For a leader to prosper in the political jungle of communist Eastern Europe from the 1940s to the 1980s demanded many qualities, notably the gift of studied ambiguity. Of this General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland’s last communist leader, was a master. When the transition from Soviet autocracy to democracy came in 1989, the vast majority of the Polish people loathed him as a ruthless authoritarian and a symbol of years of oppression while the Reagan administration labelled him “a Russian in a Polish uniform”. Only a minority viewed him instead as a patriot who, in the most difficult of times, had done his best for his country.
Jaruzelski became head of state in Poland in 1981 at the precise moment that the trade union Solidarity was