The Bydgoszcz Provocation and reactions of companies in telexes sent to the National Coordination Committee of the Solidarity Trade Union, dated March 20, 1981, AKKS 347/3/716
As a result of the cooperation between the Archives of the National Commission of the Solidarity Trade Union and the Stanisław Flis “Pomerania Archives” Foundation, on the website of the Foundation, we have published both materials on the “Bydgoszcz Provocation” (Bydgoszcz Provocation) and telexes sent to the National Coordination Committee of the Solidarity Trade Union in 1981 (National Coordination Committee Sessions, Meeting of the Three Leaders; Birthday wishes for Pope John Paul II).
However, we have not yet published telexes related to the Bydgoszcz Provocation of March 19, 1981, sent to the National Coordination Committee. Recently we have celebrated the 40th anniversary of these events. There is a large number of telexes related to the Bydgoszcz Provocation in our holdings. The collection the National Coordination Committee and the National Commission of the Solidarity Trade Union0, in its telex series, contains the following archival units:
- Bydgoszcz Provocation and the reactions of companies (AKKS 347/3/716),
- Bydgoszcz Provocation and its consequences (AKKS 347/3/725),
- Bydgoszcz Provocation: emergence Inter-enterprise Strike Committees and the Regional Strike Committee (AKKS 347/3/732),
- Talks between the Solidarity Trade Union and the government representation in MKZ Bydgoszcz – Bydgoszcz Provocation (AKKS 347/3/733),
- Bydgoszcz Provocation – repercussions; farmers’ strike in the Voivodeship Committee headquarters of the United People’s Party in Bydgoszcz (AKKS 347/3/739),
- Echoes of the Bydgoszcz Provocation (AKKS 347/3/1215).
Below you can see scanned telexes scans from the archival unit titled “Bydgoszcz Provocation and Reactions of Companies” (AKKS 3/716). Information on such reactions (e.g. adopting anno8ncements and resolutions, introducing strike alerts, mailing letters and wire messages to Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski) began to flow in from many companies on the 20th of March, 1981. Among companies which responded to the Bydgoszcz Provocation there are:
- The Gdansk Refinery, Huta “Warszawa” (Warsaw Steel Plant),
- Innovative Leather Industry Plant “Podhale” Nowy Targ, Polish Ocean Lines,
- Przedsiębiorstwo Robót Górniczych Sosnowiec (Sosonowiec Mining Works),
- The Paris Commune Shipyard,
- Wielkopolskie Zakłady Teleelektroniczne “Telkom-Teltra”,
- Zakłady Azotowe in Włocławek and “Zamech” Elbląg.
The news about reactions to the Bydgoszcz Provocation were also sent from numerous trade union units and political organizations, like Krynica Municipality and Gmina Committee of the Solidarity Trade Union, Szczecin Inter-enterprise Workers’ Committee, Głogów Inter-enterprise Strike Committee, Sieradz Inter-enterprise Strike Committee, as well as from Inter-enterprise Founding Committees of Bydgoszcz, Jarosław, Małopolska (Zakopane branch), Stalowa Wola, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Włocławek, and Ziemia Radomska. They were also sent from the Individual Craftsmen Solidarity Trade Union, Fundamental Party Organization of the Polish United Workers’ Party in Polish Radio and Television in Warsaw, and from the Skarżysko Kamienna Local Coordination Committee of the Solidarity Trade Union.
/Łukasz Grochowski, the Archives of the National Commission of the Solidarity Trade Union,
Iwona Flis, Stanisław Flis Foundation “Pomerania Archives”/
