THE ADMONITORY AUTHORITIES AND THE FOOLISH SUBALTERNS The CPSU Politburo and the Polish Crisis 1980—1981
The new organization “NSZZ Solidarity” had to be registered by a court in order to act. This registration process was the subject of lively debate at the CPSU Politburo meeting on October 29. The minutes of this Politburo meeting are included in one of the most extraordinary collections of documents from the Soviet era that have yet been made public by the Russian State Archives. It covers the period between the outbreak of strikes in 1980 and the imposition of martial law on December 13, 1981, a period known as the “Polish Crisis”. As a whole, the material shows that it was a rather clear message that the Soviet leadership conveyed to their Polish Party comrades.