14 - The End of the Campaign and Wałęsa’s Release

Summary

During a Security Service meeting on September 2, General Władysław Ciastoń, head of the Security Service and deputy minister of internal affairs, cautiously assessed that the demonstrations “did not turn out to be a success for Solidarity,” but their size was “larger than the optimistic version assumed [by the MSW].” General Jaruzelski voiced a much more unequivocal opinion: first, on September 1 at the WRON meeting, and then a day later at a Politburo session, he said that “the Solidarity extremists had played their funeral march.” At that same meeting, General Kiszczak stated that Solidarity's leaders had “lost their social mandate.” It is not clear whether this was because the minister of internal affairs thought the demonstrations had a low turnout, or because Solidarity had found it necessary to urge people to participate. In any case, the result was the same: it was definitively confirmed that there would be no talks. Many Church hierarchs were of the same opinion: “on 31 August Solidarity prepared its own funeral,” Archbishop Dąbrowski wrote in his diary, unconsciously repeating Jaruzelski's words.

The administrators of martial law decided that they were the indisputable victors, and thus they decided to strike while the iron was hot. On September 3, the public prosecutor's office filed formal charges against KOR members who had been interned up to that point, and issued warrants for their arrest: Jacek Kuroń, Adam Michnik, and Henryk Wujec, as well as Mirosław Chojecki and Jan Józef Lipski, who were both abroad. Upon hearing his colleagues had been arrested, Lipski returned to Poland—and to prison. Zbigniew Romaszewski joined them. He was already awaiting trial, which would later be known as the “Radio Solidarity Trial.” The prosecutor's charges were more serious this time than those that were usually heard at typical martial law trials. The charges referred to article 123 of the Criminal Code, relating to individuals involved in the organization of conspiratorial activities “whose aims were to deprive [Poland of its] independence, secede part of [Poland’s] territory, overthrow the regime by force, or diminish the defensive capabilities of the PRL [Polish People's Republic].” The highest possible sentence for these offenses was death.