WAŁĘSA, LECH (b. 1943)

Polish leader.

Lech Wałęsa was born 29 September 1943 in Popowo in northern Poland, then under German occupation. During the war, Wałęsa's father, a carpenter, was seized for slave labor by the Nazis and although he survived the war, died shortly thereafter as a result of mistreatment. Wałęsa received a vocational education and worked as a mechanic before entering the army for a mandatory two-year period of service. In 1967 Wałęsa took a job as an electrician at the Lenin Shipyards in Gdańsk. In 1969 he married Danuta Golośsk. couple would have eight children.

By the end of the 1960s, the economic situation in communist Poland had become increasingly difficult because of government ineptitude. In 1970, with the economic situation getting increasingly out of control, the government announced a 20 percent hike in the price of food one week before Christmas. Workers around the country went on strike and riots ensued. This time, it was the industrial strongholds of the Baltic coast where the worst violence occurred. When the militia ambushed a train full of workers in Gdansk, shooting scores of unarmed strikers, the workers responded by burning the local party headquarters. Some three hundred workers were killed in the riots, but the exact count is unknown, since many bodies were buried in secret. This event proved a major turning point for Wałęsa, who was active in the protests. Thereafter, the electrician became increasingly involved in efforts to form an independent trade union.

Following renewed worker unrest in 1976, Wałęsa was fired from his job at the shipyard and placed under surveillance by the secret police. He took temporary jobs to support his family while continuing efforts to organize a free union. In 1978, along with other activists, he cofounded Wolne Związki Zawodowe Wybrzėza (Free Trade Union of the Coast) and was arrested a number of times in 1979. Although he is associated with opposition to the state, Wałęsa's record during this period has not been above suspicion. Though he was later cleared of being a police agent by a court ruling, he did provide some information to the police on opposition activities, a situation that was not uncommon among many in the opposition because of the pervasive nature of the communist police state.

Strongly influenced by the election of John Paul II (r. 1978–2005) and by the pope's visit to Poland, during which opposition to Communist rule had received a critical boost, Polish workers reacted to Poland's increasing economic problems with stronger action in defense of their rights. Following a massive increase in the price of staple foods, strikes began to break out across the country in August 1980. At the Lenin Shipyards, workers went on strike following the firing of the popular activist and model worker Anna Walentynowicz. Wałęsa climbed the shipyard wall and took charge of the strike committee. The shipyard became one of the strongholds of the worker's movements. Following protracted negotiations, in which Wałęsa played a critical role, the authorities gave in to most of the workers' demands. The most important of these was the creation of an independent trade union, Solidarity, with Wałęsa as its chairman. The shipyard electrician became known around the world as face of peaceful opposition to Communist rule.

After sixteen months of uneasy coexistence with Solidarity, the Communist authorities cracked down on the union in December 1981, arresting Wałęsa and tens of thousands of other activists and imposing martial law on the country. In late 1982, Wałęsa was released from prison. The following year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Despite forcefully destroying Solidarity, the Communist authorities were unable to stop the country's economic slide. In 1988, with continuing worker unrest, the government agreed to negotiations with the center and left portions of the opposition, with Wałęsa again assuming an important role. From these roundtable talks emerged a kind of power-sharing agreement that opened the door to the first partially free elections in Poland since 1938. In June 1989 Solidarity-backed candidates won all contested elections handily, ending Communist rule in Poland and spurring a wave of related movements in other Soviet-controlled countries.

During this brief period, Wałęsa held no public office and was in some ways eclipsed by his hand-picked prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Following the resignation of the Communist president, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Wałęsa reentered politics and challenged Mazowiecki for the office. Although Wałęsa was elected president in December 1990, the move split the Solidarity movement and led to a series of short-lived governments. Wałęsa remained a dominant political figure, extending the power of the presidency and stretching its constitutional limits.

Although Wałęsa's political ambitions badly divided Solidarity and opened the door for the revived fortunes of former Communist politicians, during his tenure some important economic and political reforms were implemented, establishing the rule of law, restoring a market economy, and beginning Poland's move toward rejoining the community of Western nations. By 1995, however, he had lost the support of most of his fellow Poles and lost to the former Communist Aleksander Kwaśniewski. Wałęsa tried to run again for president in 2000 but garnered only 1 percent of the vote.

Although Wałęsa remains a highly recognizable figure in Poland, he retains negligible political support. His popularity is far greater outside of Poland, especially among Polish diaspora communities, than in Poland itself. In 1995 Wałęsa founded the Lech Wałęsa Institute, in Gdansk, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to Wałęsa's political and social causes.

See alsoJaruzelski, Wojciech; John Paul II; Labor Movements; 1989; Poland; Solidarity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kurski, Jaroslaw. Lech Wałęsa: Democrat or Dictator. Translated by Peter Obst. Boulder, Colo., 1993.

Lech Wałęsa Institute. Web site at http://www.ilw.org.pl/.

Wałęsa, Lech. A Way of Hope: An Autobiography. New York, 1983.

Wałęsa, Lech, with Arkadiusz Rybicki. The Struggle and the Triumph: An Autobiography. Translated by Franklin Philip in collaboration with Helen Mahut. New York, 1992.

John Radzilowski