Man for All Seasons

Mieczyslaw Rakowski, the Deputy Premier who has emerged as a trusted associate of General Wojciech Jaruzelski's, is one of the country's ablest and most prominent figures, yet remains one of the most enigmatic. In his 24-year career as editor in chief of the weekly newspaper Polityka, Rakowski, 55, projected the image of that rarest of Communists: a candid advocate of political and economic reform. He was also a link to the West, a charming, multilingual bon vivant who always found time for foreign visitors, especially journalists.

Now, to the surprise of many Westerners who knew him well in the past, Rakowski has become an ardent defender of the repression that began on Dec. 13. Is he a patriot who truly believes the crackdown will save his country from chaos? An idealist turned pragmatist who hopes to preserve some of the reforms won before the declaration of martial law? Or is he just an opportunist enjoying his place at the fulcrum of power? Those who know him well agree upon only one point: Rakowski is a survivor.

When the generals wanted to explain their crackdown to the West Germans, Rakowski was naturally the man they sent to Bonn. Martial law, he said, was necessary to prevent the outbreak within "a matter of weeks" of a civil war that would have provoked a Soviet invasion. Stern Publisher Henri Nannen, who has known Rakowski for twelve years, considered his explanation sincere, and an American diplomat described him as a "man of integrity." In contrast, a respected West German analyst notes that Rakowski has a "weakness for ambition" and "always knows which way the wind blows." One British expert points out that ultimately, Rakowski was always a loyal Communist.

The son of a Polish doctor who was shot by invading German troops in 1939, Rakowski emerged from the war a fervent Communist and, for a while, a committed Stalinist. Rakowski's taste for reform developed in 1956, when Wladyslaw Gomulka became head of the Polish Communist Party, promising greater freedom and economic progress. Under Rakowski's editorship, Polityka refused to join a campaign against the Catholic Church in 1966. In 1968 Rakowski, who was by then a deputy member of the Central Committee, not only refused to support an anti-Semitic purge but protected the Jews who worked for him.

Rakowski became the regime's bridge to Poland's disaffected intellectuals, and he talked with seeming frankness to journalists about Poland's problems. He once told TIME: "Political reform is absolutely essential for Poland if it is to overcome its problems."

But Journalist Rakowski wanted to do more than talk and write about his country; he wanted to be in on the action. His opportunity came last February, when Jaruzelski appointed him to negotiate with Solidarity. It was then, ironically, that Rakowski's reputation as a liberal began to fade. Perhaps naively, he thought Solidarity could be fashioned into a benign check on the government, but without power of its own. Rakowski became increasingly impatient with Solidarity's demands, and at one point last summer publicly accused the union of "unprecedented arrogance."

Rakowski has lost the support of some of those who were closest to him. His exwife, Violinist Wanda Wilkomirska, is one of eight intellectuals who have bravely signed a petition protesting martial law.

"He was sincere when he believed in democracy," says Richard Davies, who, as U.S. Ambassador to Poland from 1972 to 1978, knew Rakowski well. "But you had to know what he meant--as long as democracy was granted from on high, not from below, because that threatened the authorities." Rakowski may have been caught in the classic trap of Communist intellectuals, the discovery that what seems plausible in theory--in his case, the liberalizing of Communism--often does not work in practice.

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