History /
Jaruzelski vs Pinochet [120]
Despite his gentry roots (Noble Clan of Ślepowron), exemplary upbringing in a patriotic Polish home and a Catholic school run by the Marian Fathers, he turned his back on all that for the sake of a career.
A background story from the beginning of the economic transformation:
As Latin Americans had just learned, authoritarian regimes have a habit of embracing democracy at the precise moment when their economic projects are about to implode. Poland was no exception. The speed of the collapse of the old order and the sudden election sweep had been shocks in themselves: in a matter of months, Solidarity activists went from hiding from the secret police to being responsible for paying the salaries of those same agents. And now they had the added shock of discovering that they barely had enough money to make the payroll. Rather than building the post-Communist economy they had dreamed of, the movement had the far more pressing task of avoiding a complete meltdown and potential mass starvation.From the book by Naomi Klein:
The shock doctrine...Jaruzelski's evolution in the '80s even anticipated that of the Solidarity trade union. The slogan formed in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in 1980:
There can be no freedom without Solidarity - Nie ma Wolności bez Solidarności.
The slogan of the then Communist government (Jaruzelski's government), emblazoned on a banner stretched across the Central Committee building, echoing with the Hayek's "Liberty and responsibility are inseparable":
There can be no freedom without responsibility - Nie ma Wolności bez Odpowiedzialności.
Jerzy Urban about Jaruzelski in his long interview with Marta Streecka:
Pieklił się, że ten Reagan to bezczelny kłamca i fałszywiec. Aprobował przecież stan wojenny, a później udawał oburzenie. Oczekiwał w polityce prostolinijności, ale tylko od przeciwników.
[Jaruzelski] ranted and raved about Reagan being a blatant liar and a double-crosser. After all he gave consent to the martial law and then later [Reagan] pretended righteous indignation. He expected from politicians to be guileless, ingenuous and artless, but that was the standard for his opponents.
Tomasz Wołek's oppinions about the interview:
Żaden członek elity władzy nie uchylił zasłony tak zamaszyście, odsłaniając skryte za nią tajemnice. Ten widok przyprawia o mdłościAs yet no other member of the elite politicians drew so boldly the curtains aside as to reveal behind it the covered secrets.
In 1999, Michał Kamiński, former chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists in the European Parliament, along with Marek Jurek and the journalist
Tomasz Wołek (look above) visited London to present a gorget embossed with an image of the Virgin Mary to former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Kamiński told the BBC's Polish service that
this was the most important meeting of my whole life. Gen Pinochet was clearly moved and extremely happy with our visit.
Maybe they should present the gorget to Jaruselski, after all two generals have much in common with each other, namely the road to serfdom : Hayek's views on Pinochet's Chile. Kamiński, Wołek and Jurek are also somewhat alike Jaruzelski in other respect: they
turned their back on all that Solidarity stood for for the sake of a career. Am I wrong?
