An echo of the old Soviet sphere of influence

Wojciech Jaruzelski, a man whose passing I cannot regret, RIP.

Jaruzelski passed away on May 25th of this year, after suffering a stroke earlier in the month.

His place in the history books is ignoble but secure. He was a General by trade, and he became the only military official ever to head a ruling European Communist Party when he became First Secretary in Poland, in October 1981.

Two months later he became the General who declared martial law in Poland, acting at the cat's paw of the old Soviet Union. such actions are a sign of a regime's weakness not strength -- the Solidarnosc movement was becoming too much for him.

Nowadays, the world still witnesses Russia's efforts to extend its control over its neighbors, largely through complacent local paws. But since the demise of the USSR and the discrediting of the once-marketable ideology of "actually existing communism" has left Moscow's imperial stretch weakened. The flash points now are to the east of where they used to be.

For that we may be grateful. All sorts of contending forces, even Jaruzelski's, are part of the messy process by which humanity tests one equilibrium after another, shaking itself out of each, struggling toward that greatest of all equilibriums, the maximum amount of good that can be gained and kept in the world.

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