ABSTRACT
Janusz Onyszkiewicz suppresses an almost giggly smile as he contemplates the fact that he was the first civilian Deputy Minister to Defence in the Warsaw Pact. In a sense Janusz Onyszkiewicz is the epitome of the Polish revolution; he is the poacher turned gamekeeper. The sort of reasonableness which characterized Onyszkiewicz’s behaviour was of course the quintessential factor in Solidarity’s initial survival. A mathematician by profession, Onyszkiewicz, unlike some of his fellow activists, appeared to stand back from the emotions and momentum in the post-August months. For Janusz Onyszkiewicz the whole process of democratic change in Poland depended on playing the game by the new rules: ‘The external situation is now different. Tadeusz Mazowiecki was in a panicky mood there was so much happening in Eastern Europe and in Poland. The admission was of enormous emotional and historical importance in Poland.
