Hero's Welcome in Moscow

By Thomas A. Sancton

Jaruzelski wins a promise of Soviet aid--but at a price

It looked more like the return of a victorious national hero than the arrival of a troubled neighbor. Standing on a red carpet at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport last week, Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev kissed the uniformed visitor on each cheek as gaily dressed schoolchildren offered bouquets of roses and carnations. General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's martial-law leader, then shook hands with the phalanx of Politburo members who had waited on the tarmac to greet him.

After a military band played both national anthems, an honor guard of several hundred Soviet soldiers marched past with jackboot precision. Crowds waving miniature Polish and Soviet flags lined the roadside as a 50-limousine motorcade whisked Jaruzelski, his aides and their Soviet hosts into the capital. Marveled one Western observer in Moscow: "This is the biggest reception anyone has got here in a long time."

The Kremlin's leaders had a special reason to applaud this Soviet-trained officer: in their eyes he had saved Poland for Communism by crushing a dangerous "counterrevolution." Visiting Moscow for the first time since the declaration of martial law last December, Jaruzelski received a strong endorsement of his actions and the promise of substantial Soviet assistance in rebuilding Poland's shattered economy.

Declared Brezhnev, toasting his visitors at a formal banquet in the Great Kremlin Palace: "We helped socialist Poland the best we could, and we shall continue helping it." In his reply, Jaruzelski called the Soviet Union "our chief, invaluable economic partner and our closest ally." Both sides blamed Western economic sanctions and propaganda for exacerbating Poland's crisis.

The Soviets promised Jaruzelski a significant but unspecified amount of economic aid to help "fill the gaps" created by Western sanctions and Poland's crippling indebtedness to the West. But the price will be high: strict reintegration into the Soviet bloc's tightly coordinated economic system. Trade with the West will diminish as Polish factories increase their dependence on Soviet raw materials and equipment. Says a Western diplomat in Warsaw: "Economically, Poland is on the verge of becoming the Soviet Union's 16th republic."

Polish officials argued that Jaruzelski won a few points in his talks with Brezhnev. For example, he got Soviet backing for "the line of the Ninth [Polish Communist Party] Congress," which had adopted a number of reforms last July. But on the key issue of free labor unions, the final communique made it clear that the Soviets would tolerate only their style of union in Poland--the kind that takes orders from the Communist leadership. The Moscow meeting, said the U.S. State Department, produced "nothing that gives grounds for optimism that the Polish regime intends to ease the current repression in the near future."

Nor was there much sign of moderation in the Warsaw regime's own acts last week. A Koszalin court sentenced a Roman Catholic priest to 3 1/2 years in prison for a sermon critical of martial law. Meanwhile, the government announced that the 4,000 Solidarity members and sympathizers now in custody would be allowed to apply for exit passports if they chose to emigrate to other countries. So far, only a handful have expressed interest in the idea.

This offer of freedom-by-exile apparently did not apply to Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa, who is still being kept in a villa about 15 miles south of Warsaw. Recent visitors describe the union leader as being in good health and spirits. His wife Danuta has said that Walesa will be home in Gdansk, at least temporarily, for the March 21 christening of their seventh child.

Walesa reportedly told one visitor that he could have escaped "easily" when martial law was imposed, but had decided against it. Explained Walesa: "If I had gone underground or started a civil war, that would not have helped things. If I had fled the country, I would have just been another emigre. Now I am still a factor to be reckoned with." That may be more than wishful thinking. TIME learned last week that Walesa had met privately for three hours with Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski, a leading figure in the martial-law regime and the man who had been Solidarity's main negotiating partner before the crackdown. Following that meeting, Rakowski's office floated reports of a new government initiative, allegedly involving the church, that would allow a group of moderate Solidarity leaders to resume union activities within strict limits. Whether Walesa or other former activists would accept such a circumscribed role is an open question.

--By Thomas A. Sancton.

Reported by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow and Richard Homik/Warsaw

With reporting by Erik Amfitheatrof/Moscow, Richard Homik/Warsaw

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