Solidarity and Walesa slide into obscurity

POLAND: "Like trying to saddle a cow" was how Josef Stalin described the task of imposing communism on Poland and, 25 years ago this month, the cow began kicking hard.

A deeply Catholic nation with a centuries-old resentment of Russian oppression, it is no surprise Poland was the first Soviet satellite to crack the Iron Curtain. But the scenes of August 1980 in Gdansk were still extraordinary, as burly electrician Lech Walesa rallied thousands of his colleagues to defy Poland's communist leaders and their Kremlin sponsors.

Within days, enterprises across Poland had stopped work in sympathy with the Gdansk workers.

By the end of August, with Poland paralysed and seething with long-suppressed hatred for Moscow's rule, Gen Wojciech Jaruzelski legalised independent trade unions: Solidarity became a national, legal, pro-democracy powerhouse. Within months, Mr Walesa was leading a union of 10 million members.

Speaking as a fortnight of anniversary celebrations began in Gdansk, Mr Walesa, who still lives in the city, recalled the extraordinary events of August 1980. He evoked the spirit of a time Poland was emboldened by Pope John Paul II to test the real strength of its Soviet shackles.

Uniting workers, farmers, intellectuals and the clergy, Solidarity was too potent a force to escape Moscow's wrath.

Fearing a Soviet invasion, Gen Jaruzelski banned Solidarity and imposed martial law in December 1981.

Operating underground, Solidarity began a war of attrition until the bespectacled general allowed partly free parliamentary elections in 1989.

Solidarity won all but one of the available seats and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a Catholic newspaper editor and Solidarity adviser, was sworn in as prime minister.

Over the next six months, the Iron Curtain disintegrated. Mr Walesa became president a year later, but was defeated by former communists in 1993.

He is to quit Solidarity after the anniversary celebrations, having watched its membership fall as quickly as his own ratings, in a country more concerned with the benefits of EU membership than his triumph over a long-dead, cold war foe.