WA??SA, LECH (b. 1943)

Polish leader.

Lech Wa??sa was born 29 September 1943 in Popowo in northern Poland, then under German occupation. During the war, Wa??sa's father, a carpenter, was seized for slave labor by the Nazis and although he survived the war, died shortly thereafter as a result of mistreatment. Wa??sa received a vocational education and worked as a mechanic before entering the army for a mandatory two-year period of service. In 1967 Wa??sa took a job as an electrician at the Lenin Shipyards in Gda?sk. In 1969 he married Danuta Golo?sk. couple would have eight children.

By the end of the 1960s, the economic situation in communist Poland had become increasingly difficult because of government ineptitude. In 1970, with the economic situation getting increasingly out of control, the government announced a 20 percent hike in the price of food one week before Christmas. Workers around the country went on strike and riots ensued. This time, it was the industrial strongholds of the Baltic coast where the worst violence occurred. When the militia ambushed a train full of workers in Gdansk, shooting scores of unarmed strikers, the workers responded by burning the local party headquarters. Some three hundred workers were killed in the riots, but the exact count is unknown, since many bodies were buried in secret. This event proved a major turning point for Wa??sa, who was active in the protests. Thereafter, the electrician became increasingly involved in efforts to form an independent trade union.

Following renewed worker unrest in 1976, Wa??sa was fired from his job at the shipyard and placed under surveillance by the secret police. He took temporary jobs to support his family while continuing efforts to organize a free union. In 1978, along with other activists, he cofounded Wolne Zwi?zki Zawodowe Wybrz?za (Free Trade Union of the Coast) and was arrested a number of times in 1979. Although he is associated with opposition to the state, Wa??sa's record during this period has not been above suspicion. Though he was later cleared of being a police agent by a court ruling, he did provide some information to the police on opposition activities, a situation that was not uncommon among many in the opposition because of the pervasive nature of the communist police state.

Strongly influenced by the election of John Paul II (r. 1978–2005) and by the pope's visit to Poland, during which opposition to Communist rule had received a critical boost, Polish workers reacted to Poland's increasing economic problems with stronger action in defense of their rights. Following a massive increase in the price of staple foods, strikes began to break out across the country in August 1980. At the Lenin Shipyards, workers went on strike following the firing of the popular activist and model worker Anna Walentynowicz. Wa??sa climbed the shipyard wall and took charge of the strike committee. The shipyard became one of the strongholds of the worker's movements. Following protracted negotiations, in which Wa??sa played a critical role, the authorities gave in to most of the workers' demands. The most important of these was the creation of an independent trade union, Solidarity, with Wa??sa as its chairman. The shipyard electrician became known around the world as face of peaceful opposition to Communist rule.

After sixteen months of uneasy coexistence with Solidarity, the Communist authorities cracked down on the union in December 1981, arresting Wa??sa and tens of thousands of other activists and imposing martial law on the country. In late 1982, Wa??sa was released from prison. The following year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite forcefully destroying Solidarity, the Communist authorities were unable to stop the country's economic slide. In 1988, with continuing worker unrest, the government agreed to negotiations with the center and left portions of the opposition, with Wa??sa again assuming an important role. From these roundtable talks emerged a kind of power-sharing agreement that opened the door to the first partially free elections in Poland since 1938. In June 1989 Solidarity-backed candidates won all contested elections handily, ending Communist rule in Poland and spurring a wave of related movements in other Soviet-controlled countries.

During this brief period, Wa??sa held no public office and was in some ways eclipsed by his hand-picked prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Following the resignation of the Communist president, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Wa??sa reentered politics and challenged Mazowiecki for the office. Although Wa??sa was elected president in December 1990, the move split the Solidarity movement and led to a series of short-lived governments. Wa??sa remained a dominant political figure, extending the power of the presidency and stretching its constitutional limits.

Although Wa??sa's political ambitions badly divided Solidarity and opened the door for the revived fortunes of former Communist politicians, during his tenure some important economic and political reforms were implemented, establishing the rule of law, restoring a market economy, and beginning Poland's move toward rejoining the community of Western nations. By 1995, however, he had lost the support of most of his fellow Poles and lost to the former Communist Aleksander Kwa?niewski. Wa??sa tried to run again for president in 2000 but garnered only 1 percent of the vote.

Although Wa??sa remains a highly recognizable figure in Poland, he retains negligible political support. His popularity is far greater outside of Poland, especially among Polish diaspora communities, than in Poland itself. In 1995 Wa??sa founded the Lech Wa??sa Institute, in Gdansk, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to Wa??sa's political and social causes.

See alsoJaruzelski, Wojciech; John Paul II; Labor Movements; 1989; Poland; Solidarity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kurski, Jaroslaw. Lech Wa??sa: Democrat or Dictator. Translated by Peter Obst. Boulder, Colo., 1993.

Lech Wa??sa Institute. Web site at http://www.ilw.org.pl/.

Wa??sa, Lech. A Way of Hope: An Autobiography. New York, 1983.

Wa??sa, Lech, with Arkadiusz Rybicki. The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography. Translated by Franklin Philip in collaboration with Helen Mahut. New York, 1992.

John Radzilowski