Polish Communists issue skeleton papers in strike

August 20, 1981

Poland's Communist authorities, trying to break a national strike by printers , published skeleton newspapers with the help of military presses Wednesday, but only a handful of copies got through to readers.

Publication of the national party daily Trybuna Ludu and the Army daily Zolnierz Wolnosci symbolically broke the strike and saved the Communist leadership from acute embarrassment, but the two papers were not seen for sale anywhere in Warsaw.

The two-day stoppage by printers, the first of its kind in the Soviet bloc, was called by the Solidarity free trade union to demand fairer treatment in the mass media.