When was the solidarity movement in poland

The ability of Solidarity to survive, despite coordinated attempts to repress it, demonstrated the weakness of the ruling Communist party in Poland, eventually leading to the demoralization of its leadership, and contributing to the collapse of ruling Communist parties throughout eastern Europe and the Soviet Union itself.

The birthplace of Solidarity was the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk. The ensuing strike and violence, which spread to other Polish ports, resulted in dozens of deaths. Over the next several years, as the Polish economy stagnated, strikes occurred at various enterprises throughout the country. The Istanbul telephone line and the IBM computer link provided the Polish Section of the BBC with vital insights into the unfolding events inside Poland, which were reflected in broadcast output.

However, this technological good-fortune was underwritten by the personal relations of some BBC Polish staff with leading figures in the Polish opposition movement who they had been to school and university with and protested with, before leaving Poland. These connections were known to some of the managers in Bush House and there were obvious editorial concerns about the risk of manipulation and bias in Polish programme output.

Recording, transcribing and publishing this information became a considerable task in its own right, involving a number of BBC Polish staff, outside of their BBC working hours. This culminated in the regular publication of the Uncensored Poland News Bulletin between , edited by Kris Pszenicki.

Crucial to the significance and appeal of this publication was the application of BBC editorial values, such as balance, in its preparation.

It became a vital source of Polish news for governments around the world, including Britain and America, civil society groups, trades unions and universities who took up subscriptions to get the inside story on events in Poland and the evolution of the Solidarity movement. In , Solidarity was officially banned by the Polish government and although Martial Law came to an end the following year, the Solidarity movement continued as an underground opposition movement, with broad appeal in Polish society.

In the almost five years since the national-conservative Law and Justice party has been in power, those people from Solidarnosc who are politically in line with the government are held up as heroes at official ceremonies and cultural events. Walesa, who was Poland's president from to , is not one of them; he has often sharply criticized the anti-liberal policies of the PiS government.

Walesa is a thorn in the flesh of the PiS. In government-friendly media, he has been mostly depicted as an agent of the communist Security Service, a secret police and intelligence agency along the lines of the East German Stasi and the Soviet KGB.

In , documents were found pointing to his collaboration with the former secret police. Walesa is said to have been pushed into this collaboration in when he was arrested with some other workers during anti-government protests in Gdansk. But by the end of the s, before he joined the opposition movement, his contacts to the communist secret service had ended. The debate on whether Walesa was a hero or a traitor, and whether his later achievements canceled out his guilt, still divides Poland.

This year's commemorations of the foundation of Solidarnosc will be overshadowed by the dispute as they are every year. Prosecutors will seek to establish whether anti-communist hero Lech Walesa's handwriting matches the signatures of a purported communist-era agent. Walesa has been dogged by such accusations since Visit the new DW website Take a look at the beta version of dw.

Go to the new dw. More info OK. Wrong language? Change it here DW. COM has chosen English as your language setting. COM in 30 languages. Deutsche Welle. Audiotrainer Deutschtrainer Die Bienenretter. Europe Poland's Solidarity movement turns A nail in the coffin of communism in Europe Forty years ago, the independent trade union Solidarnosc was founded in Poland.

Read more: Walesa: Germany should play 'leading role in Europe' But at the time, Walesa did not really believe the promise made by the communist regime.

Millions against the communists Walesa had been working as an electrician at the Lenin Shipyard now Gdansk Shipyard in Gdansk since Germany's former President Joachim Gauck.