Encyclopedia > Wojciech Jaruzelski

  Article Content

Wojciech Jaruzelski

Wojciech Jaruzelski (born 1923) was a Polish political and military leader.

An officer of the Polish Army, he was trained at the Polish Higher Infantry School and the General Staff Academy, and joined the Polish United Workers' Party[?] (the former Polish Communist Party), of which Central Committee he became a member in 1964. Soon he was also named the minister of defense.

Jaruzelski became the party's national secretary in 1981, when Lech Walesa's movement (Solidarity) was starting to earn national and external popularity. Under Jaruzelski's inspiration and pression, a martial law was issued to contrast the increasing political relevance of Solidarity, but finally after a few years, at the beginning of the 1990s, the movement was legally recognized.

Jaruzelski was the President of Poland from 1989 to 1990, when Walesa took his place.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
BBC News 24

... could view it. In 1999, with the advent of digital television in the UK, satellite viewers were able to view the service. The BBC were initially criticized for ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 38.4 ms