6 TIIE STRUGGLE AND THE TRIUMPH

For all the grumbling it caused among the young, Solidarity's strategy
of nonviolent struggle had brought quick results. The state of martial law
had proven only that the same power that could break up a labor union
with tanks couldn't handle even the smallest social problem. After Soli-
darity had been outlawed, radicals and hardliners wanted us to change our
tactics. "Your union is many millions strong," they would say. "How could
you let yourself be beaten so easily?" We were like a boxer who dodges a
punch not from weakness or fear, but from cunning, I replied. The best
fighters save their strength until it matters and then, when it does, they
make their move. Had we fought the Communists with guns, Europe
would have witnessed yet one more example of Polish heroism - but at
what a cost! Our land would have been strewn with corpses - hundreds
of thousands, possibly as many as a million of them. Who would have
been left to build a monument to their memory?
Solidarity's strategy of evasion hadn't contributed more gore to Polish
mythology, but eventually it put us in the position to land a knockout
punch. We toppled a system that had tried for fifty years to fool everyone
with false promises.
Over the years, people have often asked me what my philosophy was,
what was the theory behind my actions. I know that what I did wasn't
always clear to everyone - sometimes not even to my closest friends and
advisors. All I can say about my own inconsistencies is that the changes
that swept over Europe didn't follow logic, or at least they didn't follow
the kind of logic political scientists understand. I owe my own success to
the fact that I was good at landing on my feet. Experience teaches that
political events often unfold in ways inconsistent with reason. You need
to react instinctively, flexibly, to every occasion.
I sometimes feel buried by the myths of who I am supposed to be. Ac-
cording to one myth, I was like a helpless child without my advisors: they
had all the ideas and I just voiced them. How could someone with my
background have any grasp of the political problems facing Poland? The
reason I was constantly surrounded by intellectuals, academics, distin-
guished journalists, and lawyers - people who spoke several languages
and frequented (or even constituted) the best society - was that I myself
was not an intellectual. In Poland, you see, being an intellectual has value
in and of itself. The content of what a professor, a doctor, or a famous actor
says when they talk about national problems is unimportant; what is
important is that they have the right diploma, present the appropriate bear-
ing, possess "a knowledge of things," and use big words. It didn't seem to