SECRETARIAT. Instructions to Soviet ambassador in Italy regarding Lech WALESA’s visit to the country. Letter to Central Committee from PONOMARYOV [R: 14 January 1981, St 246-1]. 12 pp (excerpts).

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[page one of twelve]

Workers of all Lands, Unite!

COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION. CENTRAL COMMITTEE

[Text along left-hand margin]

Return to the CPSU Central Committee (General Department, sector 2) within 15 days of receipt
(Central Committee Resolution of 17 June 1976, St 12/4)

Top Secret

No St 246/1, 14 January 1981

Excerpt from item 1, Minutes No. 246, Central Committee Secretariat

Instructions to the Soviet ambassador in Italy about forthcoming visit by Lech Walesa

1. Confirm the text of instructions to the Soviet ambassador in Italy (attached).

2. Send a copy of the appeal to the leadership of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) to the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party.

SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE

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[pages two to five – Letter to Soviet ambassador]

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[page six – typed and handwritten draft of Central Committee Resolution]

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[pages seven to ten – draft of letter to Soviet ambassador]

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[page eleven – 13 January 1981 letter from Ponomaryov]

Secret

To the CPSU Central Committee

A delegation from Solidarity (18 people), headed by L. Walesa, will be in Italy from 14 to 18 January 1981 at the invitation of local trade unions. The delegation also includes representatives of the antisocialist political opposition.

According to available information, the bourgeois parties and mass media intend to make wide use of the trip by this delegation to discredit the socialist order in the Polish People’s Republic and to support the policy of eroding and eventually eliminating socialist gains in Poland. To this end, plans are under way to organize a reception for the members of the delegation by high-level trade union and political figures.

In addition to a meeting with the Pope [John Paul II (¹)] in the Vatican, there are plans for L. Walesa and his delegation to be welcomed by the leadership of the United Trade Union Federation (CGIL, CISL, UIL), and for meetings to be organized with workers’ groups. Despite a preliminary decision to avoid meeting with L. Walesa, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) leadership so far has been wavering in its position and has not ruled out the possibility of some sort of contact with him.

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[page twelve]

We believe it would be worthwhile to approach the PCI leadership, which is strongly-placed within the Italian trade union movement and has substantial influence on political circles in the country.

In this connection instructions could be given to the Soviet ambassador in Italy to meet with E. Berlinguer or one of his deputies and to draw the attention of the PCI leadership to the need to take all possible steps to ensure that L. Walesa’s trip to Italy does not result in support for the approach of the antisocialist political opposition.

[signed] Ponomaryov

13 January 1981, 18-S-62

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NOTES

Parts of this file, and 21 other documents about the Polish crisis, were first published in English in 1999 by the Cold War in History Project (see 9.4 USSR and Poland).

Translated and extensively annotated by Mark Kramer, see CWIHP Special Working Paper No. 1, Soviet Deliberations during the Polish Crisis, 1980-1981 (April 1999): Document 7, pp. 73-79.

*

1. On 13 May 1981 Pope John Paul II was shot on St Peter’s Square in the Vatican City (Rome). The would-be assassin was Turkish. The organisation and motives behind the attack have never been fully established.
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*

GENERAL

1. Notes by translator and editor are bracketed, thus [ ];
2. text written by hand is indicated in italic script;
3. when a handwritten phrase, figure or word has been added to a previously typed document this is indicated by underlined italic script.

Translated in part and annotated byJohn Crowfoot

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