The paradoxes of Jaruzelski's Poland

Abstract

Many people in the West see Jaruzelski's Poland as a particularly oppressive totalitarian regime; from this perspective the main problem of contemporary Poland is, obviously, the lack of freedom and the constant violation of human rights by the Polish Communist rulers. This is the view which the radical opposition in Poland's emigre press wants us to adopt. In fact, however, only the younger generation in Poland can express such views in good faith; the older generation which has experienced Stalinism and knows what totalitarianism is like cannot really maintain that Jaruzelski's government is worse in this respect than previous Communist governments in Poland.