SOLIDARITY IN POLAND, 1980–1990 term paper

The trade union movement known as Solidarity first appeared in August 1980. It was a response to events of the 1970s, first the strikes protesting the increase in food prices in 1970 and then a similar set of events in 1976. In 1976 the intelligentsia offered assistance to the workers in the form of the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR). The Catholic Church also offered help.

One other event before the beginnings of Solidarity in 1980 helped to prepare the way. In 1978 Karol Cardinal Wojtyla was elected to serve as Pope John Paul II. His pastoral visit to Poland in 1979 attracted enthusiastic crowds. The 1980 strikes began in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk. From the beginning, the central figure was an electrician, Lech Walesa, who had already gained a reputation as an activist. Walesa excelled both in speaking to large groups and in negotiating. With the help of people from KOR, Walesa won a twenty-one-point agreement, the Gdansk Agreement, that allowed Solidarity to exist as an independent, self-governing trade union. Over the next few months millions of workers around Poland joined Solidarity. It gained enormous power even though it was not formally part of the political system. The Polish United Workers Party (PUWP), as the Polish Communist Party was known, found itself constantly on the defensive. There was some fear the Soviet Union would invade as it had in the case of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Finally, General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law on 13 December 1981. He has claimed that this was necessary to forestall a Soviet invasion. The leaders of Solidarity were arrested and held without trial for varying lengths of time. Solidarity was forced to go underground, but it managed to preserve itself as an organization over the next several years. Walesa remained in the public eye. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. By 1988 the Polish government under Jaruzelski had reached a dead end. The only recourse seemed to be discussions with Solidarity, which took place in the spring of 1989. The talks resulted in Solidarity again becoming a legal organization and participating in elections that summer. Solidarity was overwhelmingly successful in the elections. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, one of its members, became prime minister. Walesa was elected president the following year. Walesa and Solidarity were better at being the opposition than governing. Walesa, especially, did not contribute that much to the difficult transition period to democracy and free enterprise. Nevertheless, both he and Solidarity had changed Polish history and had contributed to changes in the history of the Soviet bloc.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. Edward Gierek replaced Wladyslaw Gomulka as first secretary of the Polish Communist Party in 1970 after the first strikes and set out to improve the standard of living. His failure to do this led to strikes in 1976 and again in 1980. Investigate his economic policies and write a report on what went wrong. 2. What did the Polish Catholic Church do in the 1970s to contribute to the success of Solidarity in 1980?
3. As a group project, do a presentation on the strikes, negotiations, and agreement of August 1980. One possibility might take the form of news reports and interviews.
4. There is some controversy about whether General Wojciech Jaruzelski had only a choice between a Soviet invasion and declaration of martial law (see Suggested Sources). Survey the evidence and draw your own conclusions as to the necessity of martial law.
5. Examine Lech Walesa’s career from the late 1970s to the end of his term as president. What were his main contributions to Solidarity?
6. Survey the events of 1989 in Poland. How significant was Solidarity’s willingness to participate in the talks, first, and then the elections, later? What dangers did it face in doing so?

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The Prague Spring, 1968” (#70) and “John Paul II’s First Twenty Years as Pope, 1978–1999” (#98). Search under Jacek Kuron, Adam Michnik, Edward Gierek, Stanislaw Kania, Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO), and Leonid Brezhnev.

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Michnik, Adam. Letters from Prison and Other Essays. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. Michnik was one of Solidarity’s most important advisors from the intelligentsia.

Walesa, Lech. The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography. New York: Arcade, 1992. Walesa’s perspective on the heroic events of the 1980s.

Secondary Sources

Ascherson, Neal. The Polish August: The Self-Limiting Revolution.New York: Viking Press, 1982. An excellent introduction although now somewhat dated.

Boyes, Roger. The Naked President: A Political Life of Lech Walesa. London: Secker and Warburg, 1994. A good introduction to the central figure in Solidarity. Garton Ash, Timothy. The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ‘89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague. New York: Random House, 1990. Brilliant reporting from an observer who was often at the very center of events.

———. The Polish Revolution. New ed. London: Penguin, 1999. A well-informed study of Solidarity.

Man of Iron. Directed by Andrzej Wajda. MGM/UA Home Video. 140 minutes. Based on the strike in Gdansk in 1980. Filmed in 1981.

Rosenberg, Tina. The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts after Communism. New York: Random House, 1995. Includes a long and fascinating section on Jaruzelski and whether the declaration of martial law was necessary.

Stokes, Gale, ed. From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern Europe since 1945. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. A highly useful selection of documents that places 1989 in context.

Weschler, Lawrence. Solidarity: Poland in the Season of Its Passion.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. A very readable, solid account.