A Hard Line With Poland

Polish and Soviet leaders met on numerous occasions to discuss the ongoing critical situation in Poland. On August 14, 1981, for example, Leonid Brezhnev (first party secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU]) met secretly with Stanislaw Kania and Wojciech Jaruzelski (leaders of the Communist Party in Poland [PZPR]) in the Crimea following Poland's Ninth Extraordinary Congress that took place in July. As the report about the secret meeting shows, Brezhnev was concerned about the deteriorating course of events in Poland and the determination of Solidarity; he forcefully advised Kania and Jaruzelski to act decisively, even to use force, to destroy the opposition and to ensure the future existence of socialism in Poland. The document reveals Brezhnev's recognition that socialism was at stake in the ongoing confrontations.