(25 May 2014) General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the communist leader who imposed harsh military rule on Poland in 1981 in an attempt to crush the pro-democracy Solidarity movement but years later allowed reforms that ended up dismantling the regime, died on Sunday aged 90.
Jaruzelski, who suffered in recent years from cancer, heart problems and pneumonia died in a Warsaw hospital after suffering a stroke earlier this month, hospital spokesman Grzegorz Kade told The Associated Press.
Jaruzelski died just days before Poland marked 25 years since the crucial parliamentary election in which Poles voted against the country's communist rulers and in support of the Solidarity freedom movement.
The retired general remained a controversial figure in his homeland until the end of his life for his defining act: the imposition of martial law that began at dawn on December 13, 1981.
The suppression of the democracy movement resulted in the mass imprisonment of thousands of dissidents, the deaths of dozens, and brought economic stagnation that contributed to the system's eventual undoing.
It also pushed many Poles to flee the country and seek exile in the West.
For 18 months, Poles lived with curfews, dead phone lines and armed troops and tanks on the streets.
Nearly 100 people died during the crackdown, while tens of thousands of Solidarity activists were imprisoned, including future presidents Lech Walesa - the Solidarity leader - and Lech Kaczynski.
Jaruzelski was born on July 6, 1923, in the eastern Polish village of Kurow into a patriotic and Catholic Polish milieu of privileged landowners.
He and his family were deported to Siberia by the Red Army during World War II.
His father died there and Jaruzelski suffered snow blindness, which forced him to wear dark glasses to the end of his life.
Despite his own tragedy at Soviet hands, he faithfully imposed Moscow's will on his subjugated nation until communism crumbled across the region in 1989.
To this day, the nation remains deeply divided over whether to view Jaruzelski as a traitor who did Moscow's dirty work or - as he portrayed himself - as a patriot who made an agonising decision to spare the country the bloodshed of a Soviet invasion, like that in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Jaruzelski, who headed the government from 1981-85 and the party from 1981 until the communist regime's collapse in 1989, repeatedly defended his decision.
He spent the rest of his life seeking historical vindication.
Jaruzelski claimed partial credit for negotiating the peaceful transition to democracy as Poland's last communist leader, and many Poles credited him for allowing the "Round Table" talks with Solidarity in 1989 that paved the way for a peaceful transition to democracy.
In his old age Jaruzelski battled legal charges over imposing the clampdown and for crushing a 1970 workers' strike - when he was defence minister - that left dozens dead.
The trials went on for years without resolution.
As he underwent chemotherapy for cancer in 2011, a Warsaw court excused him from participating in the two trials due to his ill health.
He said he wanted his gravestone to say simply: Wojciech Jaruzelski - General.
He is survived by his wife Barbara, daughter Monika and a grandson.
Funeral arrangements were not immediately known.
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