SolidarityThe Solidarity (Polish: Solidarnosc) labor movement led a political struggle against Poland's Communist regime during the 1980s. Founded in September 1980 by strikers at the Gdansk shipyards, Solidarity was headed by one of the strike leaders, Lech WALESA. During the last months of 1980 and throughout 1981, it took on an increasingly revolutionary character, pressuring the Polish government to enact democratic reforms. Outlawed by the government in December 1981, Solidarity functioned as an underground movement for several years. It resumed open activity in 1988, after the spirit of glasnost emanating from the USSR had created a freer atmosphere in Poland. Its candidates won a majority in the parliamentary elections of 1989, and in 1990 Walesa was elected to the Polish presidency. Under the new government, Solidarity scaled down its political activities and reverted to the status of a trade union.BACK TO POLAND GENERAL INFORMATION Hanna Suchocka Hanna Suchocka was born on 3 April 1946 in Pleszew in western
Poland. She studied law at the University of Poznan in 1968 and taught
there for one year following graduation. In 1975, she obtained a doctoral
degree in constitutional law. In 1980, Suchocka became a member of the
Communist parliament. It was the year that Solidarity, the trade union
movement which was to embody the national drive for democratic freedom,
was born in Poland. The country came under martial law in December of
1981 as the government struck back at Solidarity and forced it underground.
Lech Walesa and other leaders were interned. In 1984, Suchocka left Parliament
when her term expired; she had refused to vote for punitive measures against
Solidarity. The situation in Poland changed considerably after President
Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reforms in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.
Political agreements in Poland led to elections in June of 1989, which
were won by Solidarity-backed candidates, of which Suchocka was one. She
joined the Democratic Union party, which was headed by Tadeusz Mazowiecki,
the new prime minister. In 1990, Mazowiecki and Lech Walesa both ran for
president of Poland, with Walesa the victor. In 1991, Suchocka was elected
to a four-year term in the lower house of Parliament (the Sejm). In July
1992, Walesa named Suchocka prime minister, the fourth during his term.
She served until 1993, when her party was defeated at the polls, reflecting
the voters' desire to slow down reform policy. She is still in Parliament
today. Lech Walesafrom Encyclopaedia Britannica On August 31 Walesa and Mieczyslaw Jagielski, Poland's first deputy premier, signed an agreement conceding to the workers the right to organize freely and independently, in addition to granting wage increases and greater freedom of political and religious expression. The Interfactory Strike Committee thereupon was transformed into Solidarity. As chairman of the new trade union, Walesa won further concessions, but the gains proved ephemeral. On Dec. 13, 1981, the Polish government imposed martial law, Solidarity was outlawed, and most of the leaders of Solidarity were arrested, including Walesa, who was detained for nearly a year. Labour unrest continued but was more muted as the government maintained a policy of harassment of Walesa and other union activists. The award of the Nobel Prize for Peace to Walesa was criticized by the Polish government; fearing involuntary exile, he remained in Poland while his wife, Danuta, traveled to Oslo, Nor., to accept the prize on his behalf. In 1986-87 Walesa smuggled an autobiography to Paris, where it was published as Un Chemin d'Espoir (1987; A Way of Hope). In 1988-89 he participated in talks with the Polish government that resulted
in the restoration of Solidarity and other unions to legal status, free
elections for seats in the newly restored upper house of the Sejm (Parliament),
the establishment of the post of president of the republic, and the promulgation
of certain economic changes. Although he had helped Tadeusz Mazowiecki
obtain the premiership in 1989, Walesa ran against Mazowiecki for president
in 1990 and won Poland's first direct presidential election by a landslide.
Five years later he sought reelection but was narrowly defeated by former
Communist Aleksander Kwasniewski, head of the Democratic Left Alliance.
Return
to Home Page
| Who Were the 5 Million? | Photos
| Stories of Survival |
|