Thirty years ago, a few shipyard workers gained the world’s attention and respect when they stood in defiance against the Polish communist party and, by extension, an ideological system which controlled the lives of the more than 430 million people living behind the Iron Curtain.

The Polish workers, led by mustachioed legend Lech Wałęsa, initiated a strike as an act of solidarity (hence the name of the labor union) with Anna Walentynowicz, a co-worker whom they felt had been unfairly laid off by the Gdańsk Shipyard’s management, who considered her a political agitator.

The events that followed have been well-documented by historians. Suffice to say that as a result of the 1980 strike, during which Mr Wałęsa outmaneuvered Gdańsk communist party boss Tadeusz Fiszbach in negotiations, a 10-million-strong social movement was born.

The communist party, caught completely off-guard by such determination, was forced to acquiesce to practically all the workers’ demands, which later included the right to form independent labor unions. This was an unheard of concession in what was, after all, a workers’ paradise.

The power of unity

Acts of defiance against the communist government had been attempted before, during the student protests in 1968 and a strike initiated by workers from the same shipyard in 1970.
But these efforts failed because, simply put, they lacked solidarity.

The students failed in 1968 because they weren’t able to get the workers to join them.

Official propaganda described them as spoiled brats who should have been grateful to the state for granting them a free education while others worked hard from early youth. The workers generally accepted this view, feeling little affiliation with the protesting students and the intellectuals who supported them.

In the December 1970 demonstrations, meanwhile, bitterness over the events of two years earlier kept students and intellectuals from joining the workers.

Lech Wałęsa and his colleagues had learned lessons from these debacles and made sure to involve a wide cross-section of Polish society, including many intellectuals and scholars, in the strike of 1980. This created a sense of national unity among the participants and larger society in general.

Indeed, the events of 1980 offered a transcendent example of what people can achieve if they come together as one – in Solidarity.

Solidarity today

Unfortunately the controversy surrounding Solidarity’s 30th anniversary celebrations seem more tragicomic than triumphal.

Mr Wałęsa has declined an invitation to commemorate the 1980 August Accords which paved the way for the creation of Solidarity. He says the union is now too heavily involved in contemporary Polish politics.

Neither he nor President Bronisław Komorowski, who was an active member of Solidarity, were invited to the anniversary celebrations of the significant Jastrzębskie Accord signed by striking miners and the communist authorities in 1980.

The organizer of that event has stated that “Poland is now divided” and thus he cannot guarantee that the president “will be honorably received” by the miners. It is worth adding that late President Lech Kaczyński was invited to last year’s celebrations, and he duly attended.

Mired in politics

Which brings us to the core of the problem. Solidarity, or at least its leadership, now openly backs one political party, Law and Justice (PiS) and party leader Jarosław Kaczyński had its official endorsement during the recent presidential election.

That’s fine. It makes a certain sense that a labor union like Solidarity would lean towards the more economically left-leaning PiS than towards the economically liberal Civic Platform (PO).

The level of hostility it currently shows PO is worrying, though, especially given that many of the party’s members, including Prime Minster Donald Tusk, played prominent roles in the movement.

The union’s treatment of Lech Wałęsa is also a bit of a head-scratcher. Mr Wałęsa today favors PO and this is one element of the acrimony which has grown between him and the present leaders of Solidarity.

But it might be expected that, due to their shared role in changing the course of Polish history, the union and its former leader would be able to overcome petty political bickering and stand together.

To draw an imperfect analogy, it would be unthinkable for the African National Congress to not invite Nelson Mandela or President Jacob Zuma to commemorate the events leading to the end of apartheid. Politics is politics, but anniversaries such as these ought to observed with poise and national pride.

Solidarity and Lech Wałęsa – along with Pope John Paul II – are the most famous Polish exports of the last half-century. The movement represented the triumph of collective human will over individual differences in order to serve the greater good.

If the organization has lost sight of that goal, then perhaps it should look to the past for inspiration.