Wojciech Jaruzelski had sent Eugeniusz Molczyk to confer with Vice President George H. W. Bush and Bush had agreed with Molczyk that martial law was the lesser of two evils. Whether this meeting with the American vice president occurred is disputed. While it is erroneously cited, Harvard historian Mark Kramer has pointed out that no documents support Jaruzelski's claim. Jaruzelski was chiefly responsible for the imposition of martial law in Poland on 13 December 1981 in an attempt to crush the pro-democracy movements, which included Solidarity, the first non-Communist trade union in Warsaw Pact history. Subsequent years saw his government and its
1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała February 6, 1981. An agreement was signed, acceding to the protesting workers' demands. In accord with the agreement, provincial governor Józef Łabudek and his two deputies (Antoni Kobiela and Antoni Urbaniec) resigned on that day, and the new governor, Stanisław Łuczkiewicz, was obliged to punish those guilty of corruption. Other officials who were removed from their posts were local leaders of the Party, mayor of Bielsko-Biała Marian Kałoń (replaced by little known Jacek Krywułt), his deputy Franciszek Holeksa, chief of police, Colonel Ryszard Witek, as well as a number of civil servants. 1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała The 1981 general