Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980–1981 Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis of 1980–1981 The Polish crisis of 1980–1981, associated with the emergence of the Solidarity mass movement in Poland, challenged the Soviet Union's control over its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc. For the first time however, the Kremlin abstained from military intervention, unlike on previous occasions such as the Prague Spring of 1968 and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and thus left the Polish leadership under General Wojciech Jaruzelski to impose martial law to deal with the opposition on their own. Contrary to the interpretations of US intelligence, no preparations were underway for even
Marital rape removed the marital exemption, and also made the crime gender-neutral; before 1991 the legal definition of rape was a man forcing, by violence or threat of thereof, a woman to engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage. In Italy the law on rape, "violenza carnale" ('carnal violence', as it was termed) did not contain a statutory exemption, but was, as elsewhere, understood as inapplicable in the context of marriage. Although Italy has a reputation of a male dominated traditional society, it was quite early to accept that the rape law covers forced sex in marriage too: in 1976 in "Sentenza