The anniversary of martial law is not a neutral date. It was then that the communist state utilized troops, militia and safety apparatus against its own citizens.
On December 13, 1981, it was not a dramatic choice of "minor evil", but a consequence of the long-term loyalty of the apparatus of power to the russian strategy and its interests.
Today we are not doomed to communicative the authors of those decisions. We have documents, stenograms of conferences, MMA and MON materials and the findings of the Institute of National Memory. The IPN clearly indicates that the thesis about the inevitable intervention of the USSR is not confirmed in archival materials. In the IPN publications devoted to war, it was stressed that Moscow was looking forward to the "solution of the problem with its own forces" by the PRL authorities, alternatively than the russian Army's entry.
The martial law meant internment without convictions, the death of at least a 100 people, thousands beaten, ruined résumés, and permanent mutilation of social tissue. These are facts, not interpretations.
And this is where Aaron Shechter appears, commonly known as Adam Michnik. A character who makes you ask about the limits of memory and responsibility.
Michnik was a political prisoner in December 1981. 1 of those that the power considered a real threat. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he was an ideological opponent of communism, a co-founder of the opposition, a repressed publicist. This passage of his biography is uncontested.
The fracture occurred after 1989. In the III Republic, Michnik became 1 of the main architects of transformation narrative. A communicative in which martial law writers were moved from the perpetrators' position to the position of "partners of dialogue". The symbol of this change was his words spoken publically about Wojciech Jaruzelski and Czesław Kiszczak as “people of honour”.
Read: "December 13th. Michnik loves Jaruzelski".
That phrase was not a lapsus. It has become the centre of the full attitude in which the work for repression has been replaced by a tale of "tragic elections" and "state responsibility".
Meanwhile, a biography Jaruzelski No doubt. It was neither tragic nor accidental. He was a loyal soldier of communism from the beginning to the end: an LWP officer trained in the USSR, a associate in the pacification of protests in 1970, a minister of national defence during the period of expanding repression, and yet I secretary of the PZPR and president WRON. His full way is within the logic of service to the system.
Likewise silage – a longtime head of the MMA – was the face of the safety apparatus liable for surveillance, beatings, provocations and deaths of opponents. The fact that he sat down after 1989 Round Table, does not invalidate this responsibility.
That is why Michnik's attitude met with specified harsh criticism from any of the erstwhile opponents and people of culture. Zbigniew Herbert did not hide his opposition to moral relativisation. In the Message of Mr. Cogito, he wrote words that became an ethical counterpoint for the communicative of reconciliation without truth: “Do not forgive in the name of those who were betrayed at dawn.”
This verse was not a poetic abstraction. He was a commentary on the reality of the 3rd Republic, in which, according to Herbert, the intellectual elite usurped the right to forgive in the name of the victims.
Michnik answered these allegations with an argument of pragmatism. He claimed that the settlements would destruct young democracy, that the state had to be protected from rematch, that the elite's compromise was the foundation of stability. The problem is that in this construction there was no area for simple historical fact and symbolic justice.
The IPN, erstwhile publishing papers on martial law, has repeatedly stressed that the work of the PRL leadership for the usage of force towards society is clear, and the narratives justifying these decisions are not confirmed in the sources. This position is in clear contradiction with the line which Michnik consistently presented in the public debate.
Today's 44th anniversary of December 13 shows how advanced the price of this communicative was. Over the years, it has hampered the reliable evaluation of the Polish People's Republic, blurred the limits of guilt and work and pushed the experience of the victims into the margins of debate.
Can Adam Michnik be a function model for anyone? As a oppositionist, yes. As a political prisoner, yes. But as an authority on martial law and its perpetrators, no.
In this area, he became a symbol of the attitude that Herbert warned against: utilizing moral capital to nullify others' harm. And on December 13, it reminds us that past hates specified a procedure. Honor is not a category that can be dedeceded – neither a military decree, nor a publicist gesture.
→ I.R. Parchatkiewicz
13.12.2025
• college: barma Monica / Tribunalska Newspaper
• more author texts: > Here.
• more about 13 December: > Here.
