Polish and Soviet leaders met on numerous occasions to discuss the ongoing critical situation in Poland. On August 14, 1981, for example, Leonid Brezhnev (first party secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU]) met secretly with Stanislaw Kania and Wojciech Jaruzelski (leaders of the Communist Party in Poland [PZPR]) in the Crimea following Poland's Ninth Extraordinary Congress….

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During the developing economic and political crisis in Poland in the early 1980s, Polish and Soviet leaders communicated regularly to discuss the situation in Poland. Following a telephone conversation in June 1981 with Stanislaw Kania (first party secretary of the Communist Party in Poland [PZPR]), Leonid Brezhnev (first party secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU])….

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As the economic and political crisis in Poland continued to worsen in the early 1980s, Soviet officials regularly and secretly met with Polish leaders to provide support, advice, and criticism. In April 1981, for example, a delegation of Soviet representatives traveled to Warsaw, Poland, to meet with Polish Communist Party officials. At the following meeting of the Communist Party in the Soviet….

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In the midst of the ongoing economic and political crisis in Poland in the early 1980s, Soviet leaders frequently communicated with top Polish officials. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU) on April 16, 1981, Leonid Brezhnev, then first party secretary, recounted his recent telephone conversation with Stanislaw Kania, first party secretary….

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In April 1981, Polish officials Stanislaw Kania (first secretary of the Communist Party in Poland) and Wojciech Jaruzelski (then prime minister of Poland) secretly met with two Soviet leaders, Yu. V. Andropov (a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CC CPSU]) and D. F. Ustinov (the minister of defense). During a meeting of the CC CPSU that followed,….

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In August 1980, a worker's strike in Poland led to a compromise known as the Gdansk Agreement, in which the Communist government agreed to several compromises with the strikers, including the legal formation of a worker's union -- which became Solidarity. While this initially brought stability in Poland, it set shockwaves through the Warsaw Pact from the emerging danger of "antisocialist….

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Deeply concerned about the ongoing economic and political crisis in Poland in the early 1980s, Soviet leaders regularly communicated with Polish officials, providing advice, support, and criticism. These meeting notes from April 2, 1981, of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union convey Soviet leaders' dissatisfaction, frustration, and even anger with Polish leaders'….

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During the economic and political crisis in Poland in the early 1980s, Polish officials often met with Soviet leaders to discuss the crisis and to determine how best to approach the situation in Poland. Following a meeting with representatives from Poland, the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union discussed the negotiations that took place between Soviet and Polish….

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Leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) grew increasingly concerned about the strength and growth of the Solidarity Movement as well as the largely unsuccessful actions of Poland's Communist Party against the opposition in Poland. These meeting notes of the Central Committee of the CPSU from January 1981 indicate that Soviet leaders recognized that the Polish Communist….

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In January 1981, Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity Movement in Poland, along with other participants in the opposition, traveled to Italy. In response to this visit, the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union sent a telegram to the Soviet ambassador in Italy instructing him on how to handle the visitors. The instructions advised the ambassador to meet with the leader….

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In August 1980, a worker's strike in Poland led to a compromise known as the Gdansk Agreement, in which the Communist government agreed to allow democratic changes within the government, including the legal formation of a worker's union—which became Solidarity. This agreement may have brought stability inside Poland, but created a strong reaction from the Soviet Union. The following is a….

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This November 1980 directive from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) proposed a temporary reduction in travel between the Soviet Union and its neighbor because of the difficult ongoing political situation in Poland. The CPSU planned to decrease tourism in both directions by between 36 and 44 percent for the remainder of 1980 and the first half of 1981. Not….

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On October 30, 1980, two Polish officials, Stanislaw Kania (first secretary of the Communist Party) and Josef Pinkowski (prime minister), visited the Soviet Union to engage in discussions with the Soviet leadership about the ongoing critical situation in Poland. The next day, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union (CPSU), Soviet leaders met to talk….

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In response to another rise in prices, for meat products in particular, strikes erupted in the summer of 1980 in Poland among workers throughout the country, especially in the cities of Gdansk, Gdynia, and Szczecin. Strikers listed a total of twenty-one demands, including higher pay, more openness in media, less censorship, and the formation of free trade unions. To quell the situation,….

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The Helsinki Declaration of August 1, 1975 was a turning point in Cold War relations inside European borders. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries celebrated the acknowledgment of their national boundaries; a desired goal since the end of World War II. West European democracies celebrated the Warsaw Pact countries' willingness to adopt ten major points of international diplomacy. One….

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In Bulgaria, the Communist Party led the movement toward democratic change. Following the legalization of several other political parties, and the formation of the Union of Democratic Forces, the Bulgarian Communist Party Secretary, Petur Mladenov, announced a further set of reforms. The following is an official report from the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria about Mladenov's rally on 13 December….

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In Bulgaria, the Communist Party led the movement toward democratic change. Following the legalization of several other political parties, the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) introduced legal reforms to the Bulgarian government. One of the most significant and notable of these changes was rewriting Article 1 of the Bulgarian constitution, which guaranteed a "leading role" for the Communist….

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President George H. W. Bush held his first summit with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev early in December 1989 onboard a Soviet cruise ship docked off the coast of Malta. Although US-Soviet relations had thawed during the second term of President Ronald Reagan as he and Gorbachev developed a personal rapport, signed the first treaty between the superpowers to reduce nuclear weapons arsenals,….

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On November 10, 1989, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, leading figures in the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) forced Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria’s leader for more than 35 years, to resign. A coalition of opposition groups formed the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) on December 7, to coordinate efforts to “speed up the processes of democratization,” the group asserted in a statement….

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The ethnic Turks living in Bulgaria had faced discrimination throughout Bulgaria's history. In response to a series of demonstrations in May 1989 for Turkish rights, the Communist government expelled more than 300,000 Bulgarian Turks over the course of the year. With such a large portion of the population affected, Turkish rights in Bulgaria became one of leading human rights issues facing the….

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