ABSTRACT
The great crisis of 1980, like so many previous upheavals in communist Poland, was triggered by price increases. On 1 July a new pricing system for meat was introduced. Although it was not universally applied it had an immediate impact by provoking a rash of strikes, the first being in the Ursus tractor factory in Warsaw. The authorities rushed more meat into the shops, conceded a number of wage increases, and attempted to use censorship to prevent the spread of the unrest. These efforts failed in no small measure because of the influence of KSS/ KOR; in July an eight-day general strike in Lublin paralysed the rail link between the Soviet Union and the Red Army garrisons in the GDR, and by the end of the first week of August there had been over 150 stoppages throughout the country. The focal point was Gdansk.
