Solidarity ( ; full name: Independent Self-governing Trade Union "Solidarity" ? Niezale?ny Samorz?dny Zwi?zek Zawodowy "Solidarno??" ) is a Polish trade union federation founded in September 1980 at the Gda?sk Shipyard, and originally led by Lech Wa??sa.

It was the first non-communist trade union in a communist country. In the 1980s it constituted a broad anti-communist social movement. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of repression, but in the end it had to start negotiating with the union. The Roundtable Talks between the government and Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December Wa??sa was elected President of Poland. Since then it has become a more traditional trade union.

History

1980 strike at Gda?sk Shipyard, birthplace of Solidarity.

Solidarity was founded in September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyards, where Lech Wa??sa and others formed a broad anti-communist social movement ranging from people associated with the Catholic Church^[1] to members of the anti-communist Left. Solidarity advocated nonviolence in its members' activities.^[2][3] In September 1981 Solidarity's first national congress elected Lech Wa??sa as a president^[4] and adopted a republican program, the "Self-governing Republic"^[5]. The government attempted to destroy the union with the martial law of 1981 and several years of repression, but in the end it had to start negotiating with the union.

In Poland, the Roundtable Talks between the government and Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December Tadeusz Mazowiecki was elected Prime Minister. Since 1989 Solidarity has become a more traditional trade union, and had relatively little impact on the political scene of Poland in the early 1990s. A political arm founded in 1996 as Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) won the parliamentary election in 1997, but lost the following 2001 election. Currently, as a political party Solidarity has little political influence in modern Polish politics.

Catholic social teaching

In Solicitudo Rei Socialis, a major document of Catholic Social Teaching, Pope John Paul II identifies the concept of solidarity with the poor and marginalized as a constitutive element of the Gospel and human participation in the common good. The Roman Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, was a very powerful supporter of the union and was greatly responsible for its success.

Influence abroad

The survival of Solidarity was an unprecedented event not only in Poland, a satellite state of the USSR ruled (in practice) by a one-party Communist regime, but the whole of the Eastern bloc. It meant a break in the hard-line stance of the communist Polish United Workers' Party, which had bloodily ended a 1970 protest with machine gun fire (killing dozens and injuring over 1,000), and the broader Soviet communist regime in the Eastern Bloc, which had quelled both the 1956 Hungarian Uprising and the 1968 Prague Spring with Soviet-led invasions.

Solidarity's influence led to the intensification and spread of anti-communist ideals and movements throughout the countries of the Eastern Bloc, weakening their communist governments. The 1989 elections in Poland where anti-communist candidates won a striking victory sparked off a succession of peaceful anti-communist revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe^[1] known as the Revolutions of 1989 (Jesie? Ludów). Solidarity's example was in various ways repeated by opposition groups throughout the Eastern Bloc, eventually leading to the Eastern Bloc's effectual dismantling, and contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s.

Organization

Gda?sk on 25th anniversary of Solidarity, summer 2005.

Formed in 1981, the union's supreme powers were vested in a legislative body, the Convention of Delegates (Zjazd Delegatów). The executive branch was the National Coordinating Commission (Krajowa Komisja Porozumiewawcza), later renamed the National Commission (Komisja Krajowa). The Union had a regional structure, comprising 38 regions (region) and two districts (okr?g). During the communist era the 38 regional delegates were arrested and jailed when martial law came into effect 1983 under Jaruzelski. After a one year prison term the high-ranking members of the union were offered one way trips to any country accepting them (Canada, United States, South Africa, Germany, Switzerland).

Solidarity was organized as an industrial union, or more specifically according to the One Big Union principle, along the lines of the Industrial Workers of the World and the Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (workers in every trade were organized by region, rather than by craft).^[6]

Currently, Solidarity has more than 1.1 million members. National Commission of Independent Self-Governing Trade Union is located in Gda?sk and is composed of Delegates from Regional General Congresses.

Chairmen

• Lech Wa??sa 1980-1990
• Marian Krzaklewski 1991-2002
• Janusz ?niadek 2002-

References

External links

• Solidarity official English homepage
• Presentation The Solidarity Phenomenon (PL, EN, DE, FR, ES, RU)
• Solidarity 25th Anniversary Press Center
• International Conference 'From Solidarity to Freedom'
• Advice for East German propagandists on how to deal with the Solidarity movement
• The Birth of Solidarity on BBC
• Solidarity, Freedom and Economical Crisis in Poland, 1980-81
• The rise of Solidarno??, Colin Barker, International Socialism, Issue: 108
• Arch Puddington, How American Unions Helps Solidarity Win
• Solidarity Lost, by Daniel Singer
• Solidarity Center Fundation - Fundacja Centrum Solidarno?ci
• A Simple Way to Learn an Old Song A radio programme about the song "Mury", the anthem of Solidarno??. In Russian with English transcript

Further reading

• Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, on Vatican website

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