Abstract
It was not preceded by a declaration of war. In the course of that December night functionaries of so-called Security rammed at the doors of our houses, broke them down and, distributing blows left and right, blinding us with tear gas, handcuffed us and took us into prisons as internees. We were the first prisoners of war — a war of the Communist establishment against its own people. That night was the first victorious battle of the General who, following in a rather curious way the directive of the Ninth Congress of the Communist Party forbidding anybody to hold more than one post, was at the same time Minister of Defence, Prime Minister, First Secretary of the Party, and now in addition had made himself Chairman of the CROW (WRON, the acronym of the Military Council of National Salvation, in Polish happens to mean ‘a crow’). And so his name is now for ever associated with that ugly and stupid bird, the caricature of the national emblem, the eagle.