Lech Wałesa

President of Poland (1990–1995)

• Born: September 29, 1943
• Place of Birth: Popowo, Poland

Wałesa’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 underlined his contributions to peaceful political evolution in the Eastern bloc. His role since 1980 as leader of Solidarnost (Solidarity) in pressuring the Polish leadership for recognition of proletariat demands that were not addressed by the country’s government-controlled trade unions was capped by the Polish authorities in 1989 with the holding of free elections and the subsequent victory of the Solidarity-led ticket and Wałesa’s assumption of the presidency.

Early Life

Lech Wałesa was born in Popowo, Poland, north of Warsaw, the son of a carpenter, Boleslaw Wałesa, and his wife, Fela Kaminska. His father died of deprivations suffered during World War II in a Nazi concentration camp when Lech was eighteen months old; his mother later married her deceased husband’s brother, Stanisław. Lech was raised with seven siblings in the straitened circumstances of postwar Poland.

Wałesa was trained in a state agricultural school at Lipno as an electrician. After completing his studies, he served two years in the army, then moved to Gdańsk in 1966. He began working as an electrician in the Lenin Shipyards, and he was still there in 1970 when rioting erupted over the high cost of food. More than one hundred people were killed in the subsequent unrest. The demonstrations brought down Władysław Gomułka’s government, but little was ultimately achieved. Wałesa married the same year. He and his wife, Danuta, eventually had eight children.

Life’s Work

Wałesa was dismissed in April 1976 for participating in protests over the decline in living standard concessions made in 1970 by the authorities to the workers after riots and for collecting signatures on a petition requesting a memorial to the slain workers. Wałesa was unemployed for the next four years and supported his family by taking odd jobs. During this period he participated in meetings of the Workers Self-Defense Committee and edited an underground paper, the Coastal Worker, that was critical of the government. In 1978, Wałesa also became a founding member of the Free Trade Union of the Baltic Coast, which would later provide many leaders for Solidarity. As Wałesa’s political awareness grew, so did the frequency of his scrapes with the authorities; by his own estimate, he was detained more than one hundred times by the authorities between 1976 and 1980. Polish consciousness was heightened in October 1978, with the election of cardinal of Kraków Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. John Paul returned to Poland in June 1979 for a nine-day visit to scenes of extraordinary national rejoicing.

Wałesa’s star rose in August 1980, when workers across Poland engaged in wildcat strikes protesting price increases. On July 1, the government had raised the prices of several types and cuts of meat by between 60 and 90 percent. In the Gdańsk Lenin Shipyards, events that summer were brought to a head by the dismissal for labor agitation of Anna Walentynowicz, an elderly woman who was six months short of receiving her retirement benefits. On August 14, the day that the strike began, Wałesa climbed the fence and joined strikers in the Lenin Shipyards. The strike quickly spread throughout Poland, from the steelworkers at Nowa Huta to the Silesian coal mines. Intellectuals, peasants, and workers throughout Poland joined the labor unrest. More than three hundred thousand workers were shortly out on strike. The Gdańsk Lenin Shipyards’ Inter-Factory Strike Committee, chaired by Wałesa, presented a list of twenty-one demands to the government.

On August 31, 1980, the Polish government signed an accord with Wałesa that granted unprecedented rights to labor organizations in a communist country. Shortly thereafter, the first secretary, Edward Gierek, was dismissed. The right for workers to form independent trade unions was recognized, wage and benefit increases were granted, Catholic mass was broadcast on Sundays, censorship was eased, and political dissidents were freed. The 1980 strike that led to the formation of Solidarity drove Gierek’s government from power. While Solidarity sought change from the authorities, it was careful not to offer challenges that would force the government’s hand. Wałesa and Solidarity called their innovations a “self-limiting revolution.” As chair of the National Commission of Solidarity, Wałesa had enormous visibility.

Solidarity immediately attracted many followers; shortly before the imposition of martial law, Wałesa numbered its followers at ten million. Wałesa once described his role as that of a “democratic dictator”; goals were developed in a democratic context, and Wałesa then set about to realize them. Despite his prominence and popularity, Wałesa as the head of a broad democratic movement spent much of his time attempting to calm militants within his organization and moving to head off confrontation with the authorities. Such a broad-based movement had many shades of opinion within it, and Wałesa, a realist, attempted to rein in its more extreme members.

The Soviet Union began to take an increasingly harsh line toward its unreliable Western neighbor and ally. Most menacing was the massing of fifty-five Soviet divisions near Poland’s eastern frontier. The nervous Polish government began to see Soviet intervention as an increasingly likely possibility.

Events continued to show the increasing influence of Solidarity; on March 27, 1981, the biggest organized protest in the Eastern Bloc occurred when thirteen million workers staged a four-hour strike to protest the beatings in Bydgoszcz of several Solidarity activists. Solidarity’s influence extended into the countryside with the formation of Rural Solidarity, making possible a coalition of workers and peasants. The government responded to the increasing unrest by appointing General Wojciech Jaruzelski Party leader in addition to premier on October 18, 1981.

Wałesa was arrested on December 11, 1981, and held in a jail near the Soviet border for eleven months. Meanwhile, after the imposition of martial law on December 13, the Polish authorities began a campaign of vilification against Wałesa, describing him as the “former head of a former union.” In addition to Wałesa and the Solidarity leadership, nearly six thousand individuals were taken into custody. The number interned rose eventually to more than ten thousand. More than ninety thousand were tried by civil courts in the first six months of martial law. All labor unions, including Solidarity, were dissolved by a law introduced on October 6, 1982. A protest strike at the Lenin Shipyards in Gdańsk was ended when the authorities militarized the shipyard. When Solidarity attempted to organize a nationwide protest strike in November, it failed miserably.

On the day Wałesa was released from prison, he stated, “In my future conduct I will be courageous, but also prudent, and there is nothing negotiable in this regard. I will talk and act, not on my knees, but with prudence.” Wałesa was restored to the Lenin Shipyards’ payroll in January, 1983, although he did not formally return to work until April. Even though he was effectively under house arrest when not on the job, Wałesa continued to work to restore Solidarity’s role in national affairs. Shortly after his return to work, he prophetically declared that Solidarity “was a moral force without whose participation Poland could not get out of the crisis.” He constantly reiterated that Solidarity’s intention was not to overthrow the government but to better workers’ lives. Solidarity banners were unfurled at rallies, and despite the authorities’ best efforts, Solidarity’s underground continued to keep the organization and its values alive.

Martial law was suspended in December 1982 and lifted on July 22, 1983. Despite the government’s attempts to bury him in oblivion, Wałesa and his vision continued to thrive. His contributions to human values were recognized in 1983, when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The news was given to him by Western correspondents; Wałesa observed, “The world recognizes Solidarity’s ideals and struggles.” However, he could not travel to the Nobel ceremonies to receive the prize himself because he feared that the Polish government would not let him back into the country. Instead, Danuta accepted the medal and prize money, which Wałesa donated to Solidarity.

As the Polish government continued to grapple with its problems, it considered approaching Wałesa for assistance. In 1987, Jaruzelski created a consultative council to include people of disparate political views and extended an invitation to Wałesa, who declined to join. Wałesa’s refusal was based on his observation that the new council would have the ability only to debate issues and policy and not to legislate change.

Wałesa reemerged as a force in Polish politics in the autumn of 1988, when the government initiated talks with him. Faced by an outbreak of wildcat strikes, the government proposed to Wałesa that it would open talks about legalizing Solidarity if Wałesa would persuade the workers to return to work. These “roundtable talks,” which eventually included thirteen working groups, lasted fifty-nine days. After hard bargaining, Wałesa ended the strikes. Wałesa’s durability proved remarkable; the loyalty that Solidarity retained during its period of repression combined with other factors to force the Polish government to hold elections in the summer of 1989, in which Solidarity candidates did remarkably well. Wałesa proved himself a masterful and patient politician.

Despite official hostility, Solidarity continued to prove a potential alternative to the country’s increasingly desperate financial problems. Wałesa waited and, on April 5, 1989, signed an agreement lifting the governmental ban on Solidarity, allowing the organization to participate in the upcoming elections for the Sejm. The government had proved itself unable to cope with its accumulated financial problems; inflation had reached 200 percent, and the foreign debt stood at $39 billion. The result was a very unpleasant surprise for the Polish Communist Party: of 261 contested seats, Solidarity won 260.

A further element strengthening the forces of change was the visit of US president George H. W. Bush to Poland in July 1989. Both the Polish government and Wałesa appealed to Bush to extend aid in the form of credits and loans to Poland to an eventual level of $10 billion to strengthen the forces pushing toward a mixed economy. Bush unfortunately offered about one-hundredth of the amount requested, putting a severe strain on Polish reformers who wished to avoid seeking Eastern Bloc support. Wałesa negotiated with Jaruzelski throughout August and September 1989 to prepare the way for forming a government led by a Solidarity activist. Solidarity proved its influence by largely halting strikes during this period.

On December 9, 1990, Wałesa became Poland’s first democratically elected president, winning the election with 75 percent of the vote. His term oversaw the difficult transition to a capitalist economy, which involved privatizing many state-owned industries. Wałesa's administration held the first completely open parliamentary elections in 1991 and improved international relations with Western governments and the emerging eastern European democracies. However, Wałesa’s ardent Catholicism was seen by many in Poland as tying the government too closely to the Catholic Church, and many disliked his tendency to meddle in the duties of the prime minister and the parliament. By the next election, in 1995, Wałesa’s popular support had declined, and he lost his bid for another term, although only by a 1 percent margin.

Wałesa went into a brief retirement until 1997, when he helped develop a new political party, Solidarity Electoral Action. Although the party won parliamentary elections, Wałesa had only a background role. In 2000 he again ran for the presidency. He garnered less than 1 percent of the votes, in part because the country had moved beyond the era of Solidarity that he represented and in part because many Poles saw his candidacy as little more than an attempt to recapture power. In 2006 he left Solidarity over differences with the party leadership.

In political retirement once again, Wałesa became a lecturer at various universities. Still a much-respected figure in Poland, he was honored in 2004 when the Gdańsk international airport was renamed for him. He represented his nation officially at the funerals for US president Ronald Reagan (2004) and Russian president Boris Yeltsin (2007).

Wałesa was frequently honored outside Poland. Among his numerous awards in addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he received the US Medal of Freedom in 1989; the International Freedom Award in 1999; and Pacem in Terris Award (peace on Earth) in 2001, an award sponsored by a coalition of American Catholic dioceses. He is a knight grand cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav, knight of the Danish Order of the Elephant, and knight of the Swedish Order of the Seraphim. He holds honorary doctorates from more than thirty universities, including Alliance College, Paris (1981); Harvard University (1983); and Meiji University, Tokyo (1997). Time magazine selected him to be its Man of the Year in 1981. On October 11, 2006, he was the keynote speaker for the International Humanity Solidarity Day ceremony at the United Nations Trusteeship Council. The day, proclaimed by the General Assembly for December 20 of each year, is to focus attention on international efforts to improve living conditions. In May 2007, he was given the title Defensor Fidei (defender of the faith) by the Italian Cultural Association.

In December 1995, Wałesa founded the Lech Wałesa Foundation Institute in Warsaw to work for safeguarding Poland’s national heritage, promote the country abroad, consolidate democracy and a market economy, and conduct historical research. He continued to work for the advancement of democracy and social justice, traveling throughout the world to lecture and participate in conferences and diplomatic initiatives. He has voiced his opinion of American politicians and political issues, criticizing the Obama administration's 2009 decision to end its long-range missile defense agreement with Poland and backing Mitt Romney's presidential candidacy in 2012.

In 2013, Wałesa was widely criticized for his negative comments about gay people: "They have to know that they are a minority and must adjust to smaller things. And not rise to the greatest heights, the greatest hours, the greatest provocations, spoiling things for the others and taking from the majority." He went to say, among other things, that while he does "tolerate and understand" gay people, he does not agree with them and does not think they should be allowed to demonstrate in the streets in front of children. Wałesa's son Jaroslaw cautioned that while Wałesa's words were objectionable, his father's opinions about gay people are nuanced; however, Wałesa has refused to apologize for his remarks.

In 2013, a Polish biopic of Wałesa's life, A Man of Hope was released in Poland. Poland entered the film as its entry for the best foreign film Oscars, but was not nominated for the prize. Over the following years, Wałesa continued to weigh in on current events, including urging support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia that began in 2022, saying the United States can best take on Russia through politics and propaganda, rather than military might. Previously, in 2021, Wałesa underwent heart surgery after experiencing heart complications earlier in life.

Significance

Wałesa’s contribution to the liberalization of Polish political life cannot be overstated. A proletarian from a working-class background, Wałesa had the courage and skill to force a government holding power to admit by its actions that it simply represented a dictatorship. Wałesa consistently showed the greatest courage from the beginning of his organizing activities, suffering punishment for his efforts. A deeply religious man, he consistently displayed moderation in the face of provocation by the authorities. In the early days of Solidarity, his abilities to compromise avoided splitting the movement between the moderate and more extreme elements.

The election on August 24, 1989, and subsequent appointment of longtime Solidarity supporter Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a lay Catholic lawyer and journalist, as prime minister represents the first time since 1945 that a government in Eastern Europe was led by a non-Communist. While the Communist Party retained four influential ministerial portfolios to Solidarity’s eight positions, Solidarity was able to achieve the first coalition government in the Eastern Bloc led by non-Communists since 1945. The example that Solidarity provided to the rest of the Eastern Bloc had profound reverberations in 1989 in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.

Wałesa’s and Solidarity’s examples of nonviolent resistance continued to influence Eastern European politics for many years. Despite Poland’s crippling economic legacy from its Communist rulers, Solidarity’s government had the immense advantage that it truly represented a “government of the people,” the first that Poland had since World War II. It was a mark of the high esteem in which Wałesa was held worldwide that when he visited Washington, DC, in late 1989, he was invited to address a joint session of Congress, being only the second foreigner ever to be accorded this honor. Wałesa promised to pursue a peaceful middle path, stating, “We want to take what is good from capitalism what is good for the people, what the people will take from it, but we also want to take what is good from socialism.”

Bibliography

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Wałesa, Lech. The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography. Trans. Franklin Philip and Helen Mahut. New York: Arcade, 1992. Print.

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