“There is no information about a [Soviet military] decision, or troop movements,” one of the freshly released documents declares.
The material was released to mark the 30th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law in Poland.
Article: http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Art...
The NATO viewpoint contrasts with that of General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's former communist leader, who continues to argue that imposing martial law was “a lesser evil” to avoid a Moscow-led invasion following a year and a half of protests by the Solidarity movement.
Some 10,000 Poles were arrested and a hundred killed during the 20-month long crackdown, with Polish tanks entering the streets on 13 December 1981.
The imposition of martial law dealt a serious but not fatal blow to Poland's Solidarity movement, which was pushing for democratic reforms.
Approximately 200 items were released by NATO on Tuesday, following on from the declassification of 70 archival documents in July (the earlier batch likewise indicated that NATO did not foresee a Soviet invasion of Poland).
NATO itself has revealed that the current batch was prepared following a “formal request” made by Poland in the lead-up to this week's anniversary.
According to NATO, Poland had stressed that the materials “would be of great historical and scientific value and would broaden the knowledge of the international context surrounding these events.”
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