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To: Yaacov who wrote (15282)	11/12/1999 7:15:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

How Jaruzelski hastened fall of the Soviet bloc By Julius Strauss in Budapest and Krzysztof Leski in Warsaw HUNGARY'S leader planned to impose martial law in 1989 to halt the drift towards democracy but was dissuaded by reformers in Hungary and Gen Wojciech Jaruzelski in Poland. Had martial law been put in place, the momentous events at the end of the year, when the Hungarian, Czechoslovak and East German systems collapsed peacefully, could have been delayed or carried through only with great bloodshed. Early in 1989 only part of the Hungarian and Polish Communist leaderships backed the tentative moves towards wide-reaching political and economic reform in the Communist bloc introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president. The leaders of Czechoslovakia, East Germany and, especially, Romania and Bulgaria were opposed. The historic opportunity to liberate the Soviet bloc could have been missed. Mr Gorbachev had lost much support in the Soviet Union. Documents released recently in America suggest that he was unsure how far the process should go and often hesitated at the prospect of scrapping communism altogether. The decision of whether martial law should be introduced in Hungary was faced early in 1989 at a closed-door meeting of the Communist leadership under Karoly Grosz, leader from May 1988 until the summer of 1989. Nyers Rezso, a leading Communist reformer, who was to succeed Mr Grosz as party leader, said: "He announced that we should consider the introduction of martial law in February. He gave a speech suggesting that the White Terror of 1919-20 could return to Hungary if we didn't act. We were all deeply shocked. "In Hungarian terms, Grosz was hardline but he was not a fundamentalist. We told him we could not agree with him. At this stage it became apparent that there were huge differences between him and the reformers." Mr Grosz also raised the possibility of imposing martial law during a visit to Poland when he met Gen Jaruzelski, the Polish Communist leader, who had imposed martial law in Poland in 1981 to try to crush Solidarity, the trade union movement. Gen Jaruzelski told The Telegraph that Mr Grosz was keen on the idea but he strongly advised him not to go ahead. He said: "Grosz feared that the opposition or the West might try to destabilise the process of change. I told him that our martial law was a lesser evil back in 1981, but to use force under the current very different circumstances was unacceptable. "I told him that an attempt to stop the reforming process using extraordinary methods must be excluded, and we in Poland would not go that way, although we understood how risky and difficult the path ahead was." Mr Grosz, now dead, backed down, but evidence from a Hungarian secret service agent at the time shows that martial law was seriously considered. The agent said: "I wouldn't say that we were ready to move, or that concrete preparations had been made, but it was certainly discussed seriously. Later the idea was dropped." The consequences had Hungary imposed martial law in 1989 are difficult to gauge. Hungary was considered the leading reformer in the Soviet bloc and its decision to allow East Germans holidaying there that summer to leave for the West was one of the most significant nails banged into the Communist coffin that year. Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia and East Germany stood against Mr Gorbachev. A similar stance by Hungary could have swung the tide in the Warsaw Pact countries against democratic reform. The decision of the Hungarian leaders to resist the temptation to resort to violence and to accept reform instead may have been one of those decisive moments in history when the fate of millions hung in the balance. telegraph.co.uk