biography
| name: |
Jaruzelski, General Wojciech (Witold)
|
pronunciation:
[yaruzelskee]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1923– )
|
| biography:
| Polish general, prime minister (1981–5), head of state (1985–90), and president (1989–90), born near Lublin, E Poland. He became chief of general staff (1965), minister of defence (1968), a member of the Politburo (1971), and prime minister after the resignation of Pinkowski in 1981. Later that year, in an attempt to ease the country's economic problems and to counteract the increasing political influence of the free trade union Solidarity, he declared a state of martial law, which was lifted in 1982. He became president, but in 1990 bowed to pressure to resign as an anachronism from the former Communist regime. |
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