Meeting of the Committee for the Defense of the Homeland on the implementation of martial law in Poland. Committee members discuss where to increase militarization to be prepared for martial law, and how best to protect martial law through propaganda.

A proposal for instituting martial law in Poland, in response to the protest movement there. The document breaks down the powers granted to the government through martial law, and notes that the powers of some government organs will need to be broadened.

German military commanders meet with Marshal Kulikov following the evaluation meeting by the joint operative-strategic Command Staff Exercise "SOYUZ-81." Kulikov states that the military exercise was called to support Polish leaders Jaruzelski and Kania and so "a certain pressure should also be exerted upon the leadership of 'Solidarity.'"

President of People’s Republic of Hungary, Rezso Nyers, and General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, Karoly Grosz, report on their talks with Gorbachev in Moscow, 24-25 July, 1989. The excerpts contains economic reformer Nyers’ assessment of the political situation in Hungary, and first among the factors that "can defeat the party," he lists "the past, if we let ourselves [be] smeared with it." The memory of the revolution of 1956 and its bloody repression by the Soviets was Banquo’s ghost, destroying the legitimacy of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, just as 1968 in Prague and 1981’s martial law in Poland and all the other Communist "blank spots" of history came back in 1989 to crumble Communist ideology. For their part, the Communist reformers (including Gorbachev) did not quite know how to respond as events accelerated in 1989, except not to repeat 1956.

On the day after Solidarity had swept Poland’s first open elections, ultimately winning 99 of 100 Senate seats, the Polish Communists vent their shock and dismay ("a bitter lesson," "the party are not connected with the masses," "We trusted the Church and they turned out to be Jesuits" were typical comments). Comrade Kwasniewski (who was later elected President of Poland) remarks that "It’s well known that also party members were crossing out our candidates" (only two out of 35 Party candidates survived the epidemic of X’s). But they see no choice but to negotiate a coalition government, and specifically "[w]arn against attempts at destabilization, pointing at the situation in China" -- since the Tiananmen massacre occurred the same day as the Polish elections, the road not taken.

Soviet ambassadors are informed that martial law has been declared in Poland.

The Soviet Politburo discusses the Polish Solidarity movement and the possibility of imposing martial law in Poland to restore order and the communist party's authority.

Top Secret Dossier from the CPSU CC to Poland listing amount of economic aid in 1980-1981 that is classified for specific purchases such as grain and foodstuffs, as well as for the repayment of loans to other countries.

Brezhnev discusses Soviet talks with Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Czyrek. Brezhnev also informs the Politburo about the state of the PZPR, the Polish economy, the newly instituted Polish martial law, and the leadership of Jaruzelski.