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….

More

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,….

More

This report, from September 1, 1988, details the meeting of a diverse coalition of Polish opposition members, consisting of trade unionists, academics, journalists and representatives of the Solidarity movement. They agreed that their major priorities were for talks with the government regarding the status of unions, pluralism, and economic and political reforms. They agreed to the….

More

By 1986, reforms associated with Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union had begun to affect political and economic life in Poland. Lech Wałesa, leader of the Polish trade union movement Solidarity, and a veteran organizer of illegal strikes and demonstrations, wrote to the Polish Council of State (the most powerful branch of government in the Republic of Poland) requesting the end of martial….

More