General Wojciech Jaruzelski obituary

Patriot, puppet or pragmatist? Reformer or orthodox communist? The jury remains out on the record of General Wojciech Jaruzelski, who has died aged 90. Living quietly in retirement from the end of 1990, Jaruzelski tried hard for the rest of his life to convince the world he had never been less than a Polish patriot, and that from 1989 he dismantled the apparatus of communist rule setting Poland firmly on the path to democracy and the free market. Opinion has swayed somewhat in his favour. But Jaruzelski remains an enigma and the debate over his actions is certain to continue.

The accusations against Jaruzelski remain that he betrayed Poland and was acting at Moscow's bidding when he declared martial law to crush the Solidarity movement, and that he turned to reform only because circumstances in the communist camp forced him to change course. Jaruzelski always insisted that he ordered Polish tanks on to the streets of Warsaw on 13 December 1981 because he believed it was the only way to prevent a Soviet invasion to put an end to the Solidarity-led strikes and demands for democratic reforms.

The Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, he was convinced, would not hesitate to invoke his own doctrine and intervene in Poland just as he had in 1968 in Czechoslovakia. In December 1981, Warsaw Pact forces were engaged in manoeuvres near Poland's border. Intelligence sources, Jaruzelski claimed, persuaded him invasion was unavoidable – unless he acted against Solidarity by declaring martial law and detaining the movement's activists.

Moscow rewarded Jaruzelski with high praise and expressions of confidence. Western governments reviled him and were united in imposing rigorous political and economic sanctions against Poland. The CIA, in concert with the AFL-CIO American labour movement, intensified underground efforts to help Solidarity as the movement fought for survival while Lech Wałesa and many of its other leaders were incarcerated.

"I apologise," the general said in his last speech as Poland's president in November 1990. Afterwards, he often spoke of his "deep regret" over the martial law era. "It was a nightmare. It is a great burden for me, and will be until the end of my days," he said in an interview. But he continued to believe that the danger of Soviet invasion in 1981 was real and that he could not have acted differently.

Jaruzelski preferred to emphasise his reformist credentials, claiming he had been the first Warsaw Pact leader to recognise the significance of Mikhail Gorbachev's ideas. The two men became firm friends after they first discussed perestroika, Gorbachev's reconstruction initiative, in the margins of a Warsaw Pact meeting in April 1985.

From that time on, Jaruzelski said, Poland became the heretic in the bloc: he moved towards a settlement with Solidarity and paved the way for democratic reforms that led to Wałesa's election as president in 1990. Five years later, towards the end of Wałesa's presidency, Jaruzelski was surprised – and gratified – to learn that Polish public opinion polls were giving him a higher rating than the former Solidarity leader.

Jaruzelski and his wife Barbara, a university lecturer whom he married in 1961, always lived modestly. He rarely travelled abroad. His public demeanour was stiff and formal in movement and speech. He was neither populist nor demagogue. He always wore signature dark glasses, not because he wanted to appear sinister or intimidating, but because of the snow blindness that had damaged his eyes during wartime imprisonment in a Soviet labour camp.

Though he became the Polish Communist party leader, Jaruzelski was unable to boast working-class origins. Born in Kurów in south-east Poland, he came from a family of modest landowners and could trace his forebears back to 1420. He received a Jesuit schooling near Warsaw, which helps to explain his lifelong respect for the Roman Catholic church, and his recognition that the church cannot easily be excluded from Polish public life.

When the second world war came, Kurów was overrun by the Russians. The family fled to Lithuania and was then deported to Siberia, where his father, Władysław, died; his mother, Wanda, eventually returned to Poland. Wojciech had to work as a woodcutter. Yet by 1943, he was in the Soviet-sponsored Polish forces under General Berling, and saw active service as they, together with the Soviet army, liberated Poland. He was highly decorated, and chose to remain in the Polish army.

Jaruzelski never discussed the impact of his wartime experiences on his attitude towards the Soviet Union. But he emerged in 1945 as a convinced communist. As the communist regime established itself in Poland, he steadily moved up the military ladder, at one point returning to the Soviet Union to study at an elite military academy.

In the early 1960s Jaruzelski was made deputy defence minister and simultaneously elected to the central committee of the Polish United Workers' party. In 1968, he was elected to the party's inner cabinet, the politburo, and became defence minister. Soon afterwards he was promoted to general. It was his task to organise the Polish contingent in the Warsaw Pact force used to intervene in Czechoslovakia.

During the 1970 Polish food riots in the Baltic ports, he showed an independent streak by holding back the armed forces. He was overruled by the politburo, which ordered the police and interior ministry security forces to put down the riots, which they did, shooting more than 40 protesters dead, and injuring more than 1,000. In the bitter aftermath, Jaruzelski was instrumental in forcing the resignation of the party leader, Władysław Gomulka. Even so, 20 years later, attempts were made to bring Jaruzelski to trial for his actions in 1970.

Soon after the food riots had been put down, Jaruzelski declared he would never again use the Polish army against fellow Poles in the event of a strike – a promise he betrayed 11 years later with the declaration of martial law.

The Solidarity movement established itself under Wałesa's leadership during the Gdansk shipyard strikes in the summer of 1980. The Communist party was in turmoil, and in the ensuing months there were several changes of party and government leaders. In February 1981, Jaruzelski was appointed prime minister amid expectations that he would meet some of Solidarity's demands. At the time a Guardian editorial described Jaruzelski as "a genuine supporter of the process of renewal, who wishes to embrace Solidarity and the church in the governance of Poland".

But the strikes continued. Solidarity's demands multiplied and Soviet misgivings intensified. In mid-October Jaruzelski was made party leader, and remained prime minister. Two months later he concluded that Poland was facing the abyss – and declared martial law. Overnight Poland became a sad, bitterly divided, martyred nation whose Communist party leader was reviled in the west. Few were prepared to accept that Jaruzelski had acted only to avert a Soviet invasion.

In November 1982, soon after Jaruzelski had provoked a further storm by banning Solidarity, he agreed to an interview with the Guardian, perhaps the first time he had been prepared to meet a western journalist since the declaration of martial law. I was asked to send written questions but was promised that there would be time for informal exchange.

On the eve of the day of the interview, the Kremlin announced the death of Brezhnev. I assumed my interview would be cancelled, as the general would have other preoccupations. I was wrong. The interview was postponed for a few hours, but it did take place. In the late evening I was taken to the government offices, all dark except for the passage leading to the rooms where Jaruzelski was waiting.

He greeted me with the traditional Polish hand-kiss, and chose his words carefully, craftily avoiding my questions about Wałesa's future (he was soon to be released from detention). But he sounded conciliatory and stressed that normalisation could be achieved only by dialogue with Poland's non-communist elements. Two days later, the Communist party paper, Trybuna Ludu, carried the full text of Jaruzelski's written answers to my questions under banner headlines, relegating the account of Brezhnev's funeral to second place. It was a mini-show of independence by the Polish leader.

Slowly, Jaruzelski worked to re-establish a dialogue with the church, the intelligentsia and Wałesa. Martial law, suspended at the end of 1982, was finally lifted in mid-1983. The following summer, the general amnestied political prisoners. But his attempts at national reconciliation suffered a serious reversal with the murder of a Catholic priest, Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, at the hands of the secret police. Jaruzelski was not involved, and took direct charge of the security forces to prevent any repetition. He was determined to pursue the course of reform.

During the 1985 Communist party congress, Jaruzelski stepped down as prime minister and assumed the state presidency. He described the move as confirmation that "the process of reconciliation and normalisation was now far advanced". But he was still far from envisaging an end to the leadership role of the Communist party.

When the party finally had to abdicate power, in 1990, he accepted it without bitterness – and made his apology for martial law and past Communist regime excesses. If it took him a long time to reach that moment of truth, he nevertheless remained convinced that he had acted in Poland's long-term interests. That remained the case when charges were laid against him in 2006 for the "deprivation of freedom through internment" and violating workers' rights: the proceedings came to nothing. He summed it up in the words of a Russian proverb: "If you ride slowly, you get much further."

He is survived by Barbara and a daughter, Monika.

Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski, soldier and politician, born 6 July 1923; died 25 May 2014