Two weeks ago I attended a press conference at the Polish Press Agency in downtown Warsaw. The panel of distinguished individuals included historians, professors and retired military personnel. The subject of the conference was the 20th anniversary of the institution of martial law in Poland.
Tanks, meant to instill terror in the population, were a common sight on Polish streets during the Martial Law period. Photo credit: J. Żołnierkiewicz
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Red Army was in control of Poland. The Western allies had agreed to leave Poland to the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. Joseph Stalin had no intention of allowing Polish independence. Rigged elections, in direct violation of the mandates of the Yalta Conference, left Poland with a Communist puppet government. This situation would persist until the final collaps of communism in Poland and the first free elections in the country in June 1989.
The driving force that led to the elections of 1989 and the overthrow of communism was the Solidarity movement. Solidarity started as the first non-communist-controlled trade union in Poland or any other Warsaw Pact country. The union grew into a broad-based democratic movement that severely threatened the communist elites of Poland. This threat led the communist authorities to impose martial law in Poland from December 13, 1981 to July 22, 1983. Pro-democracy organizations such as Solidarity were banned overnight, thousands of dissidents were arrested and even more extreme forms of censorship were instituted. Squads of soldiers patrolled the streets at night and all citizens were subject to a curfew. Overshadowing the tense situation in Poland was the spectre of Soviet intervention which could have led to thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of soldiers invading Poland to crush any opposition.
Panelists at the “Martial Law” press conference, background is a declassified map of plans for Soviet military intervention
The panelists at the press conference that I attended had a variety of opinions to share and experiences that shaped them. One of panelists was a retired general who had intimate knowledge of the plans for martial law, another is a well-known historian who was a leading democratic reformer who was even sentenced to death for his activities after having escaped abroad.
The press conference was a reminder for me that history, and our understanding of what it means, is an ever evolving process. Even though the events of 1981 and beyond fall into the realm of history, so much information is yet to be discovered that I am sure many new interpretations will come forward in coming years and decades.
