The Daily Telegraph is reporting that General Wojciech Jaruzelski will see his pension slashed in the wake of public anger in Poland that he and others involved in suppressing anti-communist movements enjoyed high pensions.

According to The Daily Telegraph's Matthew Day, the general, along with colleagues from the National Salvation Council, the body that crushed the Solidarity movement in 1981 through the imposition of martial law, have until now enjoyed pensions worth 2041 euro a month.

The Daily Telegraph says that from January, however, their pensions will be slashed to just over 1000 euro a month, although the newspaper notes that some observers in Poland still feel that this is over-generous given that a retired doctor's pension can be as low as 483 euro a month.

"About 40 000 men and women who worked for the communist security apparatus until the collapse of the one-party state in 1989 will see cuts to their pensions, depending on how long they served and what their rank was when they retired," writes Day.

The change, according to the Telegraph, arises from a growing desire to punish those perceived to have been guilty of human rights violations in the past and those who resisted the democratic movement.

"Poland's negotiated transition from communism to democracy in 1989, and the furious nation-building that followed, meant that many of the sins of communism were ignored for the sake of national unity," writes Day.

According to a memo published recently on the site of The Institute of National Remembrance, Jaruzelski even asked the former Soviet Union to send troops to invade Poland in order to defeat the Solidarity movement in 1981.