The Polish Revolution

On June 1, 1980, Premier Babiuch, the leader of the communist Polish Workers Party, announced new price increases in basic food products. The price hike announcement started strikes all over Poland, but the strikes were uncoordinated, so government officials settled one after another by agreeing to pay increases. In mid-July, there was a large, citywide strike in Lublin, a city southeast of Warsaw, near the Soviet border. All of the factory workers struck, and all of the railway workers stopped trains headed to the Soviet Union with consumer goods. They took the goods and distributed them to the population of Lublin. This strike was settled by Deputy Premier Mieczyslaw Jagielski, but it paved the way for the strikes that were to come in August.
In mid-August, there was a strike at the Lenin shipyard, where several workers had been killed in a strike during December of 1970. The two main reasons for the strike were the dismissal of a popular woman crane operator, Anna Walentynowicz, and the price hikes. The manager of the factory rehired Anna Walentynowicz, and agreed to pay raises, and the workers began to go home. Meanwhile, Lech Walesa, an electrician that had been a leader of the strike in 1970, arrived, and was accepted a

Solidarity did not want to take control of Poland, because its leaders knew that this would cause a Soviet invasion, which would cause great bloodshed. Therefore, Solidarity sought a partnership with the Party, and caused a ?self-limiting revolution.?

On August 31st, Walesa and Jagielski signed the 21 points, in order to prevent a massive uprising all over Poland. The Soviet leaders did not want a civil war in Poland. Most of the 21 points dealt with economic issues, but the core was political. The political points included the right to form free trade unions, the right to strike, the demand for a legal definition of censorship, the demand that the government free all political prisoners, and the demand for free access to the media for both the church and the free trade unions, such as solidarity.

On December 11, of 1981, Solidarity delegates gathered for a meeting of the National Coordinating Committee in the Lenin Shipyard, Gdansk. General Jaruzelski, the commanding Soviet general, saw this as a threat of revolt. During the night of December 12-13, over 5,000 Solidarity leaders were arrested, including the ones in Gdansk. Jaruzelski announced a ?state of war,? and imposed Martial Law in Poland. At the same time, all telephone lines, and road and rail communications were cut throughout the country.

Solidarity also reflected many of the views of nationalism. It reflected nationalism because it reflected the desires of the majority of Poles, and later it called for Poland to be its own state, like a nation-state. The nationalism part of solidarity was what called for Polish independence from the USSR.