This volume presents a collection of diplomatic documents describing Britain's relations with Eastern Europe from 1979 to 1982, with special focus on the crisis in Poland. After coming to power in 1979, the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher reaffirmed a policy of 'differentiation' between the Soviet Union and the rest of Eastern Europe, and between individual countries; concurrently it encouraged states to exercise a limited amount of independence. This policy was soon put to the test when in 1980 Solidarnosc, the Solidarity trade union led by Lech Walesa, challenged the...