Wojciech Jaruzelski

Biography

Wojciech Jaruzelski was born in 1923 in Kurów into a family of Polish gentry and was educated at a Catholic school in Warsaw. After the Soviet invasion of 1939 his family was deported to Siberia, where forced labour damaged his eyes and left him wearing dark glasses for life. In 1943 he joined the Soviet-sponsored Polish army, fought through to Warsaw and Berlin, and after the war took part in campaigns against anti-communist insurgents before graduating from the infantry school and the General Staff Academy.

He joined the communist party in 1948 and rose quickly after 1956: chief political officer of the army in 1960, chief of staff in 1964 and Minister of National Defence from 1968 to 1983. In that post he sent Polish troops into Czechoslovakia in 1968 and was in charge of the army when troops fired on striking workers on the Baltic coast in 1970.

Appointed prime minister in February 1981 and party First Secretary that October, he declared martial law on 13 December 1981 to crush Solidarity, ruling through the Military Council of National Salvation until 1983. He became chairman of the Council of State in 1985. Faced with economic collapse and renewed strikes, he opened the Round Table talks with Solidarity in 1989; after the partly free election he was chosen by parliament as president, the only candidate, and appointed Tadeusz Mazowiecki as prime minister. He stepped down in December 1990.

In retirement he was charged in 2006 over the imposition of martial law but avoided most hearings on health grounds. He died in Warsaw in 2014 and remains a divisive figure in Poland.