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WARSAW, Poland – Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's last communist-era leader, said Monday he wants to work with former foe Lech Walesa to set up a truth commission that would examine the country's past behind the Iron Curtain.

Jaruzelski, who made history for ordering a 1981 military crackdown on Walesa's pro-democracy Solidarity movement, told The Associated Press in an interview that the commission should act as a "lay confessional" for a nation bitterly divided by memories of its communist past....

Walesa has backed the idea of a truth commission like the one Jaruzelski proposes, but wants it to be formed by the current, government-funded National Remembrance Institute. Jaruzelski, however, prefers for it to be independent, arguing that the institute has failed to behave as a neutral and objective arbiter.

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Associated Press

[ 24 May 2005: Message edited by: swallow ]

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Originally posted by Sirius:
I like to think I'm fairly well informed about general events in Eastern Europe but I've never heard of any 'bitter divide' between Poles over their communist past. For instance in East Germany I aware of the issue of the Stazi files and disputes over land and property between West and East Germans, not to mention the hangover from unification in general that still plagues Germany, but Poland?

I thought the vast majority were happy to be rid of communism and the proxy rule of Moscow which in some ways was a continuation of the Partition of Poland carried out in 18th Century from which the Polish state emerged only briefly under Pilsudksi in the interwar years. Somebody care to enlighten me?

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Well you see, the Communist Party of Poland did not exist in a vacuum. It was actually made up of Polish people, see. So, you may have noticed that there has not been a house cleaning of those Poles who for one reason or other found themselves joining the Communist party either through conviction, self-interest or political realism.

So, you can see that there might be some devide between those who opposed the USSR's imposition of "Socialist Democracy" and those Poles who promoted it or collaborated with it.

But what is a little foreign occupation, manipulation and authoritarian dictatorship between brothers & sisters?

[ 31 May 2005: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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In December 1981, Jaruzelski suddenly declared martial law, ordering the army and special police units to seize control of the country, apprehend Solidarity's leaders, and prevent all further union activity. In effect, Jaruzelski executed a carefully planned and efficient military coup on behalf of the beleaguered and paralyzed the PZPR. The motives of this act remain unclear. The general later claimed that he acted to head off the greater evil of an imminent Soviet invasion; detractors dismissed this explanation as a pretext for an ironfisted attempt to salvage party rule. In any case, the junta suppressed resistance with a determination that cost the lives of several protesters, and by the new year the stunned nation was again under the firm grip of a conventional communist regime.

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