Poland: Bad Day at Bydgoszcz

Police brutality almost touches off a national crisis

One small spark in Poland's eight-month confrontation between the government and the reform-minded unionists of Solidarity could touch off a conflagration. Last week in Bydgoszcz (pop. 300,000), 140 miles northwest of Warsaw, the flash was almost struck. For three days, farmers demanding their own union, Rural Solidarity, had occupied a government building. Somehow, the tensions of the peasant sit-in swirled across town to another meeting at the Bydgoszcz provincial council building, where local Solidarity members and Rural Solidarity activists sought to discuss the situation with the Provisional People's Council.

Suddenly, two local officials...