Wojciech Yaruzelsky died

Photo from the website of the Polska newspaper

On Sunday, May 25, the former head of socialist Poland Wojciech Yaruzelsky died, the Wyborcza newspaper reports . July 6, he would be 91 years old. The general was a key figure in the history of Poland in the second half of the XX century. One of the main merits of Yaruzelsky from the point of view of compatriots and historians is that, being in the 80s almost a military dictator, he voluntarily went to refuse communist ideology and the transfer of power to democratic forces peacefully.

Last weeks, Yaruzelsky was in the neurological department of the hospital of the Military Medical Institute in Warsaw. After a stroke in early May, he did not recover. Wojciech Vitold Yaruzelsky was born in 1923 in the village of Kuruv Lublin Voivodeship in the family of landowner Vladislav Yaruzelsky. In 1939, his family moved to Lithuania, and after the Baltic states joined the USSR, the Yaruzelsky family was arrested on June 14, 1941 Suscal to Siberia. Vladislav was sent to a camp in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Wojciech with his mother and sister lived in Turochak and worked in a forestryman, where he received snow blind, so he wore dark glasses until the end of his life, for which he called the “welder” in his homeland. Yaruzelsky’s father died in Biysk in June 1942, and in July 1943, Wojciech joined the 1st Polish Infantry Division formed in the USSR. He took part in military operations on Vistula, on the Magnushevsky bridgehead, in the liberation of Warsaw, the assault on the Pomorsky shaft, in the battles on the Baltic coast, the Oder and Elbe. For courage in battles, he was awarded with many Polish military medals and orders, including the highest military award of Poland, the Order of Virtuti Militari. Already at the age of 33, Yaruzelsky became a general, and soon the army general (subsequently refused to confer the title of Marshal). In 1969, he took the post of Minister of Defense of the Polish People's Republic, which is associated with his participation in the operation to enter the troops of the Warsaw Treaty in Czechoslovakia. In 1981, Yaruzelsky became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the PORP and the chairman of the Council Minister of the PNP. From 1985 to 1989 he served as chairman of the State Council, the highest state post in the country. In 1989 he was elected President of the Republic of Poland. In 1990, he left the political scene. In December 1981, he introduced martial law, interned the leaders of the “solidarity”, which constituted the main opposition of the party’s authority, and suppressed all attempts to destabilize his rule. At the same time, he categorically opposed proposals for the commissioning of Soviet troops into the territory of Poland. Nevertheless, in 1989 he sat down at the negotiating table with the opposition and, as results, allowed the conduct of multi -party elections to the Seim of Poland. In 1990, according to the results of the presidential election, peacefully transferred power to the elected President Lech Valens, he himself did not participate in the elections. In the next 24 years, attempts have been repeatedly made to hold Yaruzelsky accountable for his actions at the head of state, which did not lead to anything.