The August Strike [of 1980 in Gdansk] was initiated by five people. That is five people knew about it, and the strike itself was started by three young workers. Such were the forces we commanded. Yet it transformed into something huge. And by the time we were exiting the strike as winners, we were in command of an immense movement. This strike was controlled from the very beginning by my group, and, through the beginning of 1981 the creation of Solidarity was also controlled by my group. And this was why we were successful. Because we knew one another very well.
We trusted each other. We had many discussions about the mistakes that were made in December of 1970 [worker strikes in Poland that were crushed by the regime], and later. We knew which things not to do; we knew the direction to follow. In addition, we had the experiences of Hungary in ‘56 and Czechoslovakia in ’68 [anti-communist uprisings put down by Soviet military power], so that all made it successful. I continued to analyze these individual situations with my friends, the young workers. And they knew what needed to be done.
They knew that you should not let the people outside the walls of the plant; you have to lock yourself in these factories, because there were too few of us to control whatever might happen out in the street. So I was the leader of that opposition group, I was the one who chose the moment to initiate the strike. Then of course I had my input on the progression of the strike, the demands we issued, the framework of how to act in the face of our strike spreading beyond the boundaries, which we had envisioned. But the leadership of the strike went to Lech Walesa [the leader of the Solidarity independent trade union and served as president of Poland from 1990-1995], he would head up the strike, and later became the leader of the entire movement. So he became the steam engine of sorts, pulling the strike.
The August [1980] Strike – there were two components to it – the reasons why it started in that place at that time and why it wound up being successful. In the Lenin Shipyard and in the course of implementing Lenin’s theory – we folded up Marxism Leninism. What Lenin wrote, or what Lenin said, was what is required for revolution are the awakened masses and a group of determined revolutionaries – and he was right. And I was aware of that – because I had read this.
So at the Lenin shipyard, you could say a true paradox came about: At the shipyard which bore Lenin’s name, Marxism Leninism was undone, with application of Lenin´s theory.
Bogdan Borusewicz is the Speaker (Marshal) of the Polish Senate. He was born in 1949 and studied history at the Catholic University of Lublin.
Under communism, Borusewicz was an ardent democracy activist. His career as a dissident started in high school, when he was arrested in 1968 for engaging with the opposition movement. In the 1970s, Borusewicz became involved with the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR) and the Free Trade Unions of the Coast, workers’ advocacy organizations that preceded the Solidarity independent trade union.
Borusewicz rose to prominence as the principal organizer of Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard strike in August 1980, which led to the formation of Solidarity. When martial law was declared in 1981, Borusewicz went into hiding for four years. During this time, he married fellow freedom activist Alina Pienkowska in secret. When Alina gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Kinga, Borusewicz attended her baptism in disguise for fear of being arrested by authorities. He was later arrested in 1986 and imprisoned for two years. After receiving amnesty, Borusewicz renewed his activism, serving as deputy leader of Solidarity in 1990 and 1991. He was elected to the lower house of parliament in 1990, where he served until 2001.
In 2005, he was elected to the Senate, where he was chosen by his colleagues to serve as Speaker (Marshal). In 2010, he served briefly as the interim Polish President after President Lech Kaczynski died.
Poland is a central European country bordered by the Baltic Sea, Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, Russia, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Poland has a population of 38 million people; nearly 90 percent are Roman Catholic.
Poles struggled against foreign dominance from the 14th century and the modern Polish state is less than one hundred years old. Polish borders expanded and contracted through a series of partitions in the 18th century. After a brief period of independence and parliamentary democracy from 1918 to 1939, World War II brought occupation by Nazi Germany and the near annihilation of the Jewish population. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Poland’s Jewish population went from over 3 million in 1933 to 45,000 in 1950.
After the war, Poland became a Soviet satellite state and a communist system was imposed. Farms were collectivized, basic freedoms curtailed, and a culture of fear developed under a Stalinist regime. The 1960s brought greater prosperity and some liberalization. Labor protests in the early 1970s tested the communist government’s resolve and prompted modest reforms.
In 1978, Polish Archbishop and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century. The pope’s triumphant return to Poland in 1979 saw massive outpourings of public support, shaking the foundations of the government and inspiring the opposition to press for peaceful change.
In 1980, shipbuilders in the seaport city of Gdansk united to confront the government. Their calls for greater political liberties and improved working conditions developed into the Solidarity movement. Solidarity’s leader, Lech Walesa, became the movement’s voice. Protests and unrest spread throughout the country and the communists replaced their leadership. General Wojciech Jaruzelski became prime minister and declared martial law on December 13, 1981. Solidarity was outlawed and Walesa and other Solidarity leaders were imprisoned.
While martial law was lifted in 1983, Poland continued to stagnate. Mikhail Gorbachev’s elevation to leadership of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985 brought new pressures for reform in Poland. A failing economy and continued repression incited workers to a new wave of strikes in 1988. A desperate regime agreed to legalize Solidarity and conduct semi-free elections. In the 1989 parliamentary elections, Solidarity won 99 of the 100 Senate seats and 160 of the 161 lower house seats they were allowed to contest. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a Solidarity leader, became Poland’s first non-communist prime minister in over four decades. In 1990, Lech Walesa was elected president with 74 percent of the vote. While Solidarity splintered as Poland democratized, a coalition government of anti-communist parties won fully free parliamentary elections in 1991.
Poland transitioned to a market economy and applied for integration into western institutions. Economic dislocation returned the former communists, now social democrats, to power in 1993. Free elections and peaceful transitions in the following decades solidified Poland’s multi-party democratic system. Reforms eventually led to a more robust economy and Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.
In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2013, Poland earned the status “Free,” (as it has since 1990) receiving the best possible rankings in the categories Political Rights and Civil Liberties.
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