December 17 marks 51 years since Poland’s communist rulers used the military and tanks to violently suppress strikes of Polish workers who were protesting difficult living conditions, exacerbated by increased food prices introduced by the regime. Piotr Brzeziński, Ph.D., a historian at the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in Poland, talked to The Epoch Times about the circumstances that led to the massacre of Polish workers striking in December 1970. Brzeziński is also an author and co-author of several books about the history of communist-era Poland including two books about the massacre. Why Workers Went on Strike On Dec. 14, 1970, shipyard workers in Poland’s coastal region went on strike to protest a price increase of food, fuel, and construction materials. At that time, an average Pole spent half of their earnings on food so the price increase announced two days earlier not long before Christmas made the situation very …
RSS Feed | The Epoch Times