the solidarity revolution in poland

The Solidarity Revolution in Poland,1980-1981

by Jack M. Bloom

Abstract This article, based upon in-depth interviews with anti-gov-ernment leaders and activists, first explains the significance of the up-heaval in Communist Poland in 1980-1981 and articulates how theauthor became involved in this research and explains his methodology.It then concentrates on the impact on the personal lives of the partic-ipants and on social relations in Poland of the upheaval that producedan unprecedented-in-the-Soviet-bloc independent union with the rightto strike. It shows how activists developed talents and cultivated abili-ties as they assumed responsibilities that had previously been unavail-able to them. It examines how workers' lives changed as they graspedcontrol of power: their working conditions improved; their statusrose; they treated one another better: they educated themselves. Thesechanges, which contributed to the context in which the political struggleof that period took place, survived the suppression of the union and ulti-mately contributed to bringing about the end of Communism in Poland.

ALICJA MATLISZEWSKA: For the first time since the Commu-nists took power, people were united: peasants, workers, clerks,intelligentsia. There was no more "Mr. engineer," or "Mr. dtKtor." Aworker with a shovel used the familiar form when speaking withboth. That was the greatest threat to the Communists. They couldnot divide the society any more.

Jack M. Bloom did his graduate work in Berkeley in the sixties, where he becamedeeply involved in the social movements of that time, including ihe civil rightsmovement and the anli-Victnani war movement. In 1970. he left school ABD tobecome a full-time political activist, continuing his social movement activity. Afterseveral years of this work, he decided to finish his degree and he wrote his disserta-tion on the civil rights movement, thereby becoming primarily a scholar of socialmovements rather than an activist. The dissertation became the basis of his prize-winning book, C/«.v.ï. Race and the Civil Rights Movement. He then began researchon Poland's Solidarity movement. In ihe course of" his research, he met his wife.Joanna. He will soon finish his book. Seeing Through the Eyes of the Polish Revolu-tion. He has recently been active in opposition to the war in Iraq. "Ilie author thanksR. Stephen Warner for having read and offered valuable suggestions for this articleand editor Andy Dunar for many very helpful suggestions.

The Oral History Review, V«t. .13. Issue I. pp. 33-64. ISSN 0094-1223, tlcctronic ISSN IS3.VHS91© 2(H)6 by the Oral Ilislor» .Xssotiulinn. .\tl rigtiti. restrvcd. Pteast direct uti requests Tor per-mission til photucupy or reproduce article ciinteni through the University of California Press'sRights and Permissiims website, HI btl|)://www.iicpress.etiii/jouriiiits/rigbts.blin.

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STANISLAW HANDZUK: This democracy, this openness was bursi-ing out day by day. Talents were released: organizing, givingspeeches, artistic talent even. And because of all that, a lot ofpeople grew more valuable in their own eyes.

In August, 1980, massive strikes enabled Polish workers towin an independent union, which they called "Solidarity," andwhich had the right to strike. In doing so, they broke the moldof Soviet-bloc countries by creating a means of challenging rulefrom above; their achievement was the beginning of the end ofthe Soviet empire and ultimately of the Soviet Union itself.They thus changed the course of history. This colossal politicalachievement enabled ihem to change existing social relations andto grow and transform themselves individually.

I came to Poland almost accidentally to observe these changesand found that I could best understand what had happened byspeaking with the activists involved and learning their history asthey saw it. I was not an expert on Eastern Europe and I had notexpected to do any research there. However, my field of concen-tration is social movements. So, when I learned that my applicationto participate in the exchange program between Indiana Univer-sity and Warsaw University had been accepted, meaning I wouldbe going in the summer of 1986 for about five weeks, I decided tosee if I could learn about Solidarity and the significant socialmovements that had characterized Communist Poland. I was for-tunate to make contact with Jane Dobija, a Polish Americanwoman who had been moved by Solidarity to go to Poland andwrite a book about it. Jane kindly shared her contacts with meand provided me with letters of introduction to two indepen-dent journalists in Warsaw and Krakow. Each of them gave meconnections that opened up the world of the opposition. In Kra-kow, Krzysztof Kasprzyk brought me to a church that was a cen-ter of opposition. I met the priest who, after we talked, askedme to lecture about the civil rights movement in America(about which I had then just finished a book) at the under-ground Christian workers' "university" that he ran. At my talk,1 met Maciek Szumowski, a leader in the movement to reformthe Party in 1980-1981. Szumowski took a liking tome, grantedme an interview, and offered to help me make further contacts.Afterward, the priest, one of the most prominent oppositionpriests in Poland, invited me to go with him to Gdansk to meetLech Walçsa. I did, and also, thanks to Wojciech Adamiecki in

The Solidarity Revolution in Poland, 1980-1981

Warsaw, I made contact with other oppositionists in Gdansk. Bythe time I left, 1 realized that I had good enough connections tospeak with anyone I wished in the Polish opposition. It was notsomething I could walk away from.

In the summer of 1987,1 took an intensive course in Polishand then continued my studies during the year. I convinced thecommittee that ran the exchange program to select me a secondtime—something unprecedented—based on my project proposalto interview the oppositionists. (My status of not being a scholarof Poland actually helped me here because I had nothing to loseif the government reacted negatively to my work, whereas estab-lished Polish scholars told me it was difficult for them to do whatI proposed because they might be denied permission to returnto the country.)

In the summer of 1988, T returned and spent three-and-a-halfmonths interviewing Solidarity leaders, leaders of tbe intellectualopposition, leaders of the movement to reform the Party, andsome people affiliated with the Church. For this purpose, 1 vis-ited four cities, each of which was a major center of opposition:Warsaw. Krakow, Wroclaw, and Gdansk. For the most part,these interviews were conducted in Polish and translated for meon the spot. That was important even for the few who spokeEnglish because I wanted them to be comfortable in their lan-guage and to be able to express themselves most fully.

In the fall of 1989,1 was on sabbatical when a new govern-ment took power, so I decided to return. I financed this trip myself;I spent another three-and-a-half months there, and besides return-ing to the cities I had already visited, I spent several weeks inUpper Silesia, dividing my time between the major city there,Katowice, and the coa! mining region of Jastrzçbie, which hadplayed a crucial role both in the August strikes that establishedSolidarity and in the response to the government's declaration ofmartial law^—Upper Silesia was the only region that offered seri-ous, sustained resistance through prolonged strikes.

Because of the change in regime, I now fell that I could applyfor the position of Indiana University Exchange Professor, whichwould send me to Warsaw University for a year-long exchange;under the Communist government, I had worried that doing myresearch might have been injurious to one or the other universi-ties. So, I spent the academic year 1990-1991 teaching and doing

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research in Poland, mostly in Warsaw. In 1997,1 decided thai Ineeded to return one more time, and I won a small grant fromthe Russian and East European Institute at Indiana Universityfor that purpose. I spent six weeks there in the summer, largely inthe western city of Poznan, where important events had takenplace in the first post-war upheaval in Poland in 1956. interview-ing key participants. On this last trip, I made a break-through inthe sociological character of my respondents. I managed to havea lengthy interview with a former colonel in the secret policewho. after some time, opened up to me and told me a great dealfrom his point of view. He introduced me to a colonel in the Min-istry of the Interior, I then approached Mieczysiaw Rakowski.the last leader of the Communist Party and of the Polish gov-ernment, who gave me several hours of interviews. As a result, Imanaged to get their point of view represented, as well.

In each city I visited, I was able to meet with the oppositionleadership thanks to the connections 1 had already established,and they guided me to key people. Because I was vetted, theywere quite willing to talk with me.TTiat others chose the peoplewas fine with me because they knew who 1 needed to speak withmuch better than I, I was not looking for a random or repre-sentative sample, but rather to speak primarily with the leaders,which was not limited to those who held offices or positions., butthose people recognized as having played a leadership role. Myintention, about which I informed my respondents, was alwaysto use their names.

In 1998 and 1999,1 supplemented these interviews by con-tacting people who had been in the Solidarity leadership andwho were in eîdle in the United States and Canada. I interviewedpeople in Sacramento. California, New York City, Chicago, andToronto. These included interviews with Aleksander Krystosiak.Alicja Matuszewska. Ryszard Sawicki, and Andrzej Rozplo-chowski, all of whom played key roles in Solidarity and were inexile because the Polish Communist government wanted topunish them. Krystosiak subsequently returned to Poland.

Tliere were very few occasions when I had to talk someoneinto granting me an interview. In one of these, in the coal-miningregion of Jastrzçbie. there was an important activist who felt hehad been badly treated by Solidarity, then newly-empowered. Ispent quite a while arguing that he should speak with me because


otherwise no one would hear his story. Eventually, he relentedand we talked for over six hours. On another occasion, one of thepeople whom I was interviewing in Toronto was giving methe brush-off: he told me he had little titne atid he went throughhis experience with so little detail and so quiekly that I waslearning little. I stopped him after about 20 minutes and toldhim so. Apparently, journalists who were just looking for a juicyquote and soon left had previously interviewed him. I told himthat I needed lots of details and follow-up questions and that ifhe didn't have the time, perhaps we should just not continue.He looked at me, surprised, and began again. We spent eighthours together, though he had originally said he had only two.

I decided to approach the interviews whenever possible bytaking life histories, which usually took several hours, and in someeases, several days, I felt that the key to my study was C.WrightMills's insight that great historical events are reflected in peoples'lives in specific ways.The particularities are unique, but individ-ually they reflect—and collectively they constitute—the broadcourse of history. Mills put it this way:

The facts of contemporary history are also facts about the successand the failure of individual men and women. When a society isindustrialized, a peasant hecomes ii worker: a feudal lord is liqui-dated or becomes a businessman. When the rate of investmentgoes up or down, a man is employed or unemployed. Wlien warshappen, an insurance salesman becomes a rocket launcher; astore cterk. a radar man; a wife lives a;tone; a child grows up with-out a father. Neither the life of an individual nur the history of asociety can be understood without understanding both.'

Therefore, what better way to understand historical events thanto probe how they were manifested through people's lives andtheir understanding of those lives, and conversely, how those livesand those understandings affected and shaped the events? Myhope was to come to know the oppositionists, to see the individ-ual paths they followed as they became a significant collectiveopposition that culminated in the Solidarity movement.

I approached these interviews by beginning with the broad-est formulation of a question, which then served in a certainsense as a Rorschach test: my subjects could give the question

37

' C. Wright Mills, The Sodotogical Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press,1959), 3.


whatever interpretation they might wish and answer it in direc-tions I might not have anticipated. Gradually, I would sharpenand specify my questions in search of what I sought. I probedthe lives of tny subjects in detail to learn how they had inter-sected historical events. One answer suggested another question.Someone who was in the army during, say, December 1970.when there were major demonstrations and severe repressionon the Baltic Coast, could tell me the official line he heard con-cerning these events, how his fellow-soldiers reacted, how officersand enlisted men differed in their reactions, how the govern-ment got its line across to them, in what way they got informa-tion other than the official line, and how they felt about thesethings. Even peripheral relationships to such events could yieldrevealing information, as for example is illustrated by Solidarityactivist Winicjusz Gurecki's statement:

I worked in a restaurant in Swinoujscie. It was a small town, soamong my clientele were policemen, and some of them I knew. Iasked one who served on the coast in 1970: "Where were you inl*>7()?" And he said. "'I was in the td-city area" [where the killingshad taken place—JMB|. So I said, "Tell me the truth. How manypeople were killed there?" He was drunk, but even so. when Iasked him that, he looked at me more consciously, like beingawakened. There was tragedy in his eyes, and he said. "You tellme how many people can be killed after shooting a machine guninto a crowd for two hours."

I never knew what turns in an individual's life might giveme some insight or information from a unique point of view. Iwent through their lives chronologically, probing for the inter-sections between the broad sweep of history and their ownexperiences and awareness. I would generally begin each inter-view by asking them for about a five-minute overview of theiractivity, which then provided the broad framework for me toask questions.

By following this trajectory, I was able to get many detailsof people's lives to give meaning to the historical generalities. Ifelt that the only way I could really understand what had hap-pened was on the basis of the specifics of individual lives andexperiences. I got as detailed as possible in asking people totake me into meeting rooms, negotiations and demonstrations,and to allow me to observe their conversations, to the degreethai Ihey were able to reconstruct them. One beneficial result


of this approach was that people were less likely to fall back oncanned, predigested perspectives and instead spoke from theirexperience. It also turned out to be a good way of disarming myinformants. For example, when I began an interview with theformer colonel of the secret police, his initial distrust in answer-ing considerably diminished as we followed the trajectory of hislife, rather than just approaching the difficult questions; as aresult, he was very open and provided me with a window intothe government's efforts in response to its opposition.

I found people to be very careful in answering my ques-tions. It was not uncommon—as I was inquiring about eventsthat had taken place years, in some cases decades, earlier—for arespondent to ask if I wanted to know what he or she thought atthe time the event was taking place, or at the time of the inter-view, so as to be sure of what question I was asking and how toanswer it properly. When I occasionally let it slip that I HkedSolidarity. I was admonished that the respondent was only con-cerned that I tell the truth.

One thing I had not anticipated when I began the interviewswas how articulate and even eloquent my informants would be.As a result, as I read them over, it became clear to me that theirwords should see the light oí day, that as much as possible, I shouldlet them speak because their words make much clearer what hap-pened and how and why it happened, and because they are ableto bring readers much closer to the actual events than I can.

I learned a great deal from my interviews: they taught mehow events had developed, what were key turning points in themovement, the debates that took place over strategy and tactics,how they had learned their lessons and what they had learnedthat eventually made it possible for them to triumph. I do notthink that 1 could have gathered this information without theseinterviews; they were essential to understanding this move-ment. Because I am still working with the interviews, I stillhave possession of them; when I am done, they will be depos-ited in a library that has a strong Eastern European section.

The Solidarity Upheaval

On August 14,1980 a strike began at the Lenin Shipyard inGdansk. By the next day, the strike had spread to shipyards

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ORAL HISTORY REVIEW

in the adjoining city of Gdynia and after the weekend to the west-ern port city of Szczecin. Soon, dozens, then scores of otherworkplaces joined the strikes in those cities. After two weeks,when negotiations with the government had so far yielded noth-ing, miners, steelworkers, and other workers joined the strikes,and their intervention was decisive in forcing the governmentto bargain in good faith. Seweryn Jaworski, who led the strikein the Warsaw Steel Mill, recalled that during similar strikes in1970 the police and the army had fired on the strikers, killing adisputed number of workers:

We decided to strike because we feared a bloodbath. (After thestrikes. I spoke with other people. In Silesia, they had the samefeeling.) The army and the pohcc arc enough lo pacify some fac-tories, but not Uie whole country.

On August 31,1980, the strike ended with the governmenthaving accepted the legal existence of free, independent unionswith the right to strike. In the ensuing months, many more strikestook place as workers used the unions, brought together underthe name of '"Solidarity," to win gains at the workplace and inthe broader society. This concession set Poland off on a coursenever before followed by a Soviet-bloc country; with such power,the union could challenge the government policies and force itssolutions to the nation's problems. It was, in fact, a mortal chal-lenge to the Soviet system.

For the rest of 1980 and almost all of 1981. the union, whosestrength made room for a huge national social movement,engaged in continual conflict with the government over a varietyof issues, most of which did not bave to do with the workplace.They addressed church privileges, student influence on curricula,the right to positions based on qualifications rather than loyaltyto the ruling party, redirection of investments, and political issues,such as free speech and the right to organize. Solidarity fre-quently won these conflicts and forced major changes in theway business was carried out. Conflict ostensibly continueduntil mid-December 1981 when, in the middle of the night, thegovernment declared martial law. Authorities detained someten thousand opposition leaders, and declared Solidarity illegal.But Solidarity adherents went underground and continued theirefforts for years until, at the end of the decade, new negotiationswith the Solidarity leadersliip ended Communist rule in Poland.


The formation of Solidarity began a social revolution thatultimately threatened the system by which the Soviet Unionhad dominated Eastern Europe since the end of World War II,The nation that came out of those strikes was quite different fromwhat had existed before. Earlier interpretations had held that Soh-darity was the product of intellectuals," or that it was a creationof the Catholic Church, and especially of the Polish pope, JohnPaul 11.̂ Later, some significant analyses emphasized, on thecontrary, the crucial role that workers themselves played in cre-ating and developing this movement,'' While intellectuals andthe Church each played an important role, I maintain that itwas workers who bested a Communist government—somethingnever before accomplished, Tliey were aware of what they hadachieved, and that knowledge affected their self-image.

The workers had seen many other Poles stand by their side:not only fellow workers, but also farmers, intellectuals, stu-dents, their families, and many others from the community.Moreover, after the August strikes, more workers, inspired bythe outcome, made their own demands and also went on strike.

41

^ See Leszek Koiakowski, "The Intelligentsia," in Abraham Brumberg, ed., Poland:The Genesis of ei Revolution (New York: Random House, 1983): Z.A. Peiczynski."Solidarity and the Rebirth of Civil Society"" in John H. Keane, ed.. Civil Societ}' andthe State (London: Verso. 1988); Alain Tourainc, Francois Dubel, Michel Wieviorkaand Jan Slrzeiecki, Solidarity: The Analysis of a Social Movement. Poland 1980-1981 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Adam Bromke, Poland: TheProtracted Crisis {Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press 1983); Jean-Yves Potel. The Prom-ise of Solidarity (New York: Praeger, I982):rimothy Garlón Ash, The Polish Revo-lution: Solidarity (New York: Vintage, 1985); Jan Jozef Lipski, KOR: A History ofthe Workers' Defense Committee in Poland, I976-I98I, translated by Olga Amster-damska and Gene M. Moore (Berkeley: University of California Press, 198?);Michael H. Bernliard, The Origins of Democratization in Poland (New York: Colum-bia University Press, 1993)—to mention only some of the more prominent holdersof this point of view,

^ Grzegorz Ekiert. "The State Against Society; The Aftermath of Political Crises inHungary. 1956-1963, Czechoslovakia. 1968-1970. and Poland, 198I-I989" (Ph.D.diss.. Harvard University, 1991); Timothy Garton Ash, The Mugic Laniern (NewYork: Random Hotise, 1990); Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness: JohnPaul II and the Hidden History of Our Time (New York: Doubicday, 1996); JonathanKwitny, Man of the Century: The Life and Times of Pope John Paul II (New York:Henry Holt and Company, 1997).•* Especially Lawrence Goodwyn, Breaking the Barrier: The Rise of Solidarity inPoland (New York: Oxford University Press. 1991) and Roman Laba, The Roots ofSolidarity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).


From the beginning, it was clear that people intended to makeuse of the independent union to influence a broad range ofissues. The reach of the union, and the social movement it hadengendered and protected, grew quiekly. Other segments of thesociety—students, farmers—also began to organize. With all thisindependent activity, it should not be surprising that social rela-tions underwent a far-reaching transformation: the revolutionthat was Solidarity transformed the individuals who participatedin it and the character and quality of social relations in Poland.Tlie Polish sociologist Ireneusz Biaiecki summed up the changes:

A new image of a worker has thusemerged, that of a man sociallycommitted, conscious of his own power, solidarity, capable ofunselfishness and sacrifices. Such people could be found in all theplaces where new trade unions were organized.^

During the period of the union's legal existence, fromAugust 1980 to December 1981, the Party and its dependents sawpower slipping away to Solidarity and to the subsidiaiy move-ments that it helped to spawn. This trend involved a titanicpolitical battle between Solidarity and the Polish CommunistParty, as well as conflicts within both Solidarity and the Party.These political struggles, which ultimately determined the fateof the movement, are not the subject of this article. Rather,there was another element beyond the polilical realm that stillaffected it, which it is important to grasp. In a revolution, powerslips away from those who wield it not only in institutional ways,but also when ordinary people can grasp control of their lives.From below, it feels like an end to the burden of fear, and a vastexpansion of liberty and possibilities, as people grab at the leversof power that had previously been out of their reach. Their formeroverlords, accustomed to having people quake in their presence,now find these same people confronting and challenging them.

Indeed, the changes wrought by the Solidarity movementinvolved a transformation of the individuals, of social relations,and of the Polish nation itself. One of Karl Marx's insights wasthat in the course of people's efforts to change the world, they

' Irencus,̂ Bitilccki. "Solidarity—the Roots of the Movement" in Wladyslaw W.Adamski, Sisyphus Sociolof-icat Stuílies. Vol, III. Crises and Conflicts: The Case ofPolaiul. ¡9m-SI (Warsaw: Polish Scientitic Publishers. 1982). 118. Tliis work wascited in Colin Barker. Festival of the Oppressed: Solidarity, Reform and Revolutionin Potand. 1980-1 (Chicago: Bookmarks, 1986). 87.


changed themselves. He saw that it was through their strugglesthat people would grow, develop talents, and eventually altertheir consciousness and self-concepts. He phrased it in the fol-lowing way iti The German Ideology:

The alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alterationwhich can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution;this revolution is necessary, therefore, because the class over-throwing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of allthe muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.''

TTiis article focuses on how these extra-political developments pro-foundly altered individuals and social and institutional relations.

When George Orwell joined the battle against the fascistforces in Spain, led by General Francisco Franco, Orwell foundsignificant changes in social relations as a result of the socialupheaval:

Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated youas an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech hadtemporarily disappeared... .Tipping had been forbidden by law....In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classeshad practically ceased to exist. . . .Tliere was no unemployment,and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very fewconspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gyp-sies. Above all. there was a belief in the revolution and the future,a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality andfreedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beingsand not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers' shopswere Anarchist notices . . . solemnly explaining that barbers wereno longer slaves. In the streets were colored posters appealing toprostitutes to stop being prostitutes. . . . In the early battles¡womenl had fought side by side with the men as a matter ofcourse. It is a thing that seems natural in time of revolution.'

Similar changes took place among African Americans in theUnited States in the course of the civil rights movement.^

Social movements often transform individuals; even when anew hierarchy develops, or the old hierarchy reasserts itself,people remain transformed. The strike victoi^ in Poland in 1980,and the solidarity that had made it possible, helped to create a

43

*Kar] Marx, The German Ideology (New York: International Publishers. l%0). 6y.'George Orwell. Homage to Catalonia (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.1952). 5-7."See Jack M. Bloom. CVÎI.Ï.Î, Race and Ihe Civil Rights Movement (Bioomington:Indiana University Press, 1987), chapter 5: "The Defeat of White Power and (heEmergence of the "New Negro' in the South."


Ztiigiiicw Bogac/.

sense of hope and of personal self-confidence that armed peoplefor future conflicts. Wladyslaw Erasyniuk. Solidarity's leader inthe western Wroclaw region, recalled that: "There was thisgreat sense that workers would become the governors of theirfactories—and have the right to organizations which woulddefend us." Grzegorz Stawski, a miner Solidarity leader: "Thevery fact of the strikes caused people to feel their own value.They felt that they had the potential to change things, that theywere not only objects of manipulation." Miroslawa Strzelec, anactivist in the Krakow steel mill: "Every worker was aware thathe was 'somebody.'"

People gained courage and made new demands. Theydescribed their new assertiveness as crossing the barrier of fear.''Bogdan Borusewicz, a Solidarity leader in Gdansk explained:

'' t,.awrence Goodwyn was referriap to this sense of emancipation from fear in ihe titleof his book on Solidarity. Breaking the Barrier: The Rise ofSolliiariiy in Poland (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1991). The barrier to which he referred was fear.


"You have political hopelessness when you think that you mustagree to everything they demand. Now, with this movement, hopeand self-confidence grew. People lost a lot of their fear." ZbigniewBogacz, a miner leader, said: '"It was the first time that peoplecould feel that the government was afraid." Andrzej Jarma-kowski, a youth activist, recalled: "The most important thing wasthat no one was afraid of the government or the police any more."

A new sense of power emboldened the workers againstofficials who at one time had inspired fear. A government dele-gation went to the city of Czçstochowa to attempt to mitigatethe anger generated by the provincial governor's declaration ofa state of emergency—a clumsy effort to keep Solidarity frombeing legally recognized. Solidarity leaders threatened a regionalstrike if the officials responsible were not dismissed. Accordingto George Sanford:

At a meeting at the local bus station, which was relayed to acrowd of 5.000 outside, Ihe city officials faced public accusationsthat they had never really accepted the Gdansk Agreement [thatguaranteed the right to independent unions with the right tostrike—JMB]. The City President was blamed for a million zJotydeficit on a pig farm and for having refused to renovate a centerfor the handicapped run by nuns while he had built a luxuriousnew Party headquarters costing 2(H) million zlotys. The deputygovernors were accused of building villas for local notables and ofassuring preferential supplies to shops catering to officials. Cz^sto-chowa. with a population of a quarter of a million, because of theirneglect, had only two cinemas, a wholly inadequate library system,poorly heated schools and an unsanitary hospital system.'"

These officials had to resign—they were the first, but not the last.Again and again, it was made evident in ways that could not

fail to impress themselves upon the apparatus that power hadshifted, and workers' lives improved as a result. Shortly afterthe events in Czçstochowa, in the fall of 1980, Solidarity mem-bers occupied the local government headquarters in the townof Bielsko-Biala in southern Poland, demanding that all the toplocal officials be fired." Hardline Party first secretaries in War-

'"Timothy Garton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (New York: Vintage,1985). 85; George Sanford, Polish Communism in Crisis (New York: S(. Martin'sPress, 1983), 109-10." Ash, 92.


saw and in Lodz, who resisted giving up any of their power andprerogatives, had to resign. The relationship between workersand management had changed, as Ginter Kupka. a miner activ-ist, explained: "Nobody controlled us: the managers, the bosses,the foremen in the coal mines could do nothing to us now; iheywere afraid of us."' Ryszard Brzuzy, also a miner, explained howthis new attitude affected working conditions, saying: "Manage-ment couldn't force people to break safety and health rules.Workers were not treated like slaves anymore. The power ofthe working class then was much greater than management's."Workers demonstrated their increased power in many ways.Staszek HandzHk, a steelworker leader in Krakow, recalled thatworkers demanded significant changes:

Solidarity gave people courage tn oppose openly, They began tolalk Trotn the bottom of their hearts about Ihe things that trou-bled them. People demanded an explanation for Ihis great $20billion debt. We demanded fundamental reforms, like havingsome influence on the way people were chosen I'or their posts, toprevent the Party from making all the decisions. We said, "Ofcourse we can work, and very efficiently, hut we dun't want ourwork to be wasted by incompetent management." Then, il wasenough for the leadership of the Solidarity committee to go tothe manager of the steel mill and demand the change of this orthat person and something was done about it.

Both Alojzy Szablewski. a leader in the Gdansk Shipyard, wherethe strikes had begun, and Grzegorz Stawski spoke of how theworkers* lives improved as a result of their new power:

SZABLEWSKI: I was a.sked to go see the work in the shipyard; Iwent to a room where there was no ventilation and the workerswere breathing smoke. I told ihe director that if ihe situation didn'tchange by the next day, I would slop work on that ship. The nextday the ship had many pla.stic sleeves, and great venlilators weretaking Ihe smoke out. hi one of the huge work rooms, the heatingwas out oí order, and the iemperature was very low. We went tothe director and told him it had to be repaired, and it was.Because the director knew that Solidarity had power.

STAWSKI: People were not badly treated any more. Working condi-tions, safety, health—all improved once a real trade union existed.We won free Saturdays and Sundays. We could bietter administerthe work. We learned to speak with our own voice.

As a result, workers became much bolder as they confrontedmatters that had previously been the sole concern of the authori-

The Solidarity Revolution in Poland, 1980-1981 47

Ryszard Sawicki

ties. People expanded their demands: they wanted public build-ings turned back to public uses rather than being reserved forthe privileged, and public funds directed into hospitals, schools,libraries, recreational centers. When these things were not forth-coming, a wave of strikes followed.'' Students occupied the Uni-versity of Lodz, demanding independence for "university levelschools in issues concerning science, teaching and the internallife of organizations."" After a month, they signed an agree-ment that included student participation in the schools' repre-sentative bodies, independent curricula, increased humanitiesofferings, and the right to study a foreign language other thanRussian. They also raised a series of social demands for morefreedom of expression and less police harassment.'"^ RyszardSawicki, a leader of the copper miners, spoke of the wide rangeof issues that people felt able to raise because of Solidarity:

Solidarity became a cure for all social ills. Everyone came to uswith their problems. So. if you had to stand in line, they wouldcreate line committees. If they felt that the manager of a store did

'-Lech Walesa, >1 Way of Hope: An Autobiography (New York: Henry Holl andCompany. 1987). 163."Stan Persky and Henry Flam. The Solidarity Sourcehook (Vancouver: New StarBooks. 1982). 143-49.'Mbid.


Aleksantler Krystosiak

something wrong, they would come to us and expect us to takecare of it.

Solidarity enjoyed vast social support, which strengthenedit as it sheltered its supporters. It was a huge social movement thatinvolved almost every social stratum. Aleksander Krystosiak, aSolidarity leader in Szczecin, recalled: "There were weddingsduring the strike, and brides would come straight from thechurches to hang their wedding bouquets on the gates. It was away of showing us: 'We are with you!"' Millions of people in allwalks of life—including housewives and even children—becameinvolved and organized. Janusz Palubicki, who led Solidarity inthe Wroclaw region, recalled that even "private businessmenwould come to us and tell us that they wanted to be members."Within a few months after the August strikes, some ten millionpeople held membership in the union. Many others belonged toassociated organizations like the Independent Student Union.Later, farmers organized their own union: Rural Solidarity. Withtheir families, they were virtually the entire nation. Again andagain, their new union supported them, and this support gavethem a new sense of strength. Miroslawa Strzelec recalled howthis power opened new topics to discussion: "People began tospeak freely about things they could not speak about before.Our director came from eastern Poland, and he told us a lot


about the Soviet invasion in 1939. People discussed these sub-jects with friends and families. They tried to get to the familiesof those killed in Katyn,''' and young people became Interested inthe 'white spots* in Polish history." Power relationships changed,as Aleksander Krystosiak illustrated:

At>out a month after the strike, the terrified vice-district attorneycomes to my office. Tliere 1 am sitting on the side of the desk thatnormally was his; he is sitting in a pleading position on the side ofthe desk where I would normally sit. He is telling me that theycaught a worker who stole something. He is asking me if I wouldobject to this worker being arrested. For some reason. I stand up.He immediately jumps to his feet and stands at attention. This is apsychological study of an oflicial. A few days earlier. I wouldn'thave been able to look at him. he was so self-important, and sopuffed up. And there he was standing in front of me, just a worker—and he looked like a sick rat—one of those you could step on andcrush its spine, and it wasn't even capable of showing teeth orrunning away.

It is worthwhile to speculate a moment about the thoughtsof this official who was so used to wielding authority and whonow faced this new authority that was apparently terrifying.Was it fear—which in this anecdote moved from the people tothe erstwhile powers? Resentment because of the fear? Anger?A deep desire to end this "anarchy?" All of these? Clearly, theauthorities had lost confidence. Of course, he was not alone;many such officials all around the nation found themselves con-fronted with a new authority that made them feel profoundlyuneasy. It must have been a terrifying and threatening experi-ence that they dearly wished to end. Their feelings certainlyaffected the policy of the government and the Party toward Sol-idarity. Mieczysiaw Rakowski, who became deputy prime min-ister in February 1981, acknowledged this trend:

For the whole Party, what happened in 1980 was unexpected, andtherefore they were not psychologically—not to mention politi-cally—prepared to accept the new siluation. None of thesepeople had expected such a development. This was ihe tragedy:that neither side was prepared to understand—much less accept—this new situation.

49

'-This isa reference lo the murder of some 15,000 Polish offlcere during World War Iby the Soviets in the town of Katyn.


Alicja Matus/ewska

Family reactions compounded their humiliation. Krystosiakrecalled that: '"Even their children felt ashamed of their parents."Others made similar observations. There are many reports offamily discord, as the children of officials had to endure ques-tions and comments about their parents' activities, and in turn,brought these issues home and accused their parents.

In these circumstances, the Party had much less control.Alicja Matuszewska, a leader of the civilians who worked fortbe miUtary explained that:

Almost Immediately, I began receiving newspapers from the ship-yards and elsewhere: 1 always took piles. Something like this wouldhappen: someone would knock on my oflice door, and I would say,"Come in." A young ofiicer would come in—a lot of people fromthe air force and from the ships—I have no idea how ihey knewabout me. They would ask me very quietly. "Mrs. Matuszewska.can we get some newspapers?" I would say. "Of course."

Aieksander Krystosiak noted the impact of this change in powerrelations:

Among those people, the feeling of guilt and fear was born. Theyrealized that the people accused them of signing false accusationsandof doing wroiig to innocent people.They felt not only that wehad the power, but also that we had reason to put the noose ontheir necks. They were Ihe ones who decided upon sentences. Theysigned papers and they looked at the "evidence"—supposedly a

The Solidarity Revolution in Poland, 1980-1981 51

Andrzej Rozplochowski

gun—and they knew as soon as they looked at it that it had beenput there by Ihe secret police. Bui they still signed: they did whatthey were ordered to and they didn't even think about it. Peoplewere disgusted with their activities.

In some cases. Solidarity leaders used their new power topress hard against officialdom. Andrzej Rozplochowski. a minerSohdarity leader:

1 was a dangerous enemy in the eyes of the regional and centralofficials from the very beginning of Solidarity because I did notagree lo any compromises. 1 felt that you do not negotiate withbandits: the only thing you can talk about with them is how theywill surrender. In September 1980. we said Ihat we would notnegotiate with any Party officials, only with government oOicials.Because of thai, my name was used like Holy Water against evilspirits. Nurmal people came to me with Iheir problems. Butpeople in high positions did not want to deal with me becausethey wanted to make deals, and I was against it.

These fears were also felt by Poland's "friends" (as Miec-zysiaw Rakowski, Poland's last Communist prime minister andgeneral secretary of the Party, and others whom I interviewedspoke of them—with the quotation marks), Zbgniew Regucki, thechief of staff to Stanislaw Kania, the reformist Party secretary


installed in response to Solidarity, recalled that: "The pressureput on us by our neighbors—Romania, Czechoslovakia, every-one else—was so strong that there was really no question in mymind that they were ready to come in."

So, the new status quo brought a deep and continuing conflictwith the nomenklatura system—whereby people were advanced intheir positions due to their political loyalty and not their qualifi-cations—that would not be resolved until either the system orthe union triumphed. The union local at the Nowa Huta Steel Millnear Krakow contended that they were upholding the values thatthe country's leaders had abandoned: "We . . . believe . . . that itis possible to restore the highest values: truth, justice, recognitionfor honest work and respect for man."'^ The union's nationalprogram later echoed it:

What we had in mind was not only bread, butter and sausage, butalso justice, democracy, truth, legality, human dignity, freedom ofconvictions and the repair oí the republic. All elementary valueshad been too mistreated for us to beheve thai anything couldimprove without their rebirth.''

The victory that resulted in the Communist-state recogni-tion of an independent union with the right to strike, an unprec-edented step, opened new horizons to the workers, who exultedin the changes it heralded in their lives. Suddenly, things tookplace that before had been inconceivable. There was a sense ofjoy and a perception of vast new possibilities to deal with here-tofore unalterable realities. Aleksander Krystosiak illustratedhow the union encouraged people to propose new directions:

As deputy ehair of the regional committee, I was obliged to lookinto housing construction. People who built houses—architects,engineers, workers, foremen—came to me and almost cried withjoy that our strong union was interested. These people juststarted peppering me with all kinds of wonderful projects formaking people's lives better that had never seen daylight underthe Communists.

Krystosiak recalled one important manifestation of the feel-ing of great possibilities:

"•Oliver MacDnnn\ii. eu.. Polish August: Documents from the Beginnings of ihe PoiishWorkers' Rebellion, Gdansk, August, 1980 (San Franeisco: Ztangi Press. 1981 ), 139.

"Ash, 223.


For forty-five years there had been trade unions. You got hired;the first thing they did was put you in the union and take the duesfrom your salary. Fifty per cent of ihal money disappeared. Noone knew where it went. When you needed help from them, iherewas no money for you. TTien. in a short time, just in my regionalcommittee, we had 85 million zlotys in our account. We were get-ting ready to start building houses for people. I'm talking aboutthis because I want you io see the depth and the brcLidth of theproblems that were dumped on us. We look them on our shoulders,ready to carry on. and we were capable of managing quite well.

People developed an exhilarating sense that they were acommunity, working together for the general welfare. SlawomirMajewski, a Solidarity activist in Gdansk, gave an example:

You could see the difference Solidarity made everywhere: wewere all one family. I wenl to a meeting of the National Commis-sion. On the train to Szczecin, we met a woman who said. "Youwill arrive very eariy in Ihe morning. Come to my place." Thenshe left for work and we stayed in her flat and made lea for our-selves and felt al home. Of course when we left, the flat was abso-lutely clean. You fell immediate sympathy when you knew thatsomeone belonged lo Solidarity. The echo of Solidarity in Augustwas help in December. 1981 [when martial law was declared—JMB]: I was in hiding for five months in the houses of people Ididn't know at all.

Before the August strikes, people had often been unpleas-ant to one another on the streets, in public transportation, instores, at work. But. a natural result of people coming to knoweach other and working together in shared concern was a senseof community. As a resuh of Sohdarity. people who had beenstrangers were brought together. For example. Wroclaw wasreferred to as the "Wild West." After World War II, as borderswere changed in central Europe, the Soviet Union swallowedthe eastern part of Poland which it had occupied at the begin-ning of the war, and Poland's border moved to the West. Manyof these easterners returning to Poland were forced to move tothe "new," now unsettled West (as the German residents werealso forced to leave their homes to return to Germany). Polandgot tbe German town of Breslau, which became Wroclaw, andPoland's residents from the East now moved to the West. Butthey never became a community until Solidarity. A similar pro-cess was noted in Gdansk (formerly Danzig), Szczecin (Stetin)and in Silesia, all of which had been the recipients of large-scale


immigration. Grzegorz Stawski explained that: "The region ofJastrzçbie [in Upper Silesia] consisted of people from all overPoland, and there were natural frictions between them. Buttiirough the strikes, they became integrated as a community.And that attitude radiated and influenced the rest of Silesia." InKrakow, recalled Mirosiawa Strzelec: "Through the meetingsand activities of Solidarity, people got to know each other andtreated one another better."

This trend began during the strikes, and continued there-after. Marek Muszynski: "'Cars would stop at bus and tram stopsand drivers would say they were going here or there andoffered to give people a ride. Of course, they didn't take anymoney for it. Almost everyone acted like that; it was very pleas-ant to see." Wladystaw Frasyniuk: "People became friendlywith each other, and less aggressive. For instance, if the busdidn't come on time, the bus driver was not rudely addressed."Alicja Matuszewska's story movingly illustrates this change:

I worked for Solidarity in Ihe evenings because I bad a day job.Meetings would take place in my apartment until midnight or1:00 am. I remember one time I hadn't time to stand in line tobuy my ration and my refrigerator was empty. Eighteen peoplewere at my bome, and we were all really hungry. I had one loaf ofbread and a little bit of oU, whicb was really terrible—black andfilthy. One of the workers weni to the kitchen, sliced the breadand fried il with that lilthy oil. We all put salt on it and ate. If any-one has any doubts about what Solidarity was about, it was eatingthis loaf of bread together!

I said to Ihem, "Tomorrow, my daughter is coming homefrom Warsaw." (She was a student there.) "I have nothing ;ithome—no food. Not even bread." One of them suggested thaithey continue to work while I went to my job. I relumed fromwork around 3:30 pm and they showed me what they had written.It still needed work, so we started writing. Suddenly it was 8:30. !said.'Tm sorry. I have to run to buy bread." They said. "At thishour there will be no bread. You'll go in the momÍng."They left.

I knew I had an empty fridge. I went to my neighbor and askedher to lend me a half loaf of bread and two eggs. She agreed. I wenthome and opened the fridge and—like Lot's wife, I turned into apillar of salt! Everything was there! Even things that were not avail-able in P()land: ham, salami, sardines, butter. It turned out that thewives of two of my workers, who didn't even know me. brought itall for me. lliey said. "So when her daughter comes, she can takecare of her." My daughter came in the morning about 6 am. Sheopened the fridge and said, "1 star\'e and you have everything!"


Aieksander Krystosiak also spoke of how Solidarity changedhow people acted toward one another:

Before, people just growled and barked at each other. Youstepped on someone's foot in a Iram and you almost gol caten bythat person. And now, it didn't happen. People began seeing eachother as human beings. So you could hear, "Excuse me." in thelines and in the trams. In my opinion, this was the most importantchange that took place in society.

Piotr Polmañski, a miner Solidarity activist added that:"During this period, there was not a single fatal accident in mymine at this time. Everybody became more responsible; we had afeeling of being one family, a team. We simply took care of every-thing." Taking care of "everything" is a pretty inclusive notion.There is no doubt that the impulse was powerful and had signifi-cant reverberations. Alojzy Szablewski recalled how the unionsaw to it that things in short supply were equitably distributed:

People who sold books, cigarettes, food in the shipyard asked Soli-darity to see that these things were distributed fairly, so it wasn'tthat one person had several packs of cigarettes, and someone elsenothing. Solidarity gave everyone a card, and he would take thecard to the shop and get the same amount, so that everyone hadfood, and people knew it was just. The fish factory called to say thatthey had cans of fish. They knew the shipyard workers needed it,

Feeling that they now had some control, workers actedmore responsibly. As Wladyslaw Frasyniuk reported:

For the first time, people got the sense of being masters in theirown workplaces. In my workplace, the manager couldn't remem-ber when there was so much self-discipline. For instance, drinkingalcohol in the workplace entirely vanished, disappeared. It wasnot from increased control from above. There was pressure fromone's workmates.

Indeed, alcohol consumption, which had often been amajor problem on and off the job, now fell under control of theworkers themselves, and virtually disappeared at the worksite.'**An anonymous worker recalled: "During the strike [in the ParisCommune Shipyard in Gdynia] consumption of alcohol in theshipyard was forbidden. At the beginning of the strike, a foremanwas thrown out for drunkenness. Before being thrown, out he

'"Ireneusz Biaiecki,op.cit.


was paraded around the shipyard in a cart; it was a sort of sym-bolic pillory."'^ Aleksander Krystosiak saw a similar pattern:

Wilh lightning speed, the society rebuilt itself morally. In my fac-tory, which wasn't any exception, there were four places wherealcohol was sold. The director, the management, the foremenreally did whatever they could to get rid of them. Il wasn't pos-sible. Why? Because the people helped hide them. With the newtrade unions, no one looked for these places. Why not? Becausewhen Ihe worker went to gel vodka, he wasn't looking for theforeman or manager; he was making sure Ihal no other workersaw him because he was ashamed of doing it. So these sellingpoints just died off, like dinosaurs, What was really important wasIhe change in the quality of the worker's mind.

Jan Kubik reported that he found evidence of this new attitudepersisting well beyond the strikes. In December 1980, he recalled:

As I was going from Katowice to Gdansk for the unveiling of IheDecember 1970 Monument [to workers killed by the army andthe police during protests-JMB|. 1 was struck by the absence ofdrunken men in the train's buffet. Buffets on long-distance trainsin Poland are usually frequented by drinking crowds. This time,however. I did not notice a single drunken person. The peoplewere solemn and pensive. . . . Solidarity banned alcohol sales inthe vicinity of Gdansk for the duration of ihe celebrations butpeople refrained from drinking even where it was still possible.^'

This movement of moral regeneration raised people's self-esteem and developed a new attitude of cooperation and con-cern for one another. Increasingly, those who had had no voice,no opportunity to affect their society, now began to delve intoareas they had never before broached and developed skills theymay never have imagined, as the following examples illustrate.Mirosîawa Strzelec said that: "The workers organized theaters,cabarets. Tliey wrote articles, poems—and read them in public."Workers learned to give speeches.

ALEKSANDER KRYSTOSIAK: People who before didn't know howto build two sentences correctly now spoke sensibly and creativelybefore thousands of people. I was one of them. Many times, whenpeople from my shipyard and from ihe Warski shipyard spoke atuniversities in Szczecin, they couldn't believe we didn't have ahigher education.

'" Ewa Barker. "Interview With Two Gdynia Workers," in MacDonald. 119.^Jan Kubik. Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power (University Park, PA:Pennsylvania State University Press. 1994). 200.


GRZEGORZ STAWSKI: The most important thing to me in thewhole movement was my first speech to the public. It broke abarrier of fear. I knew what 1 wanted: I knew what peoplewanted. The problem was whether, at ihat moment. I would beable to say what 1 wanted to say. whether 1 would be able totouch those people. And when I did, I became more self-assured.

Helena Luczywo recalled how people became concerned withissues they had previously ignored:

Suddenly, people felt they had an opportunity to really changethe situation of our country, and many people organized activity—not only political or trade union activity, but also in the educationsystem, the cultural system, the economic system. People whohad been completely indifferent before Solidarity were suddenlyvery active about how to improve education and health services.There was a great movement to improve our economy, our indus-tries, cinematography. literature. Someone organized a newprogram of edueation lor primary and secondary schools. A lotof activists went to see how to improve the situation of prisoners.

Slawomir Majewski was one of the people who became newlyinvolved:

Before Solidarity, people didn't know their factory income, itsorganizational structure, its economic problems. Only govern-ment officials had been interested in the problem of how to runthese factories, and now ordinary people beeame concerned. Istudied the economic problems of our university: its sources ofincome, how to organize a budget, individual pay. I was a mem-ber of a special group that prepared a new education program forthe university. We considered how to change curricula in the sec-ondary schools and how to educate about ecology.

Poles now became very protective of democracy in allrealms, especially within Solidarity. If they could not retain dem-ocratic forms there, how could they do so in the broader society?Marek Muszynski, an opposition intellectual, explained that:

There was a sort of childish illness of democracy: every meeting,every gathering, every rally went on for hours because peoplewanted them to be strictly according to democratic rules. Mostpeople had had no opportunity to live in a democratic society.Now, activists had to learn to give life to their concepts. The com-mon element was the belief that we. together, by our own force,could achieve something.

People practiced democracy not just in meetings, but in every-day hfe. They now had a say in their country's life and discussedtheir conditions and their options. Now that their opinions mat-tered, they were concerned about what they and others felt.

57


FRASYNTUK.: There were some controversial issues: should Soli-darity demand free access to the mass media, or should wereform the economy first? People talked about these problemseverywhere: in tines, in the shops, at parties, in ihe buses. Theregional Solidarity committee started work at seven in the morn-ing, and we would finish at about ten or eleven at night, mostlybecause people would come to us lo present their problem ortheir point of view, and to discuss it, and we thought ihai they hadthe right to do it, so we listened.

The range of people's concerns broadened. They demandededucation. Newly empowered people shed their apathy. Ashorizons rose, they became interested in matters that beforehad seemed of mere academic concern because now knowledgecould enable them to act effectively. Great social movementsfrequently provoke a popular demand to learn—history, politics,and economics^—matters that in the past had seemed remoteand dry. Both in response to demand and in hopes of stimulatinga desire on the part of workers to educate themselves. Solidarityorganized libraries for its members and established "worker uni-versities" where people gave lectures and taught skills. In Wro-claw, recalled Jan Waszkiewicz, who headed the informationbureau there:

Solidarity wasn't just a trade union. You could hardly find peopleinterested in just the usual trade union problems. They were inter-ested in political, historical, constitutional issues—everything.There were lectures twice or three times a week. Anybody couldcome, and people did. In WriKlaw. they were held both in the edu-cational center and in factories. Usually, there was one lecture witha long discussion in the evening. How many people altendeddepended on who ihe lecturer was. When il was somebody with awell-known name, there would be a few hundred people, In Wro-claw, we had quite a good auditorium for this, and we had everypublic room open for Solidarity. There were lectures, discussionclubs, also Solidarity groups in factories and many places.

Wiadyslaw Frasyniuk. also from Wroclaw, explained that:

The demand for knowledge was so spontaneous that the regionalcommittee of Solidarity was in the rear. For instance, the workersin the Dormcl Company insisted on forming their own branch ofthe trade union university on Ihe territory of their factory becausethe building in Red Square, where we held meetings of the union'scitywido workers' university, was too crowded. Academics, espe-cially historians, were always asked to give lectures. Tliey had nofree time for themselves: they went everywhere in Ihe region, and


even to neighboring regions. Tliey lectured mainly about history;then economics and law. The demand for knowledge about unionswas so great that a permanent pari of our magazine was devoted lothe history and functioning of different trade unions in the world.

Wroclaw's example spread to other centers. Publications pro-liferated from the underground which, as Bogdan Borusewicz putit: "wasn't really underground anymore. There was no workersuniversity in Gdansk, but there were lectures in the factories, atthe National Commission, and meetings in churches with inter-esting people." In Krakow, Stanislaw Handzlik recalled: '"Thehunger for education was just enormous. Apart from regularpapers, we also published brochures on various subjects. Weorganized meetings with intellectuals to get to know the outlooksof the people in the opposition." Andrzej Rozplochowski spokeof a similar movement in Upper Silesia:

Upper Silesia had very few enlightened intellectuals. So, it wasimportant to create an independent publishing network to edu-cate the workers. We created a library in the region with a veryrich collection of books, and we managed lo organize smallerlibraries in over 100 factories all over the region. The books inthose libraries also (raveled around and were lent from hand tohand in other factories as well. By mid-198L we had regular lec-tures in factories and in cultural houses, and an independent net-work of lecturers and classes developed through the church. Thenumber of people who came was large.

In the copper mines, noted Ryszard Sawicki, they had the sameconcerns:

We looked for independent presses and book publishers andbroughl as much as we could into the mine lor the workers, 1 fig-ured that it didn't matter what they read. If they understood justa little bit, then even if at some point the government managed loscare them, later on what they read and learned would somehowbe like an investment that brings you interest.

Sawicki was right: many of these changes had permanenteffects that carried on into the period of martial law. As a result,even with the arrest of thousands of activists and the suppres-sion of almost all organizational remnants of the union, thegovernment was never again able to reassert the control overindividual behavior and the expression of ideas that it had beforethe Solidarity upheaval. The education and experiences of the

59


Solidarity movement had created a spirit of resistance. Somemanaged to escape the massive detentions and built an under-ground opposition that produced newspapers, and later journalsand books, radio and even television broadcasts. They recreatedSolidarity organizations in the workplaces, refused to pay busand tram fares, and staged demonstrations and strikes. Eventu-ally, this resistance made it evident to the authorities that therewould be no peace unless the government came to terms withthe opposition, and negotiations began that ended the domina-tion of the Communist Party.

Malgorzata Gorczewska, for example, was 15 in 1980. Shewas very much affected by the efforts at education: "I attendedlectures at the university about the 'white spots' in Polish his-tory for about a year, and I learned about things I hadn't knownabout before. I met a group of young people at these meetings;I got newspapers and books from them." Later, after the decla-ration of martial law. Gorczewska became an activist: "We pub-lished our own newspaper. Perhaps, if August 1980, and thenthe period where things were openly discussed hadn't occurred,I wouldn't be here now."

A revolution is not only a political event, but also one thatcreates important social and individual changes that alter thecharacter of social relations in many ways, and that transform theindividuals who participate in it. Workers became empoweredand felt themselves part of a community and thereby freer andmore able to affect their lives and their nation. Such changesunderlie and make possible the political developments that pro-ceed, but they are important in their own right, as they enablepeople to take their lives to heretofore uncharted waters.

In Summation: Oral History and Social Movements

I have had the good fortune to examine and become involvedboth with the civil rights movement in the United States andSolidarity in Poland—two of the most important social move-ments of the twentieth century. Each of them necessitated signif-icant transformation of the political and social systems of whichthey were a part; each required and allowed the activists andleaders to stretch their abilities and to grow. Sometimes thesewere wrenching tasks that occasioned deep turmoil within the


individuals who were involved and within their communities. Iwas aware of the importance of such changes from my researchinto the civil rights movement and because of my own experi-ence participating in social movements in the sixties.

^rhere is more than one way to get at such changes. In myresearch on the civil rights movement. I was frequently able tomake use of written sources: interviews, memoirs, autobiogra-phies, and biographies. That was not really an option for mewith regard to Solidarity, both because there were not verymany such pubhshed sources in Poland, and because my Polishdid not permit me to mine what was available. So, as I contem-plated how I would go about my research in Poland, I decidedthat gathering such interviews would both open up opportuni-ties for me and would also create a body of scholarly materialthat might be of use to other researchers.

My work on each of these movements aided me in under-standing the other. For instance, during my first trip to Poland,when I was introduced to the priest who ran the undergroundChristian workers' university in Krakow, I told him. after attend-ing a community "mass" that was quite political and filled withopposition references and statements by local activists, that theexperience reminded me of what had taken place in the civilrights movement and that I was moved by it. That statementwas what led him to invite me to speak to his students about thecivil rights movement.

Similarly, after traveling around Poland and having spenthundreds of hours in people's homes, speaking with them abouttheir experiences in the opposition movement, I felt that I hadparticipated in an intense seminar, in which the learning curvewas very high. As I thought about this experience, I wondered ifthere was some way I could bring it to my students. Obviously, Icould not bring them to Poland, nor could I expect them to sitthrough the many sometimes tedious hours of translated inter-views. So. I developed a course that brought activists in the civilrights movement into my class and interviewed them abouttheir lives."' They were able to show my students what their

61

••' See Jack M. Bloom. "Hyewitness to the Movement: Conducting Oral Histories inthe Classroom." in Julie Buckner Armstrong, Susan Huit Edwards. Houston BryanRoberson. and Rhonda Y. Williams, Teaching the Civil Rights Movement: Freedom'sBittersweet Song {New York: Routledge, 1982).


lives had been like before the movement, why they becameinvolved, what kinds of choices they made, and how thosechoices affected history. Every time I have taught this course,the students have enthusiastically received it.

Interviewees

Parentheses record when and where the interview was car-ried out.

Zbignew Bogacz (Sacramento, California, 1993)A member of the Solidarity National Miners Commission;

leader of an underground coal miners strike that lasted two weeksafter martial law was declared

Bogdan Borusewicz (Gdansk, 1988)A long-time member of the opposition; he was one of the

organizers of the strike in Gdansk Shipyards during 1980; oneof the leaders of the Solidarity union; one of the leaders of theSolidarity underground after martial law was declared

Ryszard Brzuzy (Warsaw, 1989)A miner in the brown coal fields; became a Solidarity repre-

sentative to parliament in 1989

Wladyslaw Frasyniuk (Wroclaw. 1988)Leader of the regional Solidarity union in Wroclaw and a

member of the Solidarity national committee

Winicjusz Gurecki (Toronto, 1994)Served on the National Tourist Workers Commission

Stanislaw Handzlik (Krakow, 1988)Leader of Solidarity in the Lenin Steel Mill in the Krakow

suburb of Nowa Huta and in the Krakow region

Andrzej Jarmakowski (Chicago, 1991)An activist in the Young Poland movement, who worked

closely with Solidarity

Seweryn Jaworski (Warsaw, 1988)Leader of the strike in the Warsaw Steel Mill in 1980 and

vice-chair of Warsaw regional Solidarity


Krzysztof Kasprzyk (Boulder, Colorado, 1988)Leader of the Polish Journalists Union in Krakow during

1980-1981 and an activist in the Party reform movement

Aleksander Krystosiak (New York. 1994)A secondary leader of strikes in Szczecin in 1970; one of

the organizers of the shipyard strikes in Szczecin in 1980 and thedeputy chair of Solidarity in Szczecin

Ginter Kupka (Gliwice, Poland, 1989)A coal miner leader in Solidarity

Helena tuczywo (Warsaw, 1991)Along-time oppositionist: she edited an underground oppo-

sition newspaper before Solidarity; tbe editor of one of the mainSolidarity papers during the period of legal Solidarity; the edi-tor of the main Solidarity opposition newspaper after martiallaw was declared; organized safe houses for many of the Soli-darity leaders in the Warsaw region during martial law

Marek Muszynski (Gdansk, 1988)A Krakow activist in the student upheaval of 1968; worked

with the dissident intellectual group KOR; active in Solidarity

Janusz Palubicki (Wroclaw, 1997)Head of Solidarity in the Wroclaw region

Piotr Polmañski (Piekary, Upper Silesia, 1989)Local miner Solidarity leader

Mieczyslaw Rakowski (Warsaw, 1997)A long-time leader of the Communist Party; was deputy

prime minister in 1981 and thereafter; later, became prime min-ister; was the last General Secretary of the Communist Party

Zbigniew Regucki (Krakow, 1988,1989)Served as chief of staff for Stanislaw Kania, the reformist

General Secretary of the Communist Party as a result of thestrikes that established Solidarity

Andrzej Rozplochowski (Sacramento, California. 1998)Leader of Solidarity in the Katowice Steel Mill and in the

Katowice region; member of the Solidarity National Commission

63


Ryszard Sawicki (Toronto, Canada. 1998)Leader of the copper miners in Solidarity; member of the

Solidarity National Commission

Gregorz Stawski (Zory, Silesia, 1989)Leader of Solidarity among coal miners and in the coal-

mining region of Jastrzçbie

Mirosiawa Strzelec (Katowice, 1989)A leader of Solidarity in the Katowice Steel Mill; one of the

leaders of the strike in response to the declaration of martiallaw; participated in the Solidarity underground for several years

Alojzy Szablewski (Gdansk, 1988)Leader of Solidarity in the Gdansk Shipyard

Jan Waszkiewicz (Wroclaw, 1988)Longtime oppositionist; Solidarity leader in Wroclaw; served

as Solidarity public spokesman

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