History of Solidarity

Solidarity (Polish: „Solidarność”, pronounced [sɔliˈdarnɔɕt͡ɕ] ^ⓘ), a Polish non-governmental trade union, was founded on August 14, 1980, at the Lenin Shipyards (now Gdańsk Shipyards) by Lech Wałęsa and others. In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country. Solidarity gave rise to a broad, non-violent, anti-Communist social movement that, at its height, claimed some 9.4 million members. It is considered to have contributed greatly to the Fall of Communism.

The People's Republic of Poland attempted to destroy the union by instituting martial law in 1981, followed by several years of political repression but in the end was forced into negotiation. The Roundtable Talks between the Communist government and the Solidarity-led opposition resulted in semi-free elections of 1989. By the end of August 1989, a Solidarity-led coalition government had been formed, and Wałęsa was elected president in December 1990. This was soon followed by the dismantling of the Communist governmental system and by Poland's transformation into a modern democratic state. Solidarity's early survival represented a break in the hard-line stance of the Communist Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), and was an unprecedented event; not only for the People's Republic of Poland—a satellite of the Soviet Union ruled by a one-party Communist state—but for the whole of the Eastern Bloc. Solidarity's example led to the spread of anti-Communist ideas and movements throughout the Eastern Bloc, weakening Communist governments. This process later culminated in the Revolutions of 1989.

In the 1990s, Solidarity's influence on politics of Poland waned. A political arm of the Solidarity movement, Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS), was founded in 1996 and would win the 1997 Polish parliamentary election, only to lose the subsequent 2001 Polish parliamentary election. Thereafter, Solidarity had little influence as a political party, though it became the largest trade union in Poland.