Solidarność

Solidarność (‘Solidarity’) (Poland) In response to an unannounced increase in Polish food prices on 1 August 1980, strikes erupted at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk. Under the charismatic leadership of Wałetsa, they spread across Poland, as demands became less economic and more political, e.g. for independent trade unions. The various strike committees met on 17 September 1980 to form the Solidarność trade-union movement, which was accepted by a state overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the protests on 10 November. In response, up to 80 per cent of the total Polish workforce registered with the union, which was also increasingly seen as a direct political challenge to the political hegemony of the Communist state. Gaining more and more concessions from a confused state, it became increasingly radicalized. At the same time, the Polish government was faced with a growing threat from the hardline governments of Brezhnev (USSR), Honecker (GDR), and Husák (Czechoslovakia) to ‘help’ through military intervention akin to the Prague Spring.

Possibly forestalling a military intervention, Jaruselski declared martial law on 13 December 1981. Trade union activities were banned, and Solidarity leaders imprisoned. Naturally, this increased popular discontent even further, and meant that the government could not be shored up indefinitely, particularly as Gorbachev's leadership from 1985 made it unlikely that the Soviet army would support the Polish government against a popular insurrection. The union was allowed again in 1988, when the government also started negotiations about a democratization of the political system. In the restricted elections of 1989, every candidate supported by the union won, so that Wałetsa's closest adviser, Mazowiecki, became Prime Minister.

After the collapse of Communism, the importance of Solidarność as a political force declined rapidly. This was caused by deep divisions within the leadership (not least caused by Wałetsa's own erratic personality), and disagreements about a reformist programme. As a sign of its waning influence, Wałetsa was elected President with difficulty in 1990, while in 1993 the movement itself failed to gain the 5 per cent necessary to enter the Sejm (parliament). It reformed itself in 1996, when it headed a new coalition comprising some further 40 interest groups. Under the name Electoral Action Solidarity, it won the 1997 elections and, under the leadership of Jerzy Buzek, formed a government with the liberal Freedom Union. Although the electoral pact had endeavoured to overcome the fragmentation of the party system, in government it suffered greatly from its internal rifts. These were heightened by frequent clashes with the President, Kwasniewski, and the departure of the Freedom Union from the government. Its failure to integrate Catholic, agricultural labourers' votes, workers, and intellectuals became manifest in the 2001 elections, when it suffered a heavy defeat at the polls.