Primary Sources
Browse Items: Solidarity
Further Discussions on the Roundtable Talks
Prior to the historic roundtable talks between Polish Communist officials and leaders of the opposition that eventually took place from February to April 1989, Solidarity activist Andrzej Stelmachowski secretly met with Secretary Jozef Czyrek, a member of the Polish Politburo. While their occasional meetings to discuss the content, structure, and composition of the upcoming talks were….
Report on the progress of the Roundtable Talks
Andrzej Stelmachowski, a Solidarity activist, engaged in secret negotiations between the opposition and communist party and state leaders in Poland regarding the preparations for the historic Roundtable Talks that eventually took place in February through April 1989. In this document, he reported to Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity Movement, about his discussion with Secretary Jozef….
Lech Walesa's Plans for the Roundtable Talks
In September 1988, Lech Walesa, leader of Poland's Solidarity Movement and later president of Poland following the collapse of communism (1990-1995), wrote this document a few months prior to the historic Roundtable Talks between party and state officials and the opposition that eventually took place in February to April 1989. Walesa presented what the opposition viewed as the most important….
Debating the Participation in the Roundtable Talks
Prior to the historic Roundtable Talks between the opposition and the communist party and state officials in Poland, negotiations occurred on many levels, as shown in this document. Not only were participants in the opposition negotiating with communist leaders, but they were also negotiating among themselves. Leaders of the opposition held numerous meetings in the fall of 1988 to discuss the….
Polish Government reports on domestic unrest
Pessimism prevailed in this report prepared by the Polish Council of State assessing the general welfare of the country seven years after the national strikes that led to the Gdansk Agreements and four years after the lifting of martial law. The authors of this report note contempt among the general populace for the government's attempted economic reforms, as well as widespread dissatisfaction….
Conversations between the Catholic Church and the Polish Government
Poland was unique among Warsaw Pact countries in the degree of influence retained by the Catholic Church. But the church was also viewed as a powerful competitor to the state, and its leaders were among the first to be monitored and harassed during periods of social unrest. It is for this reason that the meeting transcribed in this document is so remarkable: Church officials proposed church….
Lech Walesa's Notes on the Roundtable Talks
Lech Walesa, leader of Poland's Solidarity Movement and outspoken critic of the communist party and state, a shipyard worker in the city of Gdansk, and later president of Poland following the collapse of Communism (1990-1995), wrote this note prior to the Roundtable Talks that eventually took place in February to April 1989. During the historic Roundtable Talks, Polish communist leaders met….
Plans for Reorganizing Solidarity
Prior to the historic roundtable talks that took place between February and April 1989 in Poland, preparations took place on many levels. In this letter dated January 20, 1989, a couple of weeks before the beginning of the roundtable talks, Andrzej Stelmachowski, a Solidarity activist, provided suggestions to Solidarity leader Lech Walesa on how to prepare for the upcoming discussions. In….
Meeting poster for Solidarity rally
This electoral poster invites readers to attend a meeting on May 1, 1989 to discuss the upcoming election. A tentative translation of the poster is: "Solidarity's Struggle. We invite you to a public meeting on the free balloting at Constitution Place on May 1 at 9:00 am." This sort of poster is an interesting artifact of the campaign for the first free election in Poland since the….
Solidarity commemorates Tiananmen Square
After Solidarity assumed the political leadership of Poland, the new government issued these stamps to commemorate the student protests in Tiananmen Square in China in the Spring of 1989. Postage stamps may be part of everyday life and the images here served an important political purpose. Unlike the recent peaceful transition to a post-Communist government in Poland, not only was China still….
Solidarity Election Poster for Graznye Staniszewska
Description/Annotation still required. Please refer to Anastasia Mikheeva’s translation of text:
“Vote for Grazyne Staniszewska, Candidate for Sejm”….
Polish Voting Rights
This campaign poster for the Polish Solidarity movement shows Polish voters what was at stake in the upcoming elections in June 1989. Under the terms of the arrangement negotiated with the Communist party, 35% of the seats in the Lower House of the parliament (Sejm) were to be freely contested. However, voters could also vote "no" on candidates for the other seats and if a candidate….
Report from the Working Conference of Opposition Leaders
This report, from September 1, 1988, details the meeting of a diverse coalition of Polish opposition members, consisting of trade unionists, academics, journalists and representatives of the Solidarity movement. They agreed that their major priorities were for talks with the government regarding the status of unions, pluralism, and economic and political reforms. They agreed to the….
Letter by Lech Walesa to the Council of State
By 1986, reforms associated with Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union had begun to affect political and economic life in Poland. Lech Wałesa, leader of the Polish trade union movement Solidarity, and a veteran organizer of illegal strikes and demonstrations, wrote to the Polish Council of State (the most powerful branch of government in the Republic of Poland) requesting the end of martial….
Prime Minister Thatcher's Press Conference in Moscow
In the spring and summer of 1989, Chinese protestors occupied Tiananmen Square in Beijing in order to achieve some political concessions from the Chinese Communist Party. At the same time, the Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev continued to follow along their path of political reforms with glasnost' (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). In September 1989, Prime….
President Reagan Discusses the crisis in Poland
In August 1980, a worker's strike began in Gdansk, Poland in reaction to the struggling economy and massive shortages. In a compromise, the Communist government legalized Solidarity, but this only increased tensions. Imports from the Soviet Union and the West failed to improve the economy, with more strikes becoming endemic throughout 1980 and 1981. Fearing a Soviet military invasion to restore….
President Bush and Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki of Poland Trade Toasts
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a founder of Solidarity, who became Poland’s first noncommunist prime minister in forty years, visited Washington for three days of meetings in March 1990 as European and American diplomats were engrossed in negotiations to devise a plan for German reunification that would be acceptable to all nations involved. The Polish government feared that a powerful reunited Germany….
President Bush's Remarks at the Solidarity Workers Monument
President George H. W. Bush visited Poland and Hungary in July 1989 after June elections in which Solidarity candidates won 160 of the 161 seats in the Sejm that were available to them and 92 of the 100 seats of the Polish Senate. In addition, many leaders of the Communist Party failed to secure enough votes to be elected to the parliament they had controlled for four decades. Pursuing….
President Bush's Interview with Polish Journalists
During the spring of 1989, the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union, George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, issued contrasting visions for the future of Europe. In a series of speeches during April and May, Bush called for a Europe “whole and free” and envisioned a shift “beyond containment,” the fundamental strategy of preventing Soviet expansion that had guided US….