The USSR in the Policy of the Government and President Wojciech Jaruzelski in 1989–1990
Keywords:
Polish-Soviet relations, Wojciech Jaruzelski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Krzysztof Skubiszewski, Warsaw Pact, Comecon, The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, withdrawal of Soviet troops from Poland, Polish-Soviet disputes over historyAbstract
The article shows the attempts to overthrow the USSR’s hegemony
over Poland of the Solidarity camp which on 4 June 1989 won the first free
post-war parliamentary elections in Poland. The author presents views and
intentions of communists removed from power as a result of the elections
from the camp of which the then Polish president, Wojciech Jaruzelski, came
from. The amended constitution of the People’s Republic of Poland equipped
the president with enormous competences. The article reports the history
of the president-communist in times of nascent democracy in Poland and
his relations with the USSR, who, however, did not take any steps to hinder
Poland’s accession to the European Union and NATO. The study argues with
the thesis that the government pursued the policy of Finlandisation.
The author reached for the files from the Presidential Archives and the
PPR Historical Records Archive Foundation, not used so far in analyses of
international relations.
