Poland s Solidarnosc movement was born of the December 1970 protests
In December 1970, Polish workers rose up against a food price hike. Authorities reacted brutally, killing dozens. These experiences shaped the later Solidarnosc movement, which helped to bring down the communist regime.
It was a Monday in December, 10 days before Christmas. A week earlier, German Chancellor Willy Brandt had fallen to his knees in front of the Warsaw Ghetto memorial in the Polish capital and had then signed the Warsaw Treaty which acknowledged the Oder-Neisse line as the final German border with Poland.
The government made a sudden decision to increase food prices, which some observers say would eventually spell the end of Communist regime. Przemyslaw Ruchlewski, a historian at the European Solidarity Center in Gdansk, told DW that the country, under Communist party leader Wladyslaw Gomulka, was in a state of constant deprivation” and half of people s monthly wages was going to food.