Lech Walesa

Lech Wałęsa was born on September 29, 1943, in Popowo, Poland. He trained as an electrician and began working at the Gdańsk Lenin Shipyard in 1967, where he became active in independent labor organizing. He was dismissed from the shipyard in 1976 for distributing anti-government leaflets commemorating workers killed in the 1970 strikes. He founded Solidarity (Solidarność) through his leadership of the August 1980 shipyard occupation strike and served as its chairman through the movement's legal period, its underground existence under martial law, and its political triumph in 1989. He served as President of Poland from December 1990 to December 1995.¹

The Gdańsk Strikes

Wałęsa had maintained contact with the Workers' Defense Committee (KOR) network of intellectuals and activists after his 1976 dismissal, and was recognized at the Gdańsk shipyard as a trusted labor voice. When workers struck on August 14, 1980, over the dismissal of crane operator Anna Walentynowicz, Wałęsa was outside the shipyard gates. He climbed the fence, joined the strike, and quickly assumed leadership of the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee that coordinated strikes at hundreds of Polish workplaces.

The Gdańsk Agreement of August 31, 1980, which Wałęsa signed with his souvenir pen and which conceded independent trade unions, the right to strike, and freedom of expression, was the most significant concession extracted from any communist government in the Soviet bloc through direct worker pressure.¹

Martial Law and Nobel Prize

On December 13, 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski's martial law decree arrested Wałęsa, suspended Solidarity, and interned approximately 10,000 activists. Wałęsa was held in isolation at a government villa until November 1982. After his release he was subject to continuous surveillance and restrictions, returned to work at the Gdańsk shipyard as an ordinary employee, and maintained clandestine contact with the underground Solidarity leadership.

In October 1983 Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Polish government refused to allow him to travel to receive it; his wife Danuta accepted on his behalf. The prize, awarded while he was a private citizen under surveillance by state security, confirmed his global standing and increased the political cost to the Jaruzelski government of further suppression.²

1989 and Presidency

Wałęsa led Solidarity's participation in the Round Table negotiations with the Jaruzelski government in February-April 1989, which produced the partially free June 4, 1989 elections. Solidarity's overwhelming victory in those elections - 99 of 100 Senate seats, all 161 contestable Sejm seats - destroyed the communist government's legitimacy and produced the Tadeusz Mazowiecki prime ministership.

Wałęsa himself was elected President of Poland in December 1990, defeating Mazowiecki in the second round after a divisive first round. His presidency (1990-1995), which coincided with the difficult economic transition period of Polish "shock therapy," was marked by conflicts with the parliamentary government and an assertive style that his critics characterized as authoritarian. He lost his 1995 reelection bid to former communist Aleksander Kwaśniewski.¹

KGB Allegations

Polish Institute of National Remembrance files released in the 2000s documented that Wałęsa had signed a document agreeing to collaborate with the SB (Polish security service) in 1970-1976, under the codename "Bolek." Wałęsa denied that any collaboration was substantive, and historians differ on whether the signing represented genuine collaboration that was then abandoned or a formality that produced nothing actionable. The controversy did not alter the historical assessment of his central role in Solidarity's founding and survival.¹