Word: martialled
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...later, when Solidarity swept the country, a monument was erected at the gate to commemorate both the birth of the union in 1980 and the 45 Poles killed in the food riots of 1970. Last week, shortly after the army and police had broken a strike by shipworkers protesting martial law and the arrest of hundreds of Solidarity's leaders, the gate was closed again. In the shadow of the three soaring steel pillars of the new monument now stood an armored personnel carrier, a symbol of the million bayonets that seem forever poised against a surging nationalism. Jaruzelski...
...Sunday, exactly six hours after the crackdown began, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish party chief and Premier, made a radio address to the country. He declared a state of martial law and announced that henceforth the country would be ruled by a "military council for national salvation." Speaking in a tired voice, he said, "Our country is at the verge of an abyss. The state structure has ceased operating." Solidarity's leaders, he charged, "threaten us with the use of force. They no longer obey the law. Everyone is on strike. They call for confrontation with the Reds...
Under the martial law decree, Solidarity was "suspended," as were other forms of union activity. Also prohibited were all public meetings, except religious services held inside churches. Poland's borders were sealed and its airports closed. Telephone and telex communications were severely disrupted, both with the West and with friendly countries such as the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Inside Poland, phone communications were also interrupted. Poles were told to seek out military patrols in the street if they needed emergency assistance...
...were stationed at key crossroads in major cities. There was little traffic, but in some areas Poles took to the streets, and demonstrators pelted army trucks with snowballs. Outside Solidarity's headquarters, union members handed out crude leaflets demanding an immediate nationwide general strike. Another leaflet condemned the martial law decree as a "brutal provocation of the country's legal order and an attempt at paralyzing and crushing Solidarity and society." At one point police turned fire hoses on 200 demonstrators...
...turning back from socialism, so there is no turning back to the erroneous methods and practices of pre-1980." But then he said: "The Polish-Soviet alliance is and will remain the cornerstone of the Polish raison d'état." Within hours of the imposition of martial law, Radio Moscow carried an approving bulletin on the government's action. Said a government official in Moscow: "The Soviet troops in Poland are in their barracks. Polish troops have control of the situation." Jaruzelski's move was reported without comment in most of the other East bloc countries...