Bydgoszcz events
The Bydgoszcz events in March 1981 were a turning point for Solidarity, the independent trade union in Poland. After Solidarity was legalized in 1980, farmers tried to form Rural Solidarity, which the government did not recognize. On 16 March 1981, workers in Bydgoszcz went on strike. They went to the meeting of the Voivodeship National Council on 19 March to explain the strike, but the council refused to discuss Rural Solidarity. Solidarity delegates stayed and protested, and the authorities sent in the Citizens' Militia and ZOMO to remove them by force. The incident was initially kept quiet by the government, but underground press spread the news.
On 24 March Solidarity called for a nationwide strike in protest of the violence. On 25 March Deputy Prime Minister Rakowski met with Solidarity leaders, and on 30 March they signed the Warsaw accord. The agreement allowed Solidarity to report the Bydgoszcz events on public television, the first such news behind the Iron Curtain since the 1940s, and it kept talks about recognizing Rural Solidarity going. The events are covered in the Kryzys Bydgoski 1981 project, which includes a monograph, documents, and witness testimonies.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:19 (CET).