On this day in 1982, Polish labour activist and future Polish President Lech Wałęsa was released after eleven months of internment near the Soviet border. Born in Popowo in 1943 to a poor family, Wałęsa received only rudimentary education before he entered the working world. In the late 1970s, Wałęsa became an anti-government union activist, after having been witness to violent suppression of dissent by Poland’s communist government. He quickly rose to prominence as a labour leader who pushed for trade union rights, becoming chairman of the Solidarity movement which was a national federation of unions. In 1981, after increased pressures on the government by Solidarity, the Polish government imposed martial law, outlawed the movement, and arrested its leaders. Wałęsa was one of the leaders who was detained after the government crackdown, and was released after about a year. After his release, in 1983, Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He and the Solidarity movement continued their labour advocacy despite harassment by the government. Economic problems and labour unrest in 1988 forced the Polish government to negotiate with Solidarity, which resulted in free elections which Solidarity winning a majority. The Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev, would no longer use military force to keep communist governments in satellite states, and they thus allowed the Solidarity movement to take power. The movement’s leadership of Poland was solidified in 1990 when Wałęsa won Poland’s first direct presidential election by a landslide. Despite successfully negotiating Poland’s transition to a free market, Wałęsa’s popularity waned and he was defeated in 1995.
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