The Solidarity Movement in Poland: Its History and Meaning in Collective Memory

Author(s): Magdalena Kubow

Source: The Polish Review , 2013, Vol. 58, No. 2 (2013), pp. 3-14
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Polish Institute of Arts &
Sciences of America

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The Polish Review, Vol. 58, No. 2, 2013
© The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Magdalena Kubow

The Solidarity Movement in Poland

Its History and Meaning in Collective Memory

Contemporary Poland continues to struggle with its economic and so-

ciopolitical adjustments post-1989, with communist-era monuments and
architecture in its history’s peripheral view. The heritage reclaimed by Poles
through the Solidarity movement is reflected in the symbols used to battle
communism from the 1950s to the 1980s. Symbols of hope, freedom, and
solidarity expressed through religious icons, roses, and the crowned Polish
Eagle remain an integral aspect of social collective memory and culture for
Poles. In addressing whether Solidarity was primarily a grassroots move-
ment of workers who were motivated by unfair wages and starvation, or
an intellectual movement defined by a need to reassert Poland’s identity by
dismembering communist rule, the historian is presented with the fair and
complex reality that the movement was from its inception an intimate com-
bination of both influences. With the thirty-third anniversary of the initiation
of the official Solidarity movement in 2013, memory not only correlates with
a usable history but also acts as a continuing force motivating Poles to strive
for greater independence from their oppressive recent past.

Contemporary Poland continues to struggle with its economic and sociopo-

litical adjustments post-1989, with communist-era monuments and architecture
in its history’s peripheral view. The heritage reclaimed by Poles through the Soli-
darity movement is reflected in the symbols used to battle communism from the
1950s to the 1980s. Symbols of hope, freedom, and solidarity expressed through
religious icons, roses, and the crowned Polish Eagle remain an integral aspect of
social collective memory and culture for Poles. In addressing whether Solidarity
was primarily a grassroots movement of workers who were motivated by unfair
wages and starvation, or an intellectual movement defined by a need to reassert
Poland’s identity by dismembering communist rule, the historian is presented with

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4 The Polish Review

the fair and complex reality that the movement was from its inception an intimate
combination of both influences. With the thirty-third anniversary of the official
founding of the Solidarity movement in 2013, memory not only correlates with
a usable history but also acts as a continuing force motivating Poles to strive for
greater independence from their oppressive recent past.
The origin of the Solidarity movement in the collective memory of Poles does not
begin in the Lenin Shipyard of Gdańsk, but in Yalta. As is well known, for Poles Yalta
symbolizes the ultimate betrayal. The Polish army had been the first to defy Hitler
in defense of their independence, with Britain’s official assistance. In return, Polish
soldiers bravely fought on behalf of Britain within factions of the British army. Six
million Poles—one in every five citizens—perished in battle or as civilian casualties.
Despite these sacrifices and losses, Poland’s freedom was relinquished by her allies,
Britain and America,1 to the “tender care of Uncle Joe Stalin.”2 The deliverance of
Poland into the Soviet sphere of influence provides the framework for understanding
why it was in Poland that the first workers’ revolution against communism occurred;
and in order to understand why Soviet “liberation” was so horrendous to the majority
of Poles in 1945, one must have a background in the nation’s history.3
Poland’s recorded history begins in 966 after the baptism of King Mieszko I.
The kingdom developed by uniting with the Duchy of Lithuania and expanding
its territory to what is contemporarily known as western Russia.4 In the sixteenth
century, the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom formed an exceptional political system in
which ultimate authority resided with the parliamentary assembly of the nobility
who sought “perfect liberty for themselves, and perfect equality among themselves.”5
One of the leading historians of Solidarity, Timothy Garton Ash, hypothesizes that
in Britain “Noble Democracy” might have succeeded. Poland however, without the
advantage of being an island like Britain, was exposed to two rapacious autocracies,
Prussia and Russia.6 Amid attempts to fortify and rejuvenate the kingdom, most
infamously noted by the formation of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, Poland’s fate
was the “Partitions” of 1772, 1793, and 1795 between Prussia, Russia, and Austria.
The result was the removal of Poland from the map for 123 years, though the Polish
people persistently refused to vanish as a nation.7

1. On March 8,1945, Winston Churchill wrote to Roosevelt: “it will soon be seen by the
world that you and I by putting our signatures to the Crimea settlement have underwritten
a fraudulent prospectus.” Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (London:
Granta Books, 1991), 7.
2. Ibid., 3.
3. Ibid., 3–4.
4. Martin Myant, Poland: A Crisis For Socialism(London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1982),
1–2.
5. Ash, Polish Revolution, 4.
6. Ibid.
7. Adam Brumberg, ed., Poland: Genesis of a Revolution (New York: Random House, 1983), 4.

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 solidarity movement in poland 5

Nevertheless, during the sixteenth century, also referred to as the “Golden Cen-
tury” of Noble Democracy, Poland’s critical stage of identity development formed
many aspects of heritage that Poles would continue to defend in later centuries.
During this time Poland was known as the “paradise of heretics,” having gained a
reputation as a refuge for those persecuted by religious intolerance. Increasingly,
despite religious toleration, the Poles’ passionate patriotism manifested itself in
an intimate relationship with Roman Catholicism and against the dogmas of its
adversaries, Russian Orthodoxy and German Protestantism.8
Repeatedly, in 1794, 1830–31, 1863–64, and 1905, the Poles demonstrated their
dedication to freedom, but their attempts were defeated with the “habitual brutal-
ity” of tsarist Russia. The Polish nation prayed to “Mary, Queen of Poland,” and the
intelligentsia preserved the principles of “Polishness” by perpetuating “myths of
the glorious past.”9 While in exile, Polish heroes, such as the Romantic poet Adam
Mickiewicz, produced a “Messianic allegory” in which Poland was positioned as the
“Christ among nations, suffer[ing] [and] crucified, but would rise again for Europe’s
redemption.”10 Roman Catholicism, the tradition of rebellion against foreign inva-
sion, and the works of intellectuals and romantics on “Messianism,” “forged what
can best be described as the Polish national conscience.”11 In sum, “the Poles are an
old European people with an unquenchable thirst for freedom; freedom in Polish
means, in the first place, national independence; [and] the Polish national identity
is historically defined in opposition to Russia.”12
Consequently, Poles vividly remember when Soviet troops invaded on Septem-
ber 17, 1939, as bitterly as the invasion of Germany on September 1, 1939. Therefore,
after the dealings at Yalta, there was undoubtedly “no society in eastern Europe less
prepared voluntarily to accept Soviet socialism, imposed by Russian bayonets.”13
Although the Solidarity movement as a political entity against communism itself
was born in August 1980, in “collective memory the emergence of Solidarity can be de-
scribed by the following formula: August 1980 = June 1956 + March 1968 + December
1970 + June 1976.”14 This thesis, proposed by Ash and several notable historians is an

8. Ash, Polish Revolution,4–5.

9. Ibid., 5.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid. See also Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland (Oxford: Clar-
endon Press, 1981), 40–41.
12. Ibid.
13. Ash, Polish Revolution, 6.
14. “Polish Culture over the World,” 2009, http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/
wy_in_wy_solid_art_bruksela_barcelona/. Accessed February 20, 2009. See also Lawrence
Weschler, The Passion of Poland: From Solidarity Through the State of War: The Complete
New Yorker Reports on Poland (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 173; and Jakub Karpinski,
Countdown: The Polish Upheavals of 1956, 1968, 1970, 1976, 1980 . . ., trans. Olga Amsterdamska
and Gene M. Moore (New York: Karz-Cohl, 1982).

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6 The Polish Review

accurate representation of Polish social memory and a reflection of historical reality.

Solidarity activist Janina Winiarska asserts that the strikes of 1980, and even 1976 and
1970, are reflective of the “last straw” Poles were willing to tolerate rather than the
beginning of the movement that began its infancy in the 1956 Poznań Uprising.15
The Poznań Uprising demanded higher wages and lower prices, and unlike
the use of pacifism in the later stages of the movement, the uprising was violent
and resulted in approximately fifty-four deaths.16 In the politically unstable period
that followed, Władysław Gomułka, the self acclaimed anti-Stalinist, won popular-
ity by threatening a rebellion against the established order and was reestablished
in power as first secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party. Poland was able to
avoid Soviet reprisals for its uprising—unlike Hungary—due to Gomułka’s reas-
suring Khrushchev that there were no plans to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact.
Until 1970, Gomułka would repeatedly disappoint the Polish nation by failing to
produce substantial change in the economy and the standard of living for Poles.17 The
Poznań Uprising, although not as immediate in the collective memory of Solidarity,
is integral to the inception of the movement.
In March 1968, students and intellectuals inspired by the “Prague Spring” peace-
fully protested in Warsaw in the name of a “democratic awakening” in Poland.18 This
sentiment was also sparked by a performance of Adam Mickiewicz’s classic drama
Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve) at the Teatr Narodowy (National Theater) on January 30,
1968. Dziady is described by Neal Ascherson, one of the leading historians on the
protest, as “mystically religious and profoundly nationalist.”19 It is a tale of Polish
opposition against tsarist oppression and profusely critical of police states, autocracy,
censorship, and especially spiteful toward Russia. Lines rebuking Russian domina-
tion “drew violent applause.”20 Kazimierz Dejmek, the performance’s director, was
told by the Communist Party that the production was to cease, and its consequent
closure provoked street demonstrations by intellectuals and students of the Uni-
versity of Warsaw. The government responded with threats and antisemitic leaflets
blaming Poland’s ills on the nation’s Jews, but these measures proved ineffective. As
a result, paratroopers entered the city in the second week of March, abusing and
arresting more than 1,200 students and protesters in Warsaw with similar outbursts
occurring in Kraków, where university professors and students who were known to
be vocal against the regime and supporters of free speech were brutally beaten. The

15. Janina Winiarska. Interviewed by Maggie Lopatowska. 45 Minutes. April 27, 2009. All
other quotes from Winiarska are from this interview.
16. John Taylor, Months with Solidarity: A First-Hand Report from Inside Hotel Morski,
Gdańsk (London: Wildwood House, 1981), 22.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 23.
19. Neal Ascherson, The Polish August: The Self Limiting Revolution (New York: Penguin
Books, 1981), 91.
20. Ibid., 92.

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 solidarity movement in poland 7

majority of Poles observed these developments in horror and were warned against
further demonstration by the “general onslaught on the creative intellectuals,” and
a mass of antisemitic propaganda hoping to steer hostility from the government
toward Europe’s “traditional scapegoat.”21
The third stage in the evolution toward Solidarity began on Saturday, December
12, 1970, at 8:00 p.m. when Polish television and radio relayed news of “changes in the
retail prices of a wide range of products.” The prices of approximately forty-six varieties
of goods rose, in some instances by as much as 69 percent, “drastically reducing the
purchasing power of the populace.”22 The timing of the price hikes, two weeks before
the Christmas holiday, proved just how oblivious the regime was to Polish culture.
On Monday, December 14, approximately 16,000 workers of the Lenin Shipyard in
Gdańsk went on strike, inspiring protests and strikes in other industrial cities affecting
nearly 100 trades. The army was summoned and it opened fire in Gdańsk, Gdynia,
and Szczecin. The number of fatalities is uncertain. Official communist documents
site nine deaths in Gdańsk, eighteen in Gdynia, and sixteen in Szczecin. The “official
version” has never been accepted by collective Polish memory, which cites statistics
ranging from several dozen to several hundred based on a special commission report
later published by the Solidarity movement. The commission released these wide-
ranging and controversial death tolls on December 15, 1970, at a meeting attended
by the authoritative historian on Solidarity and symbolism, Jan Kubik.23 Tensions
continued to rise due to the strikes, especially due to the impact of the protests by the
women workers of Łódź, and on Saturday, December 19, 1970, Władysław Gomułka
resigned and was replaced by Edward Gierek.24
In “The Gender of Resistance in Communist Poland,” historian Padraic Kenney
successfully reveals the contributions of women, particularly in their symbolic roles
as mothers, consumers, and workers, as a major force of resistance, and describes
how they actively contributed to the demise of the communist system. Kenney right-
fully argues that the communist state’s inability to deal with the demands of women
“greatly contributed to the state’s problems in the 1970s and 1980s.”25 Women’s suc-
cess was rooted in their ability to extend the problems of the social realm into the
political as they were far better equipped than men as the main consumers in society
(p. 401). He rightly argues that by using pacifist yet demoralizing tactics against
male politicians, women were the victors in the 1970s by succeeding in influencing
politics concerning the unjust price hikes.

21. Ibid., 92–94.
22. Karpinski, Countdown, 157.
23. Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity
and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1994), 22.
24. Ibid.
25. Padraic Kenney, “The Gender of Resistance in Communist Poland,” American Histori-
cal Review 104, no. 2 (April 1999): 401.

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8 The Polish Review

Kenney juxtaposes two protests, one led by men and one by women, to dem-
onstrate how and why the women were able to destabilize the state. Violent dem-
onstrations in Szczecin were successfully pacified by Gierek, who in January 1971
won over the crowd of men with appeals to his own working-class background: “I
am a worker just like you” (p. 409). His ability to connect with the crowd based on
his working-class experience and appeal to patriotism easily persuaded the men
to end their strike. Despite the price hikes with no guarantee for change, Polish
workers gave in to Gierek’s charismatic influence and agreed to continue “to build
ships for the economic revival of Poland” (p. 409).
Two weeks after the Szczecin episode, on February 10, 1971, a strike occurred at
the Marchlewski Mill in Łódź, a predominantly female-based factory, where protests
were made against the price hikes and wage cuts. Within the next several days the
strike spread to other textile factories. Kenney attributes the success of these strikes
to the “different language of protest that the regime faced” (p. 410). Rather than using
violence to give their message strength, the women employed resistance to pacifica-
tion by authorities and symbolic language humiliating the state and exposing class
bias. When Premier Piotr Jaroszewicz of the party’s Political Bureau arrived in Łódź
on February 14, and tried to evoke Gierek’s successful plea: “Will you help us?” the
women “responded with a thunderous NO!” (p. 410). A worker at the Marchlewski
Mill, Celestyna Augustyniak, recalled how the premier was greeted with a song
that began, “Thanks to you, Lord Magnates / for our servitude and chains,” upon
arrival. He was also denounced regarding his wife’s generous servings of deli meat
in sandwiches while their children ate dry bread, thereby exposing and criticizing
the evident class divide (p. 410). Another version of the meeting recalled by Watery
Namiotkiewicsz claims that women did not respond to Jaroszewicz at all but rather
sat and cried. The next day, February 15, the Political Bureau stated that the price
hikes had been repealed (p. 411).
Kenney attributes the lack of violence, sheer sense of injustice, and the morality
displayed by the women of Łódź as the source of their success, undoubtedly inspiring
the pacifist approach adopted by the official Solidarity movement. Whereas violence
can be condemned and tamed, the women’s appeal to their rights and values, “the
right to be fed, or at least the right to equal access to food,”26 caused difficulty for
the government both in reasoning with the strikers and arguably in comprehending
their full intentions. Kenney rightfully asserts that the women’s role and methodol-
ogy—extending their maternal, consumerist, and worker influence into the social
and political sphere—produced a successful effect.
The combination of the stabilization of prices in the early 1970s and Gierek’s
continual promises of economic and social reform appeared to tame worker ten-

26. Ibid. For additional sources on women in Solidarity, see Shana Penn, Solidarity’s Secret:
The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
2005); and Anna Reading, Polish Women, Solidarity and Feminism (Houndmills: Macmillan,
1992).

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 solidarity movement in poland 9

sions. The feeling of gradual stabilization came to a sudden end in July 1976, when
sharp price increases once again took their toll on Polish society.27 Due to mass
protests, the increases were revoked within twenty-four hours, similarly to the
situation a few years earlier; however, this time thousands of workers were fired,
harassed, and beaten, which resulted in approximately eleven deaths.28 Price sta-
bilization would no longer appease Poles after years of demonstrations and violent
encounters. Important members of the December 1970 strike committee in Gdańsk,
such as the famous Solidarity instigators and leaders Anna Walentynowicz and
Lech Wałęsa, were among those active in the protests of 1976. The activists began
feeling the pressure of the communist regime tightening its grip on their public
behavior.29 Joanna Pavilenas, a Polish citizen engulfed in the country’s crisis in 1979,
commented in an interview on the fear and frustration felt by Poles. Many were laid
off, those who had jobs were paid mediocre wages, and women stood for hours,
even days, in lines at stores that had only empty shelves. Therefore, the question
posed is whether Solidarity was necessary rather than an intellectual response to
the country’s problems. She hesitates. The question seems absurd to both her and
her mother, Janina Winiarska. To act out against the communist government “just
for food is an insane thought . . . you could get imprisoned or murdered for [such]
behavior . . . who would feed your family then?”30 Janina Winiarska, several times
imprisoned for her participation in the Solidarity movement, asserts that the Soli-
darity movement—both as an idea prior to 1980 and as a political movement after
1980—represented years of struggle. Joanna adds, Poles were “literally and meta-
phorically starving.” The strikes of the 1970s and 1980s were not the beginning of
the struggle, they represented the “culmination of the struggle . . . the issues started
long before 1980 . . . to attribute Solidarity to one event or one idea would be too
simple, it would not be fair.” Reflecting on the seesaw decades of price increases
and decreases since Yalta, all within the oppressive framework of Soviet influence,
the question was posed: What really changed the situation in the 1980s? “Well,”
Janina responded, “Poland was not a free country [since Yalta] . . . we were afraid
. . . that is until the Pope gave us hope . . . he made us feel that we do not have to
be afraid, we could act now you see, because one thing that was not new, was that
we always wanted to be Polish, now we had the courage to be Polish.”
Indeed, Winiarska’s interpretation echoes that of many. As Ash simply outlines,
“Without the Pope, no Solidarity. Without Solidarity, no Gorbachev. Without Gor-
bachev, no fall of Communism.”31 The new Pope, John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyła

27. Ascherson, Polish August, 113–14.

28. Lech Wałęsa was among those fired in 1976.
29. Ascherson, Polish August, 113–14.
30. Joanna Pavilenas, interviewed by Maggie Lopatowska. 30 Minutes. April 27, 2009. All
other quotes from Pavilenas are from this interview.
31. “Pope John Paul II and Communism,” 2007, http://www.religion-cults.com/pope/
communism.htm. Accessed February 13, 2009.

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10 The Polish Review

in Wadowice, Poland, became the ultimate symbol and giver of hope.32 In June 1979,
after some diplomatic maneuvering, the Pope returned to his native land for the
most “fantastic pilgrimage in the history of contemporary Europe.”33
His visit to Poland in June 1979 drew crowds of historic sizes,34 and empowered
the Poles to take back what was of utmost importance to their national soul, the free
expression of Roman Catholicism and desire for national independence. Symbols
and icons of crosses, the Black Madonna, and the Pope became the most influential
and empowering symbols of the upcoming Solidarity movement. Julian Stryjkowski
wrote of the visit as “the second baptism of Poland.”35 The altar for the first Mass held
in Warsaw on June 2, was positioned in the middle of Victory Square transforming
the area of official “communist ritual” into a sacred space for the masses. The Pope
was successful in the “symbolic reclaiming of a public space . . . [and] the rules of
the social game, which had been blurred by decades of double-talk and double-
think, were neatly defined, for the symbolic system divides the social realm into
‘we’ and ‘they’ that is not so divided in social reality” (p. 139). The Pope came with
a message “not to be afraid” and caused a “psychological earthquake” throughout
Poland (ibid.). With the confidence of the nation lifted, Poles were more prepared
to continue fighting for their rights, and when a well-known and respected fellow
worker’s rights were abused, the whole nation responded.
The most dramatic and influential strike, which is acknowledged by all official
historians as inciting the birth of Solidarity as an official movement, was based
on events of August 7, 1980. The termination of Anna Walentynowicz, an orphan
of World War II, single mother, and skilled crane operator of thirty years, nearly
fifty days from retirement, shocked the nation. She was being reprimanded for her
activism in support of trade unions. By August 14, Lech Wałęsa, a charismatic pa-
triot, father of eight, and unemployed shipyard electrician inspired Walentynowicz’s
coworkers to go on strike (pp. 230–32). The news spread rapidly by means of the
many newspapers and pamphlets associated with the cause of trade unions such as
Robotnik Wybrzeza (the Coastal Worker; the underground newspaper of the Gdańsk
workers) of which Wałęsa and Walentynowicz were members, and pamphlets pub-
lished by the KOR, the Committee for Workers’ Defense, an intellectual committee
of which the infamous Jacek Kuroń was a member.36 On August 17, Solidarity as
a movement had its official manifesto presented in its “Twenty-one Demands,”

32. Owen Chadwick, The Christian Church in the Cold War (London: Penguin Books,
1992), 196–97.
33. Ash, Polish Revolution, 31.
34. One million at the Papal mass in Warsaw on June 2, 1979, and 2.5–3 million on
June 10, 1979 in Kraków. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/2/­
newsid_3972000/3972361.stm.
35. Kubik, Power of Symbols, 138–39.
36. Jacek Kuroń was imprisoned for three and a half years due to his political activism
made manifest through the Open Letter to the Party in 1967. See Colin Barker, Solidarność:

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 solidarity movement in poland 11

which listed as its top demands: “Acceptance of free trade unions independent of
the Communist Party;” “A guarantee to strike and of security of strikers and those
aiding them”; and “Compliance with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of
speech.”37 Solidarity’s self-definition, starting from the impressive strikes of August
1980, proclaimed:

What we had in mind was not only bread, butter and sausage but also justice,
democracy, truth, legality, human dignity, freedom of convictions and the repair
of the republic. . . . Thus the economic protest had to be simultaneously a social
protest, and the social protest had to be simultaneously a moral protest.38

After the “Twenty-one Demands” were developed, Tadeusz Szczudłowski, a

ROPCiO (Movement for Defense of Human Rights and Citizenship) fundamentalist
released after three months in prison for coordinating anniversary demonstrations
commemorating the Constitution of May 3, 1791, decided to dedicate a wooden
cross to the memory of the murdered workers from the 1970 uprising and have a
priest bless it at Sunday Mass.39 Consequently, on Sunday August 17, 1980, Father
Henryk Jankowski celebrated Mass inside Gate no. 2 at the Lenin Shipyard where the
workers had been murdered. The gate was draped with flowers and a large framed
photograph of John Paul II at its center, the blessed wooden cross was added to
the shrine. A sheet of paper was added to the wall, which was embellished with a
ribbon of white and red, the national colors. Also, an image of the Black Madonna
was attached to the cross. The paper contained lines from Byron’s Giaour, which
was popular in Poland because of its translation by Mickiewicz:

For Freedom’s battle once begun,

Bequeath’d by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won.40

Based on this symbolic demonstration, Ash reflects, “where else but in communist
Poland would a strike be launched with Holy Mass and lines from Byron?”41
On November 10, 1980, Solidarity was registered by the Supreme Court, which,
in addition to Papal support, added a “powerful legitimacy” to the movement. Cel-
ebrations were held in the Teatr Wielki (Grand Theater) at which Ash was present.

The Missing Link? The Classic Open Letter to the Party by Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski
(London: Bookmarks, 1982).
37. Jean-Yves Potel, The Promise of Solidarity: Inside the Polish Workers’ Struggle, 1980–82,
trans. Phil Markham (New York: Pluto Press, 1982), 219.
38. Ash, Polish Revolution, 232.
39. Ibid., 48.
40. The word “bleeding” was actually omitted here, most likely to emphasize the pacifist
approach of the Solidarity movement.
41. Ash, Polish Revolution, 49.

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12 The Polish Review

An assertive red banner hung above an unadorned stage, “like a crucifix

over an altar.”42 The celebrations included poetry reading from the Polish classics
as well as from the exiled Czesław Miłosz, who had instilled pride in the nation by
winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. Singing began in the auditorium of “what
was to become Solidarity’s theme song.” Jan Pietrzak came onto the stage with
simple lyrics and a simple message; “Żeby Polska była Polską” (So that Poland shall
be Poland) “and as the audience took up that defiant, lilting melody [Ash] felt [his]
own throat involuntarily contracting.”43 Endearing by its simplicity, the symbolism
behind the lyrics was quite radical.44 It symbolized that in 1980, the Polish People’s
Republic “was not Poland” (p. 91).
Ash expands most clearly and eloquently:

because [Poland] was bankrupt, sick, undemocratic, yes, but above all because it
was not independent. We recall that for nearly two centuries the idea of indepen-
dent sovereign nation-statehood had been the heart of that value-system which
was—exceptionally in Europe—common to all the living generations of Poles.
(p. 91)

The day after the celebration was a meaningful time of reflection for Poles as
November 11 was the sixty-second anniversary of Poland’s restoration after World
War I. Since Yalta, November 11 had been banned from being (openly) celebrated.
However, since the Papal visit, fundamental oppositionists attended unofficial me-
morials before the tomb of the unknown soldier in Victory Square, Warsaw. As-
toundingly, the only information that is known about the identity of the unknown
soldier is that he died fighting Russians in the Polish–Soviet war of 1920. Mass was
heard, torches were lit, the national anthem was sung repeatedly, and speeches
were made about independence, the Nazi–Soviet Pact, Katyń, and the politically
imprisoned (p. 92). The next few years would be spent battling lies about the suc-
cess of socialism forced on the nation by the communist regime. On January 24,
1981, Bishop Przemysł stated that “untruth [was] leading to the destruction of the
Polish nation;” it was on the shoulders of the workers, the intellectuals, and nation
to once and for all battle untruth with truth (p. 135).
By 1981, Solidarity membership had reached 10 million.45 Its popularity and
success is attributed to being able to draw “every section of exploited Polish society
under its magnificent banner.”46 The balance of power between workers and intellec-

42. Ibid., 90.
43. Ibid.
44. Many fundamentalists sang a different version: “Żeby Polska była Polska,” rather than
“Żeby Polska była Polską,” which translates to “so that Poland shall be ‘Polish,’ . . . not Rus-
sian.” Many speculate that this was Pietrzek’s original version but that he was censored and
forced to change it. Ash, Polish Revolution, 91.
45. Raymond Taras, Consolidating Democracy in Poland (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), 102.
46. Barker, Solidarność, 9.

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 solidarity movement in poland 13

tuals is attributed to a common enemy—communism—and although their political

goals were secular, religion bound them both. Solidarity was popular because it had
“synthesized past ideals even as it suggested something radically new.”47 In 1981, Ash
interviewed workers from Poznań, asking them what had been the most significant
change in their lives since August? “That,” replied a Solidarity chairman as he pointed
“to a large cross on the wall . . . and the national colours.”48 Ash persists and asks
what has changed exactly? The worker replies, a greater sense of freedom of speech,
“you see . . . it is a revolution of the soul!”49 The Polish soul was reawakening and
reasserting itself through the actions of Solidarity members. Soon, the Solidarity
meetings would reintroduce its most recognizable nation symbol: the crowned Pol-
ish Eagle. The eagle was stripped of its crown by the Soviets as a symbolic stripping
of Poland’s national and historical heritage. Solidarity was undoubtedly renewing
the nation’s sense of identity; materially however, the government continued to resist
the movement and most economic reforms were stagnant. Solidarity’s “material”
accomplishments of the time were erections of monuments.
After years of conflict with the government over acknowledging the brutal
outcomes of 1956, 1968, and especially 1970, members of Solidarity gained permis-
sion to erect a monument in the victims’ honor. The monument was unveiled on
December 16, 1980, and “signified that the victims of 1970 had been welcomed
into the company of those who died not just for bread or higher wages, but for the
nation.”50 The monument’s design included three steel crosses measuring 140 feet
high, with a black anchor hanging on each cross. The anchor in Poland symbolizes
redemption and struggle. Behind the monument, the designers imprinted two lines
from one of Miłosz’s poems: The Lord giveth his people strength; The Lord giveth
his people the blessing of peace (p. 15). Like the majority of Polish monuments,
it was funded by private donations and was meant to be “monstrous rather than
beautiful” (ibid.). The workers wanted to ensure that the government or the secret
police could not destroy the memorial and were clear when they expressed to the
designers that they “want[ed] it big . . . they’ll have a job knocking that down” (ibid.).
But the most important accomplishment in the social memory of the Solidar-
ity movement is the 1989 elections. After surviving martial law, implemented from
1981 to 1983, the nationwide Solidarity movement could not be subdued. The gov-
ernment’s attempt to blame the Solidarity movement for the depressing economy
and food shortages was a failure. Janina Winiarska recalls the government fram-
ing the movement: “we all knew it was the government who was responsible, you
could not talk about it or you might disappear, but everyone knew.” She recalls
herself and neighbors picking mushrooms in the forest and finding huge dugouts

47. Steve W. Reiquam and Cathie M. Lorenz, eds., Solidarity and Poland: Impacts on East
and West (Washington, DC: Wilson Center Press, 1988), 1.
48. Ash, Polish Revolution, 290.
49. Ibid.
50. Ascherson, Polish August, 14.

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14 The Polish Review

with buried food, or broken trains on their way to Russia full of paint cans (which
were actually full of meat). Winiarska commented on their feeling of confidence,
“we would all inform each other of where to go to get these supplies . . . we knew
the movement would be redeemed as pictures of the lots of buried food all over
Poland were smuggled into France and announced over Radio Free Europe.” She
expressed unfaltering confidence in the movement, which persisted until the end of
the decade. The elections were held on June 4, 1989, and Solidarity was victorious,
winning ninety-nine of a hundred seats in the Senate. The first non-Communist
government in Eastern Europe (since Yalta) was formed with Tadeusz Mazowiecki
named premier. Lech Wałęsa was elected president of the Polish Republic in 1990.51
Seemingly, the battle against oppression and struggle was over.
In conclusion, many of the historical realities of the Solidarity movement, such
as the inception of the movement beginning in the 1950s, the dual and integral
relationship between workers’ issues and intellectual issues, and the importance
of traditional national and religious symbols in the movement are all themes and
ideas commonly remembered and reflected upon in the national collective memory.
Poles had always “cultivated their national identity by clinging to the Catholic tradi-
tion [and] to Polish literature,”52 and the Solidarity movement provided the means
for these traditions to reassert themselves in re-forming an independent national
identity while under Soviet occupation. As the Western world appears to forget the
importance of this movement, for Poles “one thing at least is certain: they will not
forget.”53 Soliderity’s thirty-third anniversary of its official inception is in our recent
past, it is crucial for Poles to remember their heritage in continuously striving to
fully achieve freedom from the remnants of their oppressive recent past.

51. Kubik, Power of Symbols, 285.

52. Andrzej Szczypiorski, The Polish Ordeal: The View from Within, trans. Celina Wie-
niewska (London: Croom Helm, 1982), 11.
53. Ash, Polish Revolution, 355.

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