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Poland Martial Law
Although the military was taking a low public profile,
Jaruzelski played a major behind-the-scenes role in
unseating the
discredited Gierek in 1980. The following year, Jaruzelski
himself became prime minister as a compromise candidate
acceptable to all factions of the PZPR's divided
leadership. By
1981 military officers occupied fourteen seats in the PZPR
Central Committee (three had been the norm during the
Gierek
regime). Until late 1981, Jaruzelski represented a
moderate wing
of the PZPR willing to negotiate with the ever-more
powerful
Solidarity movement. The restraint Jaruzelski had shown in
using
military force in 1970, 1976, and 1980 sustained his
public
prestige and that of the armed forces through 1980.
In 1981, however, the near-collapse of the PZPR caused
civilian party leaders to tie the army, by way of
Jaruzelski,
closer to the role of defending the regime against popular
dissent. Party leaders named Jaruzelski prime minister and
then
first secretary of the PZPR, making the general the most
powerful
political figure in Poland and completely closing the gap
between
military and political authority. In December 1981, the
party's
continued collapse, the country's economic decay, and
Solidarity's increasingly radical demands and fear of a
Soviet
Army invasion triggered by those conditions caused
Jaruzelski to
declare martial law, in effect executing a military coup.
The military was mobilized but did not confront
activists and
demonstrators directly. The army staffed checkpoints and
protected communications and transportation facilities
while the
specialized Motorized Units of the Citizens' Militia
(Zmotoryzowane Oddzialy Milicji Obywatelskiej--ZOMO)
performed
riot control functions on the streets
(see Internal Security
, this ch.). Nevertheless, martial law associated the
military
directly with the severe curtailment of civil liberties
and the
imprisonment of thousands of antigovernment activists. The
use of
the military to keep a Polish regime in power again
tarnished the
public perception of the armed forces. The prospect of
facing
fellow Poles in life-threatening confrontations fragmented
and
demoralized the army as well. Once the public regained its
voice
in government policy in 1989, the memory of martial law
prompted
strong insistence that control of the armed forces
henceforth be
distinctly lodged with responsible civilian officials and
totally
separate from any political party.
The state of emergency ended officially in mid-1983,
but
Jaruzelski and his military subordinates remained in
control of
top party and government offices for the next six years.
Jaruzelski supporters replaced the discredited upper
echelon of
civilian PZPR officials, and during this period political
officers remained in place at all levels of the military.
Especially in the early and mid-1980s, the special police
forces
of the Ministry of Internal Affairs remained a potent arm
of the
government in suppressing dissident activity by
surveillance and
physical intimidation. The public's negative image of the
military regime was reinforced in 1984 when Jaruzelski's
government was implicated in the murder of dissident
priest Jerzy
Popieluszko by internal security agents. After a unique
public
trial, the security service was reorganized, but
dissidents still
were harassed in the years that followed. During this
period,
military recruitment became increasingly difficult because
the
declaration of martial law had reduced the prestige of a
military
career.
By 1985 Mikhail S. Gorbachev's highly visible reforms
in the
Soviet Union removed the rationale that political reform
in
Poland might incite an invasion from the East, and
Jaruzelski
moved cautiously in the same direction as Gorbachev.
Shortly
thereafter, the Soviet Union also orchestrated changes in
Poland's international military position by restructuring
the
Warsaw Pact and revising the military doctrine that
justified the
alliance. When the Soviet Union began streamlining
military
planning and increasing doctrinal reliance on reserve
forces
throughout the alliance in 1987, Poland was able to begin
sorelyneeded reductions in its military budget. In 1988 military
personnel were reduced by 15,000 persons, and another
33,000 were
cut in 1989
(see Military Manpower
, this ch.). The
military
budget for 1989 was 4 percent less than that for 1988
(see Military Budget
, this ch.).
Data as of October 1992
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