Fighting Solidarity (Polish: Solidarność Walcząca) is a Polish anti-Soviet and anti-communist organization. It was founded in June 1982[1] by Kornel Morawiecki in the Polish city of Wrocław. Its creation was in response to the de-legalization of the Solidarity movement and associated communist government repression of the opposition symbolized by the imposition of martial law in 1981. Many consider this faction as one of the most radical and uncompromising splinters of the wider Solidarity movement.[2]
Morawiecki and Fighting Solidarity activists envisaged their organization as a successor to the Polish resistance in World War II,[1][3] hence the symbol of the new movement merged the Solidarity logo with the Kotwica and crowned Polish eagle (symbolically in 1945, the new communist regime removed the crown from the eagle's head on the official coat of arms of the Polish State. Many among the opposition viewed that crown as a symbol of independent, non-communist Poland).
One of the main activities of Fighting Solidarity was information warfare: it printed and distributed many underground newspapers (bibuła). The most well-known of these included "Solidarność Walcząca" (Wrocław, the main press organ of the organization), "Biuletyn Dolnośląski" (Wrocław), "Solidarność Walcząca" (Poznań) and "Galicja" (Rzeszów). Fighting Solidarity's bibuła were the first such publications printed during the period of martial law, being made available already the next day after martial law was introduced.[4] Fighting Solidarity also tried to actively infiltrate the Polish secret police (Służba Bezpieczeństwa) and to support other anti-communist organizations, including such organizations in other countries of the Soviet Bloc, even within the Soviet Union itself.[5] The Polish secret police found it extremely hard to infiltrate the new organization, even though they employed various tactics, including the kidnapping of the founder Morawiecki's children in an attempt to blackmail him.[4] Despite its name and (undeserved) reputation for militancy, Fighting Solidarity supported neither violence nor terrorism.[5]
Fighting Solidarity was one of two Polish organizations of that time whose primary goals, declared from the start, included the destruction of communism, the independence of Poland and other nations controlled by communist governments (including those comprising the Soviet Union itself), as well as the reunification of Germany.
Apart from Wrocław, Fighting Solidarity power bases included Poznań, Gdańsk, Rzeszów and Upper Silesia. Among its most prominent members were Andrzej Myc, Wojciech Myślecki, Andrzej Zarach (Wrocław) and Andrzej Kołodziej (Gdynia). In 1986 it claimed to have several hundred active members, not counting among these other allies and supporters.[5]
In 1990 many members of Fighting Solidarity founded a political party, the Partia Wolności (Freedom Party).
- ^ a b KENNEY, Padraic. A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989, p 30.
- ^ Andrzej Paczkowski, Jane Cave. The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom. p. 464.
- ^ KENNEY, Padraic. A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989, p 164.
- ^ a b (in Polish) Solidarność Walcząca, czyli po niepodległość bez kompromisów Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine Magazyn Obywatel nr 5 / 2005 (25)
- ^ a b c Sabrina Petra Ramet. Social Currents in Eastern Europe: The Sources and Consequences of the Great Transformation, p 97.