THE SOLIDARITY DECADE 491could apparently act independently of the main Party apparatus and which, if
necessary, could overthrow it. The answer did not just lie with General
Jaruzelski and his immediate associates such as General Kiszczak or General
Siwicki, who had quietly joined him in the Politburo. It lay with all those per-
sons, in uniform or not, who held all the key positions in government and indus-
try, especially in the military, security and intelligence services, and who held
their first allegiance to the Soviet agencies that had approved those positions in
the first place. It should have been no revelation. But the core of the Communist
Establishment consisted of the servile agents and infiltrators of the Soviet Union.
General Jaruzelski was to describe them as 'patriots'.
At this juncture, a British author who had been asked by his publishers to
summarize the progress of Solidarity over the preceding year, was convinced
that some sort of political coup was brewing. He was also convinced that noth-
ing could bring Poland back to the status quo before 1980...
Much depends of the actions on the Soviet Union whose dilemma is as obvious as its
intentions are obscure. If the Soviet Union intervenes by force ... it may regain control
of Poland for a season; but it will earn the undying contempt of all Poles, and will lose
their support for ever. Poland would rapidly become an intolerable burden on the whole
Soviet empire. On the other hand, if the Soviet Union withholds its forces and chooses
the path of restraint, there is no way that the Polish Party can reassert its former position.
Whatever happens, there can be no return to the ancien regime as practised in Poland by
Gomulka and Gierek since 1956.^4The Military Dictatorship from December 1981General Jaruzelski's Coup of 13 December 1981 took almost everyone by sur-
prise. It surprised the Western academics, who, with very few exceptions, had
argued how the structure of the Soviet system precluded a take-over by the
Military. It surprised the members of the Council of State who were given only
a couple of hours' notice to legalize the 'state of war'. It certainly surprised the
leaders of Solidarity, most of whom were arrested in their beds during the first
night. Most Poles awoke on the morning of the 13th, to find tanks on the streets,
army check-points at every crossroads, and the Proclamation of Martial Law
(printed earlier in the Soviet Union) posted on every corner. In the course of the
next week, most of the spontaneous protest strikes in mines, shipyards, and fac-
tories up and down the country were broken by mobile squads of the ZOMO
police, operating behind army cordons.
As it happened, the leaders of Western governments were not surprised by
developments. They had been tipped off by information given to the CIA by
Col. Ryszard Kuklinski, an officer of Poland's military intelligence working in
Washington.^5 The USA and NATO reacted with equanimity.
At some points, there were repeated occupations and reoccupations. At two
mines in Silesia, 'Wujek' and 'Piast', there were protracted underground sit-ins; at
the Wujek mine, seven men were killed for resisting. But, in general, resistance