Continuity and Evolution of Operational Methods of Underground Solidarity in Toruń and the Region under the Martial Law and in the Following Years (13 December 1981–4 June 1989)

Plans to impose the martial law in the region of Toruń have been prepared since autumn 1980. Already in February a list of people to be interned was completed, it was, however, successively actualized. On the night of 12 December 1981 the militia and army troops seized some works in Toruń, the seat of Toruń Solidarity was also demolished. The leading activists of Solidarity, Solidarity of Individual Farmers and Independent Students’ Association (the NZS) have been interned. Further arrestments of individual activists have continued till autumn 1982. Strikes proclaimed in the works of Toruń within the very first days of martial law were suppressed quickly. The longest, one-day protest, took place on 13 December 1981 at Nicolaus Copernicus University. In the first days of the martial law Solidarity and Independent Students Association activists, who have managed so far to escape internments, took steps to rescue and secure the organizations’ property, which later turned out to be extremely useful at underground work.