ABSTRACT
Many people in the West see Jaruzelski’s Poland as a particularly oppressive totalitarian regime. From this perspective, the main problem of contemporary Poland is, obviously, the lack of freedom and the constant violation of human rights by the Polish communist rulers. As far as repressiveness is concerned, Jaruzelski’s government cannot be compared to the government in Chile; it deserves rather to be seen as a mild, self-limiting counterrevolution. But the possible success of the government’s conciliatory policies constitutes a threat to the underground opposition, since the authority of the latter is inversely proportionate to the authority of the government; hence the destructive character of the conflict. True, many Poles are quite convinced that Jaruzelski’s government is indeed a “lesser evil.” On the whole, however, the party’s flirtation with nationalism has not only misfired but backfired.
