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Urban earned a reputation for his sarcasm and acid tongue in the early 1980s when he served as the spokesman for the government of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski.

Jaruzelski’s government imposed martial law in an attempt to crush the Solidarity freedom movement of Lech Walesa.

On July 29, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the man who in 1981 had imposed martial law to crush Solidarity, resigned as Communist Party leader but remained as president.

Then-Polish leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, whose 1981 imposition of martial law had led that country nowhere, opted instead to open up talks with the strikers’ leader, Lech Walesa.

On the night of Dec. 13, 1981, Polish general Wojciech Jaruzelski, who had taken power that October, imposed martial law.