1944-1957. The Jaruzelski general refutes this charge categorically.

He is graduate with mention of the University of the Infantry and the Academy of the General Staff. In the years 1947-1957 he teaches the tactics and the service of staff at the University of the Infantry; he is the chief of the direction of the military academies, the schools and the courses of officers as well as the second of the chief of the military Central administration of Formation. Between 1950 and 1952, he attends the courses of the University of the Marxism and Leninism, which he finishes with the maximum note (very well). In 1956, he is the youngest officer with being promoted with the rank of general. In October of same year (after the events and the disorders which causes an appearance of evolution of the Communist regime), Wojciech Jaruzelski is the Polish general to only decide for the maintenance of the marshal Constantin Rokossovski (Russian of Polish origin) within the Army Popular Polonaise. Between 1957 and 1960, it orders the 12th mechanized Division with Sczecin (close to the border with GDR).

In 1960, it is named chief of the Political Administration of the Polish Army ( Główny Zarząd Polityczny WP ) and, in 1962, it is named at the post of vice-minister of National defense. From 1965, Wojciech Jaruzelski becomes the chief of staff of the Polish army. In the years 1967-1968, as a member of the restricted direction within the competence of Defense, he is Co-person in charge of the ousting of the army and the degradation of approximately 1300 officers Polish of Jewish origin or married to women of Jewish origin, which constitutes a shutter of the intrigues anti-semites of the Polish communist state (intrigues which will culminate at the time of the " events of mars" 1968). Within the framework of the action anti-semite, the Jewish origin was also allotted - wrongly - to the Minister for National defense Marian Spychalski. This last loses its station and it is then replaced by Wojciech Jaruzelski, which will be the Minister for the National defense from April 11th, 1968 to November 21st, 1983.

The leader with comes up of the Années 1980

Minister of defense in 1968, then temporary member and finally full member of the political office at the beginning of the Years 1970, it consequently forms part of the first circle of the leaders of communist Poland.

It was appointed Prime Minister of Poland on February 10th 1981 until in 1985. Vis-a-vis the growing popularity of the trade union Solidarność and of his chief Lech Wałęsa, it imposes the December 13rd 1981 the state of siege. It has then chaired Poland between 1989 and 1990.

Criticized for its attitude vis-a-vis Solidarność, he affirmed, fifteen years after the fall of the USSR, that its action was guided by a true patriotic feeling: the state of emergency, however difficult, was according to him the best means of avoiding the pure and simple invasion by the Soviet troops. Jaruzelski was already in cold with Léonid Brejnev since the visit of Jean-Paul II, that the Polish general authorized in spite of the contrary order of the Soviet leader.

After the victory of Solidarność

March 31st, 2006, the Jaruzelski general was accused of “communist crime” and incurs up to 8 years of prison to have founded the martial Loi in 1981. April 17th, 2007, it was officially put in charge.

Source

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