‘I would never interfere in Poland’s domestic affairs!’ On 12 December 1980, as Poland is hit by workers’ strikes, Fritz Behrendt, a Dutch cartoonist originally from Berlin, illustrates the threat of a military intervention by Moscow to restore order. Although the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Leonid Brezhnev, says he will not interfere in Poland’s domestic affairs, the reminder of other military interventions, as indicated on the tank, does not bode well. On the left, opposite the gun: Lech Wałęsa, the main leader of this strike and head of the Solidarność movement, a federation of independent Polish trade unions strongly opposed to the communist regime of General Wojciech Jaruzelski.