Lech Walesa Lech

LECH WALESA Lech Walesa began his career in Poland’s Gdansk shipyards, where his activism and charisma helped push his country to semi-free Parliamentary elections in which he was elected president. Walesa co-founded Solidarity, the Soviet Bloc’s first independent trade union. He became a symbol of democracy and is widely recognized for leading Poland out of Communism. His actions are viewed as the crucial first step in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Walesa spent his early life as a mechanic and then in the Polish military. When he resigned from the military, Walesa was hired as an electrician at Gdansk shipyards. Troubled by the poor treatment of his fellow workers, he became involved in trade- union activism and quickly rose to prominence after organizing a strike in 1970. His activism garnered the attention of the Polish government which soon placed him under surveillance. In 1976, he was fired from his position after multiple arrests. Walesa then emerged as a leader of the growing movement calling for better working conditions and the right to free association. In 1980, Walesa played an instrumental role in negotiations of the Gdansk Agreement between the Polish government and striking workers, an agreement that culminated in the creation of Solidarity. After the government imposed martial law and outlawed Solidarity, Walesa and his fellow activists were arrested and detained. Upon his release he returned to the docks as an electrician Lech Walesa © Architects of Peace Foundation and continued his activism. The leading underground weekly paper featured his motto, “OUR UNION—THE ‘SOLIDARITY’—HAS GROWN INTO A POWERFUL “Solidarity will not be divided or destroyed.” His MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL AND MORAL LIBERATION. THE PEOPLE continued dedication led to the 1989 Round Table Agreement which resulted in a Solidarity-led FREED FROM THE BONDAGE OF FEAR AND APATHY, CALLED FOR government in which Lech Walesa was elected as REFORMS AND IMPROVEMENTS. WE FOUGHT A DIFFICULT president of Poland. STRUGGLE FOR OUR EXISTENCE.” Although his presidency lasted only one term, his administration oversaw the transformation of Poland to a free-market economy. After Walesa left office, the Polish economy was among the healthiest in central and eastern Europe. Walesa remains a symbol of hope and has inspired many to pursue similar aspirations of rights and freedoms throughout the world. In 1983, Lech Walesa received the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to human rights and for playing a vital role in shaping Solidarity in his country. EXCERPTS FROM LECH WALESA: 1983 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LECTURE participated in the strike actions, in fact represented the nation. When I recall my own path of life I cannot but speak of the Addressing you, as the winner of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, is violence, hatred and lies. A lesson drawn from such experiences, a Polish worker from the Gdansk Shipyard, one of the founders however, was that we can effectively oppose violence only if we of the independent trade union movement in Poland. It would be ourselves do not resort to it. the simplest thing for me to say that I am not worthy of that great In the brief history of those eventful years, the Gdansk distinction. Yet, when I recall the hour when the news of the prize Agreement stands out as a great charter of the rights of the working has spread throughout my country, the hour of rising emotions and people which nothing can ever destroy. Lying at the root of the universal joy of the people who felt that they have a moral and social agreements of 1980 are the courage, sense of responsibility, spiritual share in the award, I am obligated to say that I regard it as a and the solidarity of the working people. Both sides have then sign of recognition that the movement to which I gave all my strength recognized that an accord must be reached if bloodshed is to be has served well the community of men. prevented. The agreement then signed has been and shall remain And if I permit myself at this juncture and on this occasion to the model and the only method to follow, the only one that gives a mention my own life, it is because I believe that the prize has been chance of finding a middle course between the use of force and a granted to me as to one of many. hopeless struggle. Our firm conviction that ours is a just cause and My youth passed at the time of the country’s reconstruction that we must find a peaceful way to attain our goals gave us the from the ruins and ashes of the war in which my nation never strength and the awareness of the limits beyond which we must bowed to the enemy paying the highest price in the struggle. I not go. What until then seemed impossible to achieve has become belong to the generation of workers who, born in the villages and a fact of life. We have won the right to association in trade unions hamlets of rural Poland, had the opportunity to acquire education independent from the authorities, founded and shaped by the and find employment in industry, becoming in the course conscious working people themselves. of their rights and importance in society. Those were the years of Our union—the “Solidarity”—has grown into a powerful awakening aspirations of workers and peasants, but also years movement for social and moral liberation. The people, freed of many wrongs, degradations and lost illusions. I was barely from the bondage of fear and apathy, called for reforms and 13 years old when, in June 1956, the desperate struggle of the improvements. We fought a difficult struggle for our existence. That workers of Poznan for bread and freedom was suppressed in blood. was and still is a great opportunity for the whole country. I think Thirteen also was the boy—Romek Strzalkowski—who was killed that it marked also the road to be taken by the authorities, if they in the struggle. It was the “Solidarity” union which 25 years later thought of a state governed in cooperation and participation of all demanded that tribute be paid to his memory. In December 1970 citizens. “Solidarity,” as a trade union movement, did not reach for when workers’ protest demonstrations engulfed the towns of the power, nor did it turn against the established constitutional order. Baltic coast, I was a worker in the Gdansk Shipyard and one of the During the 15 months of “Solidarity’s” legal existence nobody organizers of the strikes. The memory of my fellow workers who was killed or wounded as a result of its activities. Our movement then lost their lives, the bitter memory of violence and despair, has expanded by leaps and bounds. But we were compelled to conduct become for me a lesson never to be forgotten. an uninterrupted struggle for our rights and freedom of activity A few years later, in June 1976, the strike of the workers at Ursus while at the same time imposing upon ourselves the unavoidable and Radom was a new experience which not only strengthened self-limitations. The program of our movement stems from the my belief in the justness of the working people’s demands and fundamental moral laws and order. The sole and basic source of our aspirations, but has also indicated the urgent need for their strength is the solidarity of workers, peasants and the intelligentsia, solidarity. This conviction brought me, in the summer of 1978, to the solidarity of the nation, the solidarity of people who seek to live the Free Trade Unions—formed by a group of courageous and in dignity, truth, and in harmony with their conscience. dedicated people who came out in the defense of the workers’ Let the veil of silence fall presently over what happened rights and dignity. In July and August of 1980 a wave of strikes afterwards. Silence, too, can speak out. swept throughout Poland. The issue at stake was then something One thing, however, must be said here and now on this solemn much bigger than only material conditions of existence. My road occasion: The Polish people have not been subjugated nor have of life has, at the time of the struggle, brought me back to the they chosen the road of violence and fratricidal bloodshed. shipyard in Gdansk. The whole country has joined forces with We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union the workers of Gdansk and Szczecin. The agreements of Gdansk, freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for Szczecin and Jastrzebie were eventually signed and the “Solidarity” their convictions. The gates of prisons must be thrown open and union has thus come into being. persons sentenced for defending union and civic rights must be The great Polish strikes, of which I have just spoken, were set free. The announced trials of eleven leading members of our events of a special nature. Their character was determined on movement must never be held. All those already sentenced or still the one hand by the menacing circumstances in which they were awaiting trials for their union activities or their convictions—should held and, on the other, by their objectives. The Polish workers who return to their homes and be allowed to live and work in their repercussions for Europe. Thus, Poland ought to be helped and country. deserves help. The defense of our rights and our dignity, as well as efforts I am looking at the present-day world with the eyes of never to let ourselves to be overcome by the feeling of hatred—this a worker—a worker who belongs to a nation so tragically is the road we have chosen.

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