Bydgoszcz events

This forced the authorities to finally hold the meeting of the Voivodeship National Council, a governing body of the Bydgoszcz Voivodeship. The meeting was attended by several members of Solidarity, among them Jan Rulewski, Mariusz Łabentowicz and Roman Bartoszcze, who were to explain the reasons for the strike. However, the Council decided not to discuss the issues related to agriculture, which made the members of Solidarity protest. The authorities responded by calling in the Citizen's Militia and the ZOMO, who entered the seat of the Council and brutally pacified (beat up) the delegates of Solidarity.

Even though the authorities had a monopoly on media, the underground press reported of the Bydgoszcz events and the matter became widely publicised in a matter of days. On March 24 Solidarity decided to go on an nationwide strike in protest against the violence aimed at the delegates. The authorities bowed down and on 25 March the deputy prime minister Mieczysław F. Rakowski started a conference with the leaders of the Solidarity. This led to the signing of the so-called Warsaw accords on March 30, 1981. According to the agreement, Solidarity was allowed to report the Bydgoszcz events on public television (the first such independent news behind the Iron Curtain since the 1940s) and the government pledged to continue the talks on registration of a trade union of farmers.