The Great Leader Series No. 8 - Lech Walęsa

This month I have moved forward to the 20^th Century for my great leader.

Lech Walęsa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 after becoming the hero of the Union movement in Poland. But from where did he come?

Lech Walęsa was born on 29 September 1943 in Popowo, Poland to a carpenter and his wife, although some reports say his father was a peasant farmer. Poland in 1943 was under German occupation as the Germans were retreating from Russia. His father, Boleslaw, was conscripted to dig ditches. He died in 1946 of exposure and the beatings he had received. Lech was brought up by his mother, Feliksa. Life must have been hard for his family.

Only being two when the war ended he missed most of the atrocities but grew up in a country robbed of its identity and under Communist rule.

He attended state primary and vocational schools and, upon graduation, he became a car mechanic, spent two years in the army, starting work as an electrician in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in1967. In 1969 he married Danuta Goloś. The couple now have eight children.

Poland has a turbulent history. Despite Soviet rule, Polish people felt that their country was merely an outpost of soviet imperialism. There were protests at food shortages that ended in riots in 1956 and in 1968 Polish intellectuals joined those in Czechoslovakia, protesting against the lack of intellectual freedom.

Walęsa was arrested and convicted “of anti-social behaviour”. He spent a year in prison.

In 1976 Walęsa lost his job at the shipyard for collecting signatures supporting the building of a memorial to the killed workers. Blacklisted by the authorities he was unable to get another job. His friends supported him, for a time, and he had to take temporary jobs.

In 1978, he and two friends organized an illegal underground newspaper, “Free Trade Union of Pomerania”. During 1979 he was arrested three or four times for organizing an “anti-state” organisation. He was found not guilty in court and was released in 1980.

In June 1979 Pope John Paul II visited his home country. This event created the right emotional environment for the Solidarity movement to emerge. The Pope was very careful not to openly criticise the Communist regime, but he did state, “The exclusion of Christ from the history of man is an act against man.” There was a huge roar of approval in the city square. One bishop was heard to say, “The Polish people broke the barrier of fear.”

In June 1980 the workers in the shipyard went on strike, protesting against the dismissal of a militant crane driver, Anna Walentinowicz. On 14 August Walęsa illegally entered the Gdańsk Shipyard by climbing the wall and joining the sit-in. He became leader of the strike. The strike was spontaneously followed by strikes throughout Poland. Anna was soon reinstated but the 16,000 strikers had fresh demands: they demanded the right to form their own genuine representative bodies, a pay rise of 40% and family allowances equal to the members of the country’s security forces, but the main complaint was the increase in meat prices.

They also wanted a monument in memory of the victims of the police brutality in 1970.

A few days after he joined the strike, Walęsa persuaded workers who wanted to leave the sit-in to stay and organized a strike committee to lead the spontaneously happening national general strike. In September the government agreed to allow legal workers’ organization but not free trade unions. The strike committee became the National Coordination Committee of Soldarność Free Trade Union. Walęsa was elected the chairman! His real strength as a speaker was the ability to reduce complex issues to simple words and images. It was said that “He knows his audience. He can sense what they want, and almost always he was right.”

Throughout, the Gdańsk shipyard was the centre of the extra ordinary national movement. The gates were festooned with flowers, red and white Polish flags and pictures of the Pope.

The World held its breath waiting for Soviet tanks to be sent in. Walęsa and the strikers prepared for battle. They made their confessions and received the Eucharist. Walęsa called for a ban on alcohol and insisted on strict discipline. He also managed to use his courage and his good humour to keep spirits high.

The government finally agreed to meet most of the strikers’ demands. When Walęsa signed the “Gdańsk agreement” he used a large souvenir pen bearing a picture of Pope Jon Paul II.

Walęsa remained as the chairman the organization until he, with over one thousand other Solidarity members, was arrested. The Prime Minister, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, declared a state of martial law on 13 December 1981. Waleśa was interned in South East Poland until 14 November 1982.

In 1983 he applied for his old job as an electrician. Although he was just a “simple worker”, he was under virtual house arrest despite having been awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1983.

Walęsa was unable to travel to Sweden to collect the prize in person because of his fear that the Communist government would not allow him back in the country. His wife, Danuta Walęsowa, received the prize on his behalf. The money was donated to the Solidarity headquarters, temporarily exiled to Brussels.

During the next four years Walęsa led the “Temporary Executive Committee of Solidarity Trade Union”. The re-legislation of Solidarity Trade Union was discussed only after an eighty-day sit-in at the Gdańsk shipyard in 1988. The government accepted to establish the Solidarity Trade union once more and to allow “half free” elections for the Polish parliament.

In 1989 Walęsa led the Citizenship Committee of the Chairman of Solidarity Trade Union. It was supposed to be purely an advisory body, but it became a political party. In 1989 it won all the seats in the Sejm [the lower house of the Polish government] that were subject to free elections, and all but one seat in the Senat [the upper house].

Nominally, he was just the chairman of Solidarity Trade Union but Walęsa played a key role in Polish politics. By negotiation he created the first non-communist coalition government. When Tadeuz Mazowwiecki was chosen as Prime Minister, Poland started to change its economy.

It was during this time that Walęsa showed he had feet of clay. He failed to declare, for tax purposes, $1.000.000 paid to him by Warner Brothers. He claimed it was a donation, not a fee. The case went through the courts with no conclusion. The case ran out of time.

When Walęsa was elected President in December 1995 he spent five years trying to change the hierarchy within the government. The annual change of government was far from popular and he was criticised by political parties and the public. Despite this Poland became a democratic country with a growing economy. However Walęsa lost the 1995 presidential election and officially went into retirement.

But during the next two years, Walęsa tried to start his own political party. The “Solidarity Election Party”, supported by him, won the 1997 parliamentary elections. His role in, this government though, was minor. In 2000 Walęsa received 1% of votes in the presidential election. He again went into retirement.

He now lectures on the history and politics of Central Europe.

So why is Walęsa a great leader?

He led a country from communist rule to democratic government. It was the first really true workers’ revolution and it happened in a workers’ state. His leadership started the break up of the Soviet Union, bringing democracy to former soviet states.

Like so many of my great leaders, he preached non-violence and peaceful demonstration. The only violence came from government troops.

But his greatest quality was his ability to stand up for what he believed was just. He struggled alongside the people. His life was in danger. He was regarded as an enemy of the State.

He was prepared to stand up and be counted.

Sources:

http://www.wikipedia.com/ 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday

http://www.time.com/

http://www.aforcemorepowerful.com/

Date : 29-10-2006