History of Solidarity

The history of Solidarity, a Polish non-governmental trade union, began in August 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyards where Lech Wałęsa and others formed Solidarity (Polish: Solidarność ). In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country. Solidarity gave rise to a broad anti-communist nonviolent social movement that, at its height, united some 10 million members and vastly contributed to the fall of communism.

Poland's communist government attempted to destroy the union by instituting martial law in 1981, followed by several years of political repression, but in the end was forced to begin negotiating with the union. The Roundtable Talks between the weakened government and the Solidarity-led opposition resulted in semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August 1989, a Solidarity-led coalition government had been formed, and, in December 1990, Wałęsa was elected president. This was soon followed by the dismantling of the communist governmental system and by Poland's transformation into a modern democratic state. Solidarity's survival meant 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 USSR ruled by a one-party communist regime—but for the whole of the Eastern bloc. Solidarity's example led to the spread of anti-communist ideas and movements throughout the countries of the Eastern Bloc, weakening their communist governments; a process that eventually culminated in the Revolutions of 1989 (the "Autumn of Nations").

In the 1990s, Solidarity's influence on Poland's political scene waned. A political arm of the "Solidarity" movement, Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS), was founded in 1996 and would win the Polish parliamentary elections in 1997, only to lose the subsequent, 2001 elections. As of 2006 Solidarity has little political influence and is more active as a traditional trade union.