Gdansk, 30 August 1980. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa (centre) on the eve of the historic August agreements.

Solidarity’s dispersed legacy

Solidarity – a movement supported by almost 10 million members in 1981, and with less than 600,000 members today – will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the 1980 “August Agreements” that led to the creation of the first independent labour representation in the Soviet-dominated bloc. The anniversary has sparked a heated debate in the Polish press.

Published on 30 August 2010 at 11:53
Gdansk, 30 August 1980. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa (centre) on the eve of the historic August agreements.

“On 31 August, the air will be permeated by freedom”, pledges Robert Wilson - the internationally renowned theatre director – in the pages of Wprost weekly. On 31 August his show “Solidarity – Your Angel Is Called Freedom” will be the highlight of a series of events celebrating the 30th anniversary of the signing of the 1980 “August Agreements” in Gdańsk. The agreements paved the way for the founding of Solidarity, the first independent labour union in the communist bloc. This year’s anniversary is set against the backdrop of a heated discussion about the legacy of Solidarity as a popular movement and its today’s role as a trade union.

Solidarity doesn't understand its own identity

Warsaw-based Gazeta Wyborcza has asked four young sociologists what remains of the legendary trade union today and whether it is still important. For 30-year-old Agata Szczęśniak it is the utopian aspect, “a belief in the possibility of a radical and sudden social change”, while Michał Łuczewski, a year older, emphasises Solidarity’s legacy as “the idea of a moral revolution, regularly rediscovered and forgotten in Poland’s history.” Karolina Wigura notices two mutually exclusive narratives of the Solidarity myth. “According to the first one, [the Solidarity movement of the early 1980s] was a carnival time when Poles managed to unite despite divisions.” The other narrative places pluralism over unity, highlighting the struggle for freedom of speech and the right to differ.

In an interview with Józef Pinior, a prominent Solidarity activist in the 1980s, Newsweek asks why Solidarity’s potential has been wasted and what turned the nationwide symbol into a political add-on to the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party. “There is one fundamental reason”, says Pinior, “Solidarity has not been able to answer the question as to what it really is and to understand its own identity. It fell into disarray after the breakthrough of 1989 and it has not been able to build a political party that would express the interests of the social groups it represented.”

Who would have dreamt of this 30 years ago?

According to Wprost editor-in-chief Tomasz Lis, Solidarity’s paradox lies in the fact that those who helped build the trade union – workers from large state-owned companies, working intelligentsia, and the Church – were those, in the long run, who lost most due to Solidarity-initiated change. But it was Solidarity itself and solidarity that lost out even more. The movement received the most painful blows from its own founders: Lech Wałęsa who identified the trade union with himself; “true patriots” who identified Wałęsa as a secret police agent; former president Lech Kaczyński and former PM Jarosław Kaczyński who claimed to be the best representatives of the Solidarity tradition, while their idea of a united Poland escalated divisions in the society.

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In Gazeta Wyborcza, Mirosław Czech strikes a more positive note. He writes that the Solidarity generation has passed the test of national leadership in the period of building a new state, being the first victorious generation in Poland’s contemporary history. “They have not had to witness the crushing of uprisings. They can afford the policy of small steps: improving the national weal and strengthening Poland’s position in the EU. Perhaps this is not the realisation of all our dreams today, but who would have dreamt of something like this 30 years ago?” he concludes.

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