ABSTRACT
The unity of policy decisions and personnel actions is axiomatic for Soviet Communists. The discord over granting legal status to Solidarity, Kania was guilty of what is known in Soviet jargon as “capitulationism,” or giving ground to the enemy on a point of principle. The director of Kremlin staff work extolled the Soviet Party as a model of discipline and “implacable struggle against all kinds of capitulationists". The security police is the ultimate guardian of bureaucratic power and privilege in a state organized along Soviet lines. The document contains “information that is a state secret” and investigation turned up the source of the leakage and persons who had duplicated and then publicized the document. The Communist union men were also reported to have deplored “opportunism,” which in the context of events is a shaft at Kania’s policy of going the extra mile to placate Solidarity. The political preparations for armed intervention or martial law were at first not in evidence.
