Economic Crisis
Even after martial law was lifted, a number of restrictions remained in place for several years that drastically reduced the civil liberties of people living in Poland. It also led to severe economic consequences. The ruling junta instituted major price rises (dubbed "economic reforms"), which resulted in a fall in real terms of 20% or more in the income of the population. The resulting economic crisis led to the rationing of most products and materials, including basic food.
As a consequence of economic hardship, an exodus of Polish workforce took place in 1980s. From 1981 to 1989, around 700,000 persons left the country. A number of international flights were highjacked in attempts to flee the country and its economic problems. Between December 1980 and October 1983, 11 Polish flights were hijacked to Berlin Tempelhof Airport alone. In another act of international terrorism, a group calling themselves the Polish Revolutionary Home Army seized the Polish Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, taking several diplomats hostage in 1982, in an apparent provocation of the Polish secret services aimed to discredit the Solidarity movement.
Read more about this topic: Martial Law In Poland
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or crisis:
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)
“In crisis is cleverness born.”
—Chinese proverb.