The ability to leave

Among the communist leaders of Eastern Europe, who ruled the region with the blessing of Moscow in the second half of the last century, it was difficult to find interesting and expressive people. They "knocked into people" as part of a system that encouraged loyalty, diligence and grayness. To store fidelity, at least the external, communist dogmas and the Soviet “eldest brother”, to speak with long speeches at party congresses and plenums and to protect their plain throne from the creeps of competitors from the same party environment-in fact, the political art of the leaders of socialism was reduced to this. There were few exceptions from this rule.

One of them can be considered the former President of Poland Wojciech Yaruzelsky, whose long life ended on May 25. Fans of symbols, probably, will consider it no coincidence that this year Papa John Paul II was canonized and General Yaruzelsky, a leader, was very far from holiness, but who left a trace in Polish history, was no less noticeable than the only papa-pole. In the twentieth century, Poland knew a little calm years. The years of the reign of Yaruzelsky, the 80s, did not belong to them. In fact, the country lived in the state of the Cold Civil War, with which the two main acts of the Yaruzelian policy were associated: the introduction of martial law in December 1981 and the consent to negotiations with the opposition at the round table in early 1989. For the first many in Poland and beyond, they considered him a dictator, for the second he earned recognition even among his opponents as Lech Valens.

The military uniform and dark glasses (a consequence of snowy blindness earned in his youth in the Siberian exile) gave the general a resemblance to the head of some Latin American junta. They talked and talk about blood on his hands - primarily in connection with the suppression of the performances of workers in March 1970, when the general served as Minister of Defense. Martial law introduced by Yaruzelsky also did not do without sacrifices - and activists of the right -wing parties every year on December 13, on the anniversary of his introduction, reminded the general about this, holding noisy protests at his house in Warsaw. Nevertheless

We will not idealize the general: he defended his power and the system to which he served for many years. But it turned out that at the same time, Yaruzelsky defeated the revolutionary impatience that covered the Poles - and discovered the way to gradual peaceful changes

Yaruzelsky has never been a unambiguously black figure for most Poles. Even now, according to polls, almost half of the country's citizens believe that the introduction of martial law at the time of the acute political crisis was a tragic step, but true. And this despite the fact that the main argument of Yaruzelsky - they say, the alternative to his actions could be the Soviet military invasion of Poland - has long been called into question. Documents from declassified Soviet archives did not confirm that in Moscow then they really wanted to move the army across the western border. Perhaps Yaruzelsky prevented something else: not an invasion, but a bloody premature revolution, which in the early 1980s could hardly count on victory.

We will not idealize the general: then he defended his power and the system to which he served for many years. But it turned out that at the same time, Yaruzelsky defeated the revolutionary impatience that covered the Poles - and discovered the road to gradual peaceful changes. It has long been known that the last phrases remain from a long conversation in memory. The same applies to long political careers: people best remember how and under what circumstances the politician left, which is left after him. Wojciech Yaruzelsky managed to leave beautifully-after the Kygrugal table, which ended with the first partially free elections in June 1989, and a brief stay at the presidential post. He did not cling to power, realizing in time that, in the words of Solzhenitsyn, "the clock of communism - repulsed his own." The final phase of the transition from the communist regime to democracy in Poland finally turned out to be peaceful - and this is the merit of Yaruzelsky, although, of course, not his one.

Wojciech Yaruzelsky will always be a "tasty dish" for historians. In his life, the Catholic, who became a communist, a patriot, who became a servant of someone else's power, the Polish Pinochet, who became the Polish Gorbachev, and the dictator, who finally became a democrat, a lot of mysteries and a lot of spaciousness for a wide variety of versions and interpretations. But it is unlikely that one of those who will study the 90-year life of the general will refuse him a very important skill for a politician-the ability to leave in time.

Yaroslav Shimov - International Radio Observer Freedom, Historian of Central Europe