Down with Big Brother (77 page)

38.
Chernenko memorandum, December 27, 1979, TsKhSD. See also Dobrynin, p. 439.

39.
Dobrynin, p. 440.

40.
Armiya
, no. 6 (March 1992), p. 66.

41.
Armiya
, nos. 7 and 8 (April 1992), p. 54. In reconstructing the events of December 27, I have also drawn on Mikhail Boltunov,
Alpha—Sverkhsekretnii Otryad KGB
. For an Afghan perspective, I turned to Raja Anwar,
The Tragedy of Afghanistan
, which confirms many of the details of the Soviet accounts.

42.
Armiya
, nos. 7 and 8, p. 55.

43.
Anwar, p. 189.

44.
Boltunov, p. 37.

45.
Ibid., p. 44.

46.
Ibid., p. 72.

47.
Armiya
, nos. 7 and 8, p. 57.

48.
Ibid.

49.
Ibid., pp. 55–56. See also Lyakhovski, pp. 144–51.

50.
Ibid., p. 56.

51.
Boltunov, pp. 86–89. For Karmal’s character and alcoholism, see also Leonid Shebarshin,
Ruka Moskvi
, pp. 206–09.

52.
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS-SOV-79-251), December 28, 1979, pp. D1–2.

53.
Casualty figures for the storming of Amin’s palace remain contradictory.
These come from
Armiya
nos. 7 and 8, p. 56, the semiofficial Soviet account of the incident.

54.
The description of Khrushchev’s old dacha comes from Sergo Mikoyan, who spent family vacations here in the fifties and sixties. Conversation with author, March 1994.

55.
For a discussion of Soviet agricultural problems during this period, see Valery Boldin,
Ten Years That Shook the World
, p. 35. Also Zhores A. Medvedev,
Gorbachev
, pp. 103–12.

56.
Eduard Shevardnadze,
The Future Belongs to Freedom
, pp. 23–26.

57.
At a press conference on October 15, 1992, Gorbachev said this conversation had taken place in December 1979. In his memoirs (p. 37), Shevardnadze also places the conversation in Pitsunda but says it took place in the winter of 1984, shortly before Gorbachev became Soviet leader.

58.
Boldin, p. 36.

59.
Stavropolskaya Pravda
, May 6, 1978. Quoted in Zhores Medvedev, p. 216.

60.
XXV Congress of the CPSU. Official stenographic record. Politizdat, 1976. Vol. I, p. 186.

61.
FBIS-SOV-79-251, p. D3.

62.
Shevardnadze, p. 26. Interview, March 1994.

63.
CPSU Central Committee resolution, June 23, 1980, TsKhSD. Lyakhovski, p. 113.

64.
Lech Wałęsa,
A Way of Hope
, p. 44.

65.
Roman Laba,
The Roots of Solidarity
, pp. 15–56.

66.
Wałęsa,
A Way of Hope
, p. 70.

67.
Neal Ascherson, The
Book of Lech
Wałęsa, p. 55. See also Jean-Yves Potel,
Gdansk: La Mémoire ouvrière 1970–1980
, pp. 156–59

68.
Wałęsa,
A Way of Hope
, p. 117. For Borowczyk’s account of the strike, see Stan Persky and Henry Flam,
The Solidarity Sourcebook
, pp. 73–78.
Solidarity
, no. 11, August 30 1980 (the shipyard strike bulletin), interviewed the strike insti-gators.
The Polish August
(editor Oliver MacDonald) contains a full English translation of all the strike bulletins.

69.
Persky and Flam, p. 74.

70.
Interview with strike committee member Gregorz Obernikowicz, August 14, 1980.

71.
Wałęsa,
A Way of Hope
, pp. 117–18.

72.
Solidarity strike bulletin, no. 11.

73.
Wałęsa,
A Way of Hope
, pp. 116–17.

74.
There are several different versions of this speech. This one is from an exhaustive Polish account of the strike by Andrzej Drzycimski and Tadeusz Skutnik,
Gdańsk Sierpie? ’80
, p. 437. See also interview with Orianna Fallaci, March 1981, reprinted in Persky and Flam, p. 102.

75.
Persky and Flam, p. 102.

76.
Gierek, p. 169.

77.
After the collapse of communism, the building was transformed into the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

78.
Politburo transcript for August 15, 1980, in Zbigniew Włodek,
ed., Tajne Dokumenty Biura Politycznego: PZPR a Solidarność 1980–1981
, pp. 28–34.

79.
Ibid., p. 29.

80.
Gierek speech to Gdańsk shipyard workers on January 25, 1971. See article by Mieczysław Rakowski,
Polityka
, no. 12 (March 21, 1981).

81.
Gierek, p. 160.

82.
For Gierek’s suspicions of his Politburo colleagues, see Gierek, pp. 155–60. In their memoirs, both Kania and Jaruzelski deny that they were part of a plot to unseat the first secretary.

83.
Włodek, p. 33.

84.
August 1980: The Strikes in Poland
, p. 11.

85.
Files of the Summer ’80 task force, which remained in existence until early
1982, were published in
Życie Warszawy
, May 12, 1994,
Ekstra
, pp. 1–3. See also Jerzy Jachowicz, “Tajemnice Wojny z Narodem,”
Gazeta Wyborcza
(November 7, 1990), p. 1, and Włodek, p. 24.

86.
Interview with Kuroń, August 17, 1980.

87.
Politburo meeting, August 23, Włodek, pp. 54–57.

88.
Gierek, p. 165.

89.
Interview with Czesław Szalanski, Gierek’s personal electrician, July 1993.

90.
Politburo meeting, August 26, Włodek, pp. 70–72.

91.
Gierek’s report to the Politburo on his meeting with Ambassador Aristov, August 28, Włodek, p. 78. In his memoirs (p. 168) Gierek claims that Brezhnev called him on the direct Kremlin line, offering to “lend a hand” if he “grabbed the contras by the muzzle.” There is no other documentary evidence to support Gierek’s version of the telephone conversation with Brezhnev, and both Kania and Jaruzelski are skeptical that it ever took place. Gierek maintains that both men were present when the Soviet leader called and listened to the conversation, but Kania and Jaruzelski deny this. Since Gierek has proved to be a less than reliable witness on several other points, his memoirs should be treated with caution.

92.
Stanislaw Kania,
Zatrzymać
Konfrontację
, p. 32.

93.
Ibid., p. 32. Kania’s account of Gierek’s actions during this period is supported by Jaruzelski and former KGB resident Vitaly Pavlov. In an interview in June 1993. Pavlov said that he had learned from confidential sources that Gierek wanted to raise the question of Soviet military assistance at the Politburo, but Kania was opposed.

94.
?ycie Warszawy
. May 12, 1994, p. 1. See also Kania, p. 33.

95.
Politburo meeting, August 29, Włodek, pp. 84–90. At the time there were widely reported rumors that a much more formidable figure, Central Committee secretary Stefan Olszowski, was also in favor of the use of force. See, for example, Timothy Garton Ash,
We the People: The Revolution of 89
, p. 62, or Neal Ascherson,
The Polish August
, p. 162. Olszowski may have used Kruczek as a stalking horse, but the Politburo record shows that he himself adopted a more moderate wait-and-see position, insisting only on “consultations” with the Kremlin and a vigorous propaganda campaign against the strikers.

96.
Interview with Colonel Ryszard Kukliński,
Kultura
(Paris, April 1987), translated in
Orbis
, no. 32 (Philadelphia. Winter 1988), p. 14. According to Kukliński, a party-state leadership staff was established on August 24, 1980, and immediately began drawing up preparations for martial law.

97.
The Soviet Politburo set up a commission under Suslov to follow events in Poland on August 25. Portions of the Suslov commission archives were declassified in August 1993. in connection with President Yeltsin’s visit to Poland, and published in booklet form. See
Dokumenty Teczka Susłowa
, pp. 12–25.

98.
Politburo memorandum, August 28, 1980, quoted by Mark Kramer, “New Evidence on the Polish Crisis,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 5 (1995), P. 120.

99.
A. Kemp-Welch, ed.,
The Birth of Solidarity
, p. 140.

100.
The scene at the gate is recorded in the films
Man of Iron
and
Workers ’80
.

101.
Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Power and Principle
, p. 465.

102.
Interview with Kukliński in
WP
, September 27, 1992. p. A1. See also portrait of Kukliński by Ben Weiser in
WP
magazine, December 13, 1992.

103.
Kukliński interview in
Kultura
. pp. 3–57, partially translated into English in
Orbis
32 (1988), pp. 7–31. The
Orbis
issue
(pp. 32–48) also contains extracts from Brzezinski’s White House diaries, covering the Polish crisis of December 1980. For Jaruzelski’s account of these events, see Wojciech Jaruzelski,
Les Chaînes et le Refuge
, pp. 237–39.

104.
Brzezinski interview, April 1994. See also Jaruzelski,
Les Chaînes et le Refuge
, pp. 24–29.

105.
Brzezinski,
Orbis
, p. 36.

106.
Ibid., p. 37.

107.
Kania, p. 84.

108.
Jaruzelski,
Les Chaînes et le Refuge
, pp. 16, 242.

109.
Ibid., p. 239. At a press conference in Warsaw on December 4, a Communist Party spokesman, Jozef Kłasa, said Polish Communists had the “right and duty” to seek help from other socialist states in the event of a “real threat to socialism” but would not make such a request “lightly.”
WP
, December 5, 1980, p. A20.

110.
Deutschland Archiv, no. 3, March 1993, p. 336. See also
Moskovskie Novosti
, no. 48 (November 28, 1993), p. 12.

111.
Kania, p. 88.

112.
Honecker obituary,
LAT
, April 29, 1994.

113.
Mlynář, p. 157.

114.
Jaruzelski,
Les Chaînes et le Refuge
, p. 240.

115.
Kania, p. 91. Vitaly Svietlov, a Soviet Communist Party official who served as interpreter, remembers the conversation slightly differently. He quotes Brezhnev as saying, “Okay, there will be no maneuvers. But if we see that they are overthrowing you, we will go in.” Interview,
Gazeta Wyborcza
, no. 291 (December 11, 1992), p. 14.

116.
Kania, pp. 92–93.

117.
Politburo minutes, October 29, 1980, TsKhSD.

118.
Jaruzelski,
Les Chaînes et le Refuge
, p. 237. See also article by General Anatoly Gribkov, deputy chief of staff of the Warsaw Pact, in
Voyenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal
(Moscow), no. 9 (September 1992), p. 55.

119.
Jaruzelski,
Les Chaînes et le Refuge
, p. 241. Jaruzelski maintains that Brezhnev canceled the invasion plans because of opposition from Kádár and Ceauşescu but provides no evidence to support this conclusion.

120.
Gribkov, p. 54.

121.
Kukliński,
Kultura
(Paris, April 1987), pp. 25–26.

122.
Politburo session, January 22, 1981, TsKhSD.

123.
Report of Suslov commission on Poland, April 16, 1981, TsKhSD. Published in booklet form in
Dokumenty Teczka Sustowa
, p. 40.