Poland’s Final Communist Leader Faces Charges

I don’t know how I missed this, but in late March prosecutors from Poland’s National Remembrance Institute, a government organization that investigates communist-era crimes, filed charges against General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland’s final communist leader, for unconstitutionally imposing martial law in 1981. The move, which was designed to eliminate the Solidarity movement, led to the imprisonment of tens of thousands of Poles. If convicted on all the charges — he is also charged with directing an “organized criminal group of a military nature having as its goal the carrying out of crimes that consisted of the deprivation of freedom through internment” — Jaruzelski could be sentenced to a maximum of 11 years in prison, three for violating the constitution and eight for the various “communist crimes.”

When the charges were announced, Jaruzelski defended his actions as necessary to protect Poland’s independence:

Jaruzelski, 82, responded by repeating his insistence that he imposed martial law to prevent an invasion by the Soviet Union, which controlled Poland during the communist era.

Though he conceded that martial law was harmful, he also insisted that it was the “salvation of the country.” The army imposed it with “full awareness that it was protecting society,” Jaruzelski said in comments broadcast on public television.

Lech Walesa, who was imprisoned during martial law, says the charges are a necessary step for Poland to put its communist past behind it once and for all:

Walesa said he sees the charges as an important step in “settling accounts” but stopped short of expressing satisfaction.

“We need to settle the past so that nobody will have such ideas in the future — from this point of view it’s necessary to do,” Walesa told AP by telephone from Washington. “I’m not happy that such things took place, but I’m happy that we are clearing up history.”

Interestingly, in terms of “clearing up history,” Jaruzelski apologized last year for his role in the Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of the former Czechoslovakia, which led to dozens of deaths and the imprisonment of many prominent Czech leaders, including Prime Minister Alexander Dubcek:

Gen Jaruzelski, 82, said he was still “tormented” by the decision to send in Polish troops to crush a pro-democracy movement, known as the “Prague Spring”.

He made the apology on the 37th anniversary of the invasion on the Czech television.

Gen Jaruzelski was Poland‘s minister of defence at the time.

“It was a stupid political act,” he said during a TV debate on the issue.

“Today I deeply regret it but at the time I could not act otherwise. It was a political decision.

“But, in 1968, I was the defence minister implementing a political decision, convinced that there were grounds for that on the basis of the information available to us then,” Gen Jaruzelski said.

More on the prosecution as it develops. It is not known when Jaruzelski’s trial might begin, and he still faces charges stemming from the shooting deaths of striking dock workers in 1970, when he was serving as defense minister. That trial began in 2001, but is stalled for procedural reasons.

Hat-tip: Dave Kopel at the Volokh Conspiracy.