Kulisy „listu kaprala do generała”

The brief, three sentence–long letter written on 8 November 1982 by the „Solidarity” Chairman Lech Wałęsa to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the Military Council of National Salvation Wojciech Jaruzelski, became known as „a corporal’s letter to a general”. Subsequently, it was used for propaganda purposes by the authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland, but ultimately it contributed to their defeat. The leaders of People’s Poland tried to urge Wałęsa to write a version much more favourable for their cause, and when that failed they resorted to threats. The letter expressed the concern and qualms of the Solidarity chairman in view of the underground Provisional Coordination Committee’s plans to stage on 10 November 1982 a protest against the delegalisation of the union. Paradoxically, we cannot exclude the probability that one of the factors contributing to the letter’s origin were Wałęsa’s fears for the state of his health.