Electrician who became president as the leader of Solidarity
If somebody had told me that I would be the leader to bring down communism... I never would have believed them. That is why I am the happiest man in the whole galaxy.
A shipyard electrician in Gdańsk, he led the 1980 strike that founded the independent trade union Solidarity and forced the communist government to sign the Gdańsk Agreement. Imprisoned under martial law and awarded the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize, he served as the unofficial opposition leader at the 1989 Round Table talks that negotiated Poland's peaceful transition from one-party rule. Elected Poland's first president by popular vote in 1990, he steered the country toward a market economy and secured the withdrawal of Soviet troops, but lost reelection in 1995 and retired from politics. One labour activist's victory became the signal that cracked the Soviet bloc.
Activities and affiliations
- 1990–1995 Government and administration · Poland
- 1980– Social movements and organizing · Solidarity (Solidarność)
Career Timeline
- 1980Leads Gdańsk shipyard strike, co-founds Solidarity
- 1980–1981Chairman of Solidarity
- 1983Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1989Opposition leader at Round Table, semi-free election victory
- 1990–1995President of Poland
- 1995Loses presidential election, retires from politics
Related historical events
Underground Solidarity and the Struggle after Martial Law, 1982–1989
When the government of Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law on 13 December 1981 and outlawed Solidarity, Wałęsa was arrested again. He was held for about eleven months, until 14 November 1982. The authorities tried to draw him into serving as the figurehead chairman of a new, state-controlled "Solidarity," but he refused to negotiate.
Even after his release, Wałęsa continued as a leader of the underground Solidarity until the end of the 1980s. Each issue of the leading underground weekly carried his motto, and he worked across illegal and semi-legal bodies to rebuild the union. After a 1986 amnesty for Solidarity activists, he co-founded the first overt legal Solidarity entity since martial law was declared, and from 1987 to 1990 he led a semi-secret Provisional Executive Committee. Throughout the 1980s he was repeatedly summoned for interrogation by the state security service.
In mid-1988 he instigated work-stoppage strikes at the Gdańsk Shipyard, and after months of strikes and political deliberation the government entered the Round Table negotiations of February to April 1989. Wałęsa was the informal leader of the non-governmental side. The talks produced agreement to restore Solidarity legally and to hold semi-free elections, and candidates running under his name won the June 1989 vote. He could not collect his 1983 Nobel Peace Prize himself, fearing the authorities would not let him return to Poland; his wife Danuta accepted it on his behalf.