The 21 demands that Solidarity issued the state were the result of top-level discussions between trade union activists such as Andrzej Gwiazda, Bogdan Lis and Bogdan Borusewicz of KOR. As comprehensive as the list seems it should be noted that it was drastically shortened.

Keen to add their own personal grievances, ideas suggested by various strikers ranged from the bizarre to the extreme: the idea of free elections was mooted, before being rejected out of fear this would spark an invasion by Soviet forces.

The charter was written up on two wooden boards and hung on the gates of the shipyard on August 18. To mark the first anniversary of the August unrest the demands were put on display in Gdańsk’s Maritime Museum. The day after Martial Law was declared one museum worked hid them in his loft, where they remained forgotten until 1996. Now added to the World Heritage List, they can be found housed in Gdańsk’s Roads to Freedom exhibition. The demands issued by the strikers were as follows.
 
1. Acceptance of free trade unions independent of the Communist Party and of enterprises, in accordance with convention No. 87 of the International Labor Organization concerning the right to form free trade unions, which was ratified by the Communist Government of Poland.

2. A guarantee of the right to strike and of the security of strikers and those aiding them.

3. Compliance with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, the press and publication, including freedom for independent publishers, and the availability of the mass media to representatives of all faiths.

4. A return of former rights to: 1) People dismissed from work after the 1970 and 1976 strikes, and 2) Students expelled from school because of their views. The release of all political prisoners, among them Edward Zadrozynski, Jan Kozlowski, and Marek Kozlowski. A halt in repression of the individual because of personal conviction.

5. Availability to the mass media of information about the formation of the Inter-factory Strike Committee and publication of its demands.

6. The undertaking of actions aimed at bringing the country out of its crisis situation by the following means: a) making public complete information about the social-economic situation, and b) enabling all sectors and social classes to take part in discussion of the reform programme.

7. Compensation of all workers taking part in the strike for the period of the strike, with vacation pay from the Central Council of Trade Unions.

8. An increase in the base pay of each worker by 2,000 złoty a month as compensation for the recent raise in prices.

9. Guaranteed automatic increases in pay on the basis of increases in prices and the decline in real income.

10. A full supply of food products for the domestic market, with exports limited to surpluses.

11. The abolition of 'commercial' prices and of other sales for hard currency in special shops.

12. The selection of management personnel on the basis of qualifications, not party membership. Privileges of the secret police, regular police and party apparatus are to be eliminated by equalizing family subsidies, abolishing special stores, etc.

13. The introduction of food coupons for meat and meat products (during the period in which control of the market situation is regained).

14. Reduction in the age for retirement for women to 50 and for men to 55, or after 30 years' employment in Poland for women and 35 years for men, regardless of age.

15. Conformity of old-age pensions and annuities with what has actually been paid in.

16. Improvements in the working conditions of the health service to insure full medical care for workers.

17. Assurances of a reasonable number of places in day-care centers and kindergartens for the children of working mothers.

18. Paid maternity leave for three years.

19. A decrease in the waiting period for apartments.

20. An increase in the commuter's allowance to 100 złoty from 40, with a supplemental benefit on separation.

21. A day of rest on Saturday. Workers in the brigade system or round-the-clock jobs are to be compensated for the loss of free Saturdays with an increased leave or other paid time off. [...]

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The Polish Revolution: Solidarity
by Timothy Garton Ash




Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award ‘The Polish Revolution: Solidarity’ counts as the seminal work covering the Solidarity era, and ranks as one of the most important books written on post-war European history. As one of a handful of Western journalists based in Poland throughout the 1980s, Timothy Garton Ash offers an insider, eye-witness account, from his arrival to what was then the Lenin Shipyards, to a 1997 meeting with General Jaruzelski in post-communist, capitalist Poland. First penned in 1983, the book has been re-published three times, most recently in 2002. However revisions to the text have been kept to a minimum.

Although postscript chapters have been added, much of the original text remains the same, and his prose is a tense, bleak reflection on the times. Written at the height of the cold war, the author is left to reflect in one of the concluding chapters ‘There is no historical law which says that empires must evolve peacefully, and the post-war history of Eastern Europe gives us little reason to believe this one will. It is therefore probable that those tensions will not be reduced, and we shall, sooner or later, face a nuclear war’. There is little cause for optimism in Ash’s original work, and the author clearly holds the view that Poland is doomed to remain under the thumb of the Kremlin for decades to come. 

Covering the meteoric rise of Solidarity – within months of its inception some ten million Poles were members, including some 30% of the ruling Communist elite – Ash documents the innocence and idealism of the early months, and of the imminent threat of Soviet invasion. The background to the strikes is covered in detail – including the protests in 1970 – and no stone is left unturned in this meticulous work.
The key players in the drama are examined in minute detail, and the author paints a vividly lifelike picture of Lech Wa³êsa: ‘Now he teases the crowd in Victory Square. His speech is impossible to reproduce, disjointed, full of slang, wildly ungrammatical, at times almost nonsensical… and then the masterly common touch… was he speaking off the top off his head? Either way, the crowd love it’.

One highlight of the book is the authors time spent inside the ‘Rzeszów Commune’, the HQ of Solidarity’s rural offshoot. His account of daily life with the strikers is something left out of books of the same genre: ‘sprits are buoyed up, sustained by ample home made bread, mounds of fresh butter, cheese and meat. People play chess and cards, watch the television, and engage in long, earnest discussions – apparently the greatest pleasure’.

Writing with flashes of dry wit, Ash describes an old Poland that will appear familiar to anyone who has ventured off the well-trodden tourist route: ‘there are three classes of road in rural Poland, bad, very bad and impassable. The road to £owisko is very bad. At one point the remains of a collapsed bus make it impassable. Two wheels and most of the bodywork have been left behind in the snow like a discarded snake skin. “Polska gospodarka” roars Stanis³aw Krasoñ as we negotitate the frozen ditch: “Polish economy!”’.

However it is the chapter on the declaration of Martial Law that carries the most impact. Simply titled ‘War’, the shock and bewilderment of the governments actions is carried through to the reader. ‘People could not have been more taken aback if martians had landed’, comments one onlooker. Although expertly organized, leaders of Solidarity were completely caught on the hop by General Jaruzelski. Within hours communications had been cut, and the lions share of leaders apprehended. The tension of those days translates superbly into print.

As we know, Poland went on to buckle the communist system, and this book serves as a superb window into the past; an important reminder on a chapter of history that is still relatively unknown in the west. In his postscript the author examines the failings of Solidarity post 1989, as well its role in the collapse of Soviet Union. This is a weighty read, but the author succeeds in turning a serious subject into an addictive lesson in Poland’s stormy past. [...]

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Credited as the driving force behind the Solidarity movement, as well as the man who revived a post-communist Poland, Lech Wałęsa remains, for many, the public face of Poland, as well as Gdansk’s most famous resident.
Born on September 23, 1943 Wałęsa’s early life was largely anonymous. Working in his early days as a mechanic it was only in 1967 when he began work at Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyards that he began his rise to prominence. A keen trade unionist he frequently found himself in trouble with the authorities, and his political activities led to a stint in prison that ultimately cost him his job.
In 1980, with the shipyards on strike, an unemployed Wałęsa scaled a wall, gave an impromptu speech and found himself thrust in the spotlight as the accidental hero of the protests. Having successfully led negotiations for workers rights it was he who signed the August Accords of 1980. Ear-marked by the government as an undesirable influence he was immediately placed under house arrest when martial law was announced in 1981. Released a year later, Walesa’s actions were recognized in 1983 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
As the figurehead of the Solidarity movement, and with the communist state crumbling, Wałęsa led roundtable talks with the government to formulate a power-sharing scheme. Partly free elections in 1989 led to blanket wins for Solidarity, signalling the last days of communism.
In 1990 he became Poland’s first democratically elected, post-communist president, a position he held until 1995. Although still active in politics, he has seen his influence wane - the 2000 presidential elections won him little over 1% of the public vote.
In recent years his outspoken style and maverick methods have seen him fall foul of Poland’s intelligentsia; although an inspirational orator and soapbox politician, he is notorious for George W. Bush-style blunders, and his decision to appoint his chauffeur and table-tennis partner as an advisor in his latter years in power cost him further credibility.
Having turned down a million dollar offer from Gillette to shave off his moustache, Wałęsa did the deed himself a couple of years back in a bid to increase his public profile as a politician. It failed, and a once again mustached Wałęsa finds himself on the political sidelines, eclipsed by his son, Jarosław, one of his eight children, currently a member of the Sejm representing the Platforma party in Gdańsk. But while Wałęsa’s political days are over the anniversary of the 1980 strikes have seen him catapult back into the limelight. Since his political retirement he now spends his days lecturing abroad , averaging some 15 international visits per year, speaking on subjects close to his heart: democracy, civil liberty and the free market. The recipient of over 30 honary doctorates from international universities, Wałęsa most recently found himself in the headlines after a ruling confirmed that rumours he was a cold war spy for the state were no more than scurrilous gossip. In fact the courts revealed he was completely the opposite, and the subject of intense personal survaillance by the secret services. [...]

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Leif Andersson arrived in Poland as part of a touring Swedish ice hockey team visiting Katowice. Aged just 18 years old his story is typical of many expats you’ll find in Poland: he made friends, fell in love with the country, and ended up living in Sopot for the next four years. Nothing too unusual about that, so you may think. Think again. That was in 1976, a time when seemingly only a lunatic would choose to live behind the Iron Curtain. Meeting In Your Pocket in Bar Sopotek Andersson spoke openly of his time in Cold War Poland.

‘I never really had any hassles, the strikes weren’t really something I paid much attention too, so it’s strange now to think you were part of history in the making. You could notice a heavy atmosphere, but in all honesty I didn’t have any complaints. I’ve always felt positively about Poland, I don’t like looking for negatives. Sure there were queues and it must have been hard for people, but for me it was a challenge and life experience. As a westerner I’d be stopped on the street by the authorities regularly, but thankfully the people I knew really looked after me’.

Taken in by a local family Andersson trained with the local ice hockey team for the next few years at Oliwa ice rink. To this day he keeps in touch with some of his old teammates and looks back to the past with fondness. ‘We’d go to a disco called Alga, just upstairs from where the 24hr store is at the bottom of Sopot’s ul. Monte Cassino. In those days it was the hottest place in town, and there’d be long queues to get in. We’d be dancing to Boney M until 2am, and then onto smaller bars and private parties. There was a nightlife, you just had to find it. Sometimes we’d drink in Fantom (currently Sopot’s Euforia bar), and what is now Wieloryb was in those days Madras pizzeria. Good quality beer was rare. I remember to find ¯ywiec you’d have to drink in the bar of Sopot’s Grand Hotel, but people would be afraid to talk in there - there were rumours the tables were bugged. Occasionally we’d flag down one of the taxis, those old Warszawa cars, and drive to Gdynia to pick up 30 bottles of Żywiec.’
 
Andersson returned to Sweden in 1980 to work as a fireman, before finding employment as a consultant with the UN. He started returning to Poland in the early 90s, by which time changes were in full swing. ‘Back in the old days streets like Długa looked the same, only there was nothing on them. Today I really notice a difference at Gdańsk’s Dominican Fair. You used to be able to pick up quality antiques there, now it’s all plastic and Ronaldo shirts. I remember once a consignment of beer arrived from Southern Poland – that was a real treat for us at the time.’

His job has taken him across the world, though he has always felt drawn back to Poland, and now works regularly here. ‘Of all the countries I’ve been too Poland is the best. In the West everything is in the fast lane. Here the changes have been big, but the eastern mentality and warmth of the people remain the same.’ [...]

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Lying right outside famous gate no. 2 to the  Gdansk Shipyards (formally the Lenin Shipyards) the monument was unveiled in 1980 to commemorate the events of 1970 when 45 people died during street riots protesting against the communist regime.

The right to erect this memorial was one of Solidarity's main demands during the 1980 lock-in. The 42-metre, 139-tonne steel sculpture stands on the spot where the first three victims of the 1970 riots were killed. There are three crosses to represent the three victims and the crosses themselves signify the suffering and sacrifice of all the protestors.

Lech Walesa referred to this enormous steel structure as 'a harpoon driven through the body of a whale. No matter how hard the whale struggles, it can never get rid of it.'

The monument is marked by a poignant inscription by Czesław Miłosz: 'You who have harmed simple man, mocking him with your laughter, you kill him, someone else will be born, and your deeds and words will be written down'.

Surrounding the monument are several memorials and plaques dedicated to victims of totalitarianism. [...]

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‘Many generations to come will remember the extraordinary thing that happened in Poland, there appeared a social force able to control those in power.’ Culture magazine, Paris, 1980.

This is the second coming of the Roads to Freedom exhibition and it is a place that should feature on every visitor’s itinerary to Gdansk. Charting the course of events that began with the sacrifice of Poland to the Soviets at the end of WWII and leading through to the formation of the 3^rd Polish Republic in 1989, this subterranean exhibition does a very good job of explaining the events that influenced and shaped the people of Poland and which resulted in the incredible movement that was Solidarity. Starting with a look into what Polish life looked like under communist rule, you are met by the sight of a typical grocery store in late 1970’s Poland. Shelves are empty except for the ever present vinegar and mustard spread around generously in a feeble attempt to make it appear that there was something on the shelves. Rationing existed from 1976 onwards due to ‘temporary lacks of stock’ and the surrounding walls are covered by black and white shots of Poles going about the daily chore of queuing for whatever might become available.

The first room you come to provides you with the background, not just in Poland but throughout the communist block, to the ‘Polish August’ and in particular to the events of December 1970 which resulted in the known deaths of 45 people mainly in the tri-city area. Although 10 years prior to the groundbreaking strikes of August 1980, these deaths of workers, protesting against sharp price increases, at the hands of security services had a dramatic effect on the attitude of the workers of the shipyards in particular and on the way that they were to face the government and security services in 1980. It can be said that it was here that the realization was made that self-organisation and peaceful protest rather than confrontation could provide the path to success.

The first death of December 1970 occurred in Gdansk while the greatest single tragedy took place in neighbouring Gdynia on the 17^th of December 1970 when 18 people lost their lives. This had followed days of clashes with security services which, in huge numbers, had fought running battles with workers in the streets surrounding the exhibition. The party headquarters were severely damaged by fire and the events of these 5 days resulted in the replacement of Wladyslaw Gomulka as leader by Edward Gierek. Incidentally the former party headquarters still stand today and are now offices. Look for the big white building on (B-3) Waly Jagiellonskie opposite the town hall. 

December 1970 is just one of the dates which are ingrained in the Polish memory and which led the Poles to the peaceful protests of 1980. Interactive screens, also available in English, allow you to read and view images of each of these landmark months in Polish history from October 1956 right through to the round table talks of 1989. A cell typical of one in which protestors were held in has also been recreated.

The next stage takes you into shipyards of 1980. It was here that the workers protested by locking themselves into the shipyard rather than taking on the security services outside. The strikes which led to the creation of Solidarity were initially sparked over the sacking of a crane operator, Anna Walentynowicz, 5 months short of her retirement. It wasn’t until a week later that the shipyard electrician Lech Walesa, who had been fired himself sometime earlier for his unionist activity, scaled the walls and made a rousing speech, in the process taking over the leadership of the strike. Initial demands were merely higher salaries to offset the increasing cost of food and necessities and the reinstating of Walentynowicz and Walesa. The protests quickly developed until within a few days delegates from all over the country, which was now in the grip of a national strike, were meeting in the BHP hall of the shipyard to hammer out a collective group of demands. You see the sheets of plywood on which the 21 demands were written in paint and then hung outside the yard gates to communicate to the thousands standing outside what was been put before government representatives. You also get to see mock-ups of the tables which the delegates sat at many equipped with old transistor radios to hear the latest from the outside and overlooking these a picture of Walesa and government representatives signing an agreement to accept the 21 demands which became known as the ‘August Accords’. Further on you see pictures and film clips which give a clear impression of the atmosphere of August 1980 and you get a particular sense of the influence the Polish Pope John Paul II had on the will and faith of the workers and the importance he had to them.

What was to follow was 16 months of freedom not imaginable before Solidarity. Within months 10 million Poles had joined the movement and soon after the Accords were signed delegates from all over the country met in Gdansk Oliwa’s Hala Oliwa to formerly elect Lech Walesa as the leader of the newly created Solidarity trade union. What follows in the exhibition is a room signifying the abrupt removal of these freedoms when General Wojciech Jaruselski imposed Martial Law on the night of the 12/13^th December 1981. The room is entered by passing through rubber curtains showing the massed ranks of the ‘militia’ and you are then met by the smoky atmosphere of a battle ground. Crackly films, again with subtitles, show Jaruselski’s address to the nation and grainy footage of the security services at work including one incident where an army lorry runs straight over a protestor. During what one historian Tim Garton Ash described as the ‘Polish army’s invasion of its own country’ over 5,000 Solidarity activists were rounded up, telephone lines cut and transport stopped. The room, complete with examples of the equipment used and worn by the militias, leaves you with a clear picture of the horror that befell the Polish people that December and which lasted until martial law ended on the 22^nd of July 1983.

Moving on you are given a chronological record of the events which the Roads to Freedom aims to remember. August 1980 was the key moment in the movement and a key point on Poland’s and central and eastern Europe’s Road to Freedom. However it should be remembered as only a stage on a much longer road which can be traced back to the failed Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and which was completed by the success of Solidarity in free elections and the inauguration of Lech Walesa as the first freely elected President of Poland in 1990.

The final stage of the exhibition takes you into the humour of the times with a series of cartoons showing well-known characters of the time such as General Jaruselski and the infamous Zomo (riot police). Unfortunately this part of the exhibition still had no English subtitles when we visited.

The Roads to Freedom exhibition is a real must see for anyone interested in the history of Poland and the fall of communism. The incredible achievement of the men and women who made up the Solidarity movement cannot and should never be either underestimated or forgotten. Those who were lucky enough to have seen the exhibition in its original home of the BHP building in the shipyard will appreciate the improvement in the quality and amount of exhibits which now appear in English. However they may also be saddened that while the new venue provides a certain amount of atmosphere with its underground location, the new location doesn’t compare with the historic BHP building itself where the Accords were signed. The exhibition is also a work in progress and new exhibits and additional descriptions are being added all the time. The exhibition is well worth 6zl of anybody’s money and there are a few decent souvenir opportunities in the on-site shop. The exhibition is due to remain in the basement of the Solidarity union’s offices until 2010 at which point it is penciled in for a place back inside the shipyards again. [...]

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