In 1943, Jaruzelski joined the newly created First Polish Army and fought alongside the Soviets against Nazi Germany in the Eastern Front, most notably in the liberation of Warsaw and in the Battle of Berlin.

Kania's predecessor, Edward Gierek, left Poland severely indebted by accepting loans from foreign creditors and the country's economy almost collapsed by the time Jaruzelski became head of state.

As Poland headed towards insolvency, rationing was enforced due to shortages of basic goods, which only contributed to the tense social and political situation.

Fearing a Soviet intervention similar to those in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968), Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981 to crush the anti-communist opposition.

During the revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe, Jaruzelski supported the change of government for the benefit of the country and resigned after the Polish Round Table Agreement, which led to multi-party elections in Poland.

Having served as the country's leader during its turbulent final years of communist rule, Jaruzelski remains a controversial figure in Poland to this day.

He was praised for allowing the country's peaceful transition into democracy, but was also fiercely criticized by contemporaries for his imposition of martial law, including his government's violent suppression of protests and imprisonment of thousands of opposition activists without definite charges, among other human rights violations.

[2][3] He was the son of Wanda (née Zaremba) and Władysław Mieczysław Jaruzelski, a Czech-educated agronomist and volunteered soldier who fought in the war against Soviet Russia in 1920[4][5] and was raised on the family estate near Wysokie (in the vicinity of Białystok).

However, a few months later, after Lithuania and the other Baltic states were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, Jaruzelski and his family were captured by the Red Army and designated for deportation to Siberia.

In 1970, he was involved in the successful plot against Władysław Gomułka, which led to the appointment of Edward Gierek as General Secretary of the Polish United Workers Party.

There is some question whether he took part in organising the brutal suppression of striking workers; or whether his orders to the Communist military led to massacres in the coastal cities of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Elbląg and Szczecin.

On 18 October, Stanisław Kania was ousted as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party after a listening device recorded him criticising the Soviet leadership.

[7][9] A fortnight after taking power, Jaruzelski met with Solidarity head Lech Wałęsa and Catholic bishop Józef Glemp, and hinted that he wanted to bring the church and the union into a sort of coalition government.

[17] In spite of severe economic sanctions introduced by the Reagan Administration, martial law was largely successful in suppressing and demoralising the opposition, marginalising the Solidarity movement until the late 1980s.

As demonstrators gradually declined towards the end of 1982, martial law was suspended on 31 December of that year, and was formally lifted (along with the final restrictions) on 22 July 1983.

[16] There were plans in the government circles to award him the rank of Marshal of Poland, ultimately abandoned largely due to his own negative attitude towards the proposal.

Subsequent years saw his government and its internal security forces censor, persecute, and jail thousands of journalists and opposition activists without charge.

The socio-economic crisis deepened even more than in the late 1970s and rationing of basic foods such as sugar, milk, and meat, as well as materials such as gasoline and consumer products, continued while the median income of the population fell by as much as 10 percent.

[16] At a press conference in September of that same year, however, former Warsaw Pact forces supreme commander Viktor Kulikov denied that the Soviet Union had either threatened or intended to intervene.

[21] Historical evidence released under Boris Yeltsin's presidency paints a more complicated picture: while Eastern Bloc countries were fully in favour of a crackdown on Solidarity, minutes from Politburo, Warsaw Pact and special commission meetings from the year leading up martial law details strong internal divisions on the question of intervening: Senior Soviet party figures and ministers in a special commission formed to respond to developments in Poland, such as Mikhail Suslov, Yuri Andropov, Andrei Gromyko, and Dmitriy Ustinov were reluctant to intervene, citing the 1970 Polish protests and the ongoing Soviet-Afghan war,[22] while the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, along with East German and Czechoslovak leaders Erich Honecker and Gustáv Husák, expressed a strong willingness to intervene if necessary.

These negotiations "radically altered the shape" of the Polish government and society, and resulted in an agreement which stated that a great degree of political power would be given to a newly created bicameral legislature.

Ultimately, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who had helped organise the roundtable talks, was selected as first non-Communist prime minister of an Eastern Bloc country in four decades.

[33] In October 1994, while attending a book-selling activity in Wroclaw, Jaruzelski was attacked by a male pensioner with a stone; his jaw was injured, requiring surgery.

[8] In May 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded a medal commemorating the 60th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany to Jaruzelski and other former leaders, including former Romanian King Michael I.

[46] The decision to bury Jaruzelski at Powązki, the burial place of Polish soldiers killed defending their country since the early 19th century, caused protests.

However, opinion polls as of 15 May 2001 suggested that a majority of the Polish people were open to agreeing with his explanation that martial law was implemented to forestall a Soviet invasion.

[9] "Być może to ostatnie słowo (wyjaśnienia złożone przed Sądem)" (English translation: "It may be the last word (explanations given in the Court)"; 2008).