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Comments to Gen. Jaruzelski Interview
Bogdan Karpinski

"The martial law was a nightmare for me.".
Comment: Of course, because it is easier to rely on fear and cling to absolute power without meaningful opposition.

"If I, or you, were a Soviet general and could see the developments in Poland, I would have decided to intervene."
Comment: Jaruzelski was a soviet soldier, spoke Polish and wore a Polish uniform, so he "intervened".

"There were particular political reasons for this catastrophe [to happen]. In the Polish Communist Party there were dogmatists – “troglodytes”, as I named them – who did not want any reforms and were ready to get rid of them at any price."
Comment: Jaruzelski as a patriot and Pole in charge should have arrested them or interned them, and tried them for high treason instead of waging a war against almost the entire civilian population.

"There were also economic reasons. At that time USSR, Czechoslovakia and GDR [East Germany] offered main help to Poland – we needed all: products, energy, raw materials".
Comment: Poland did not need help from those countries. Poland needed to open its borders and introduce free and private markets and implement other things that he, instead, decided to stifle.

"From Moscow we always received reminders about who guaranteed our [Western] frontier. And [Russians] let us think: as long as you remain a socialist state, your [national] territory will not be curbed."
Comment: Really? I have to look at the Poland's current map again, because according to Jaruzelski , it may have changed since Poland is no longer a one party socialist state.

"One may criticize socialism at free will, but no one can deny that: after the war Poland made a great social leap forward."
Comment: Any country coming out of a war and its devastation would make progress. Germany did too. However, the country which lost the war enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and not just "a social leap forward". During Jaruzelski's term specifically, his countrymen enjoyed rationed food coupons, and the square sun at the state's choice and expense.

"After WWII we inherited a country of 24 million inhabitants –- six million perished during the war. But by 1970 there were counted [in Poland] 38 million people – it was a real demographical dash. As to the reproductiveness, we outdistanced GDR [East Germany], and also Czechoslovakia. But social provisions for such a big population growth began to crumble in the 1970s. As people used to tell then, in [Polish] shops one could find only vinegar. But [sarcastically] that vinegar was a strong aphrodisiac, as it brought about the birth of 14 millions of new Poles."
Comment: Despite Jaruzelski's and his party friends' efforts to limit the Polish population birth growth, Poles outpaced the neighbors also in their desire to shake themselves of the oppressive one party socialist state policies.

"And communism – in its ideal version, which was badly damaged by the historical practice – had to be considered as a social experience."
Comment: there is no ideal version of communism. It was a bad social and economic order, conceived and implemented by bad people. Jaruzelski is right. 45 years of communism instead of the pledged "forever" is quite an experience in the nation's history. Any domestic or foreign occupation and domination could be so characterized. Nazism was also a social experience for Germans, and for Jaruzelski as well.