Solidarność and the Fall of Communism

‘Wszystko się zaczęło w Gdańsku – Everything began in Gdańsk’.¹ In the summer of 2005, this slogan provided the central motif for the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the rise of Solidarność. It was accompanied by the image of a set of dominos tumbling down. These featured first and foremost Lech Wałęsa, and then Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Václav Havel, the Berlin Wall, and finally Viktor Yushchenko – the recent victor of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. The slogan and the accompanying image were circulated on leaflets, websites, and posters. The message was clear: the Poles had started the chain of events that had brought to an end the Communist and Russian domination of Eastern Europe after the Second World War.

Poles indeed think of themselves as having brought down the Iron Curtain. During the entire period of the Cold War, they had regularly risen against the ‘Soviet occupation.’ The Hungarian revolution of 1956 grew from a demonstration of sympathy with the wave of liberalisation that had started in Poland in previous months. In 1968, Warsaw experienced student protest whilst Prague was living its famous spring. In the 1970s, Polish workers regularly took to the streets to protest against price hikes. In 1978, the romantic idea of Polish Messianism seemed to come true when Karol Wojtyła was elected to the throne of St. Peter’s. At an outdoor mass during his first visit to his homeland in June 1979, the new Pope spoke the words that would later turn out to be prophetic: ‘Niech zstąpi Duch Twój i zmieni oblicze ziemi, tej ziemi – Let Your Spirit come down and change the face of the earth, of this earth’.

A year later, when new strikes broke out in the Baltic Sea ports, the Polish authorities were forced to give in. On 31 August 1980, Lech Wałęsa and Vice-premier Mieczysław Jagielski signed the Agreements of Gdańsk, in which 21 of the strikers’ demands were acceded to. The most important of these was the right to create independent trade unions. This was put into effect with the foundation of Solidarność in September 1980. The new trade union quickly grew into a mass movement. Its ten million members formulated new demands and backed them up with new strikes and demonstrations. In this, they were not always supported by Solidarność’s leaders and the Church, who felt that the Polish authorities were restricted by the framework of the Brezhnev Doctrine and the Warsaw Pact and thus could not grant further privileges. The tension between the Party and the workers regularly rose to a critical point, for instance in December 1980 and March–April 1981.

After 16 months of chaos, Marshal Jaruzelski turned the clock back. On the night of 13 December 1981, he proclaimed Martial Law in Poland. In a well-orchestrated action, some 5000 Solidarność militants were arrested. Communication lines were cut off and tanks were sent onto the streets. Jaruzelski later defended his actions as having been the lesser of the two evils. Had he not taken these measures, he claimed, the Red Army or the Warsaw Pact allies would have invaded Poland and caused a bloodbath that, given the Polish tradition of resistance to the Russians (cf. the 19th-century insurrections and, in a certain sense, the Warsaw Rising of 1944), would have been much worse than Budapest 1956 or Prague 1968. Indeed, the Brezhnev Doctrine was still fully in force in 1981, and the Soviets certainly must have considered intervening in Poland. Already in December 1980 they had held large army manoeuvres near the Polish eastern border. However, even today it is not clear whether these plans were real or whether they were a bluff. Even the testimony of Soviet officials does not tally in this regard. Some, such as Marshal Kulikov and the head of the Polish department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Kostikov, deny that the Soviet Union had concrete plans for an intervention in Poland. Their colleagues General Viktor Dubinin and Kostikov’s successor Svetlov, however, claim the opposite.Reference Smolnar²

Martial law was gradually lifted in 1983 and 1984, even though Solidarność remained banned. Still, Jaruzelski did not succeed in restoring order. The civil society that had developed at the beginning of the 1980s could not be crushed. Old weapons proved useless, and the police officers who kidnapped and murdered Jerzy Popiełuszko, a popular Warsaw priest who was famous for his sermons against Communism, were arrested and prosecuted. This was a development hitherto unseen in the Eastern Bloc. When, in the summer of 1988, the umpteenth wave of strikes broke out, the authorities started talks with the opposition. Both sides agreed to organize elections that were partly free. On 4 June 1989, almost all the seats that were open to all candidates (35% of the Lower House and 100% of the Senate; the remainder were reserved for party representatives) were conquered by Solidarność in the first round. In August, Tadeusz Mazowiecki became the first non-Communist Prime Minister in the Eastern Bloc.

The Poles had shaken off the Communist yoke and started a domino effect that would end in the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Unfortunately for them, their commitment was not recognised by the rest of the world. Paradoxically, on the very same day of the first round of the Polish elections, the students’ protest at Tiananmen Square was crushed, and this event received much more attention from the international media. It was not until a couple of months later, after Hungary had opened its borders to DDR citizens and an exodus of ‘Trabants’ to the German Federal Republic had taken place (September 1989), after the Berlin wall had fallen (November 1989), and after the Ceauşescus had been executed in Romania (December 1989), that the world suddenly realised that the Eastern Bloc had ceased to exist.

The search for the victor

The foregoing obviously is only one perception of the end of the Cold War. My essay will not analyse to what extent this view is true. Instead, it aims to discuss whether one nation, one group, or even one individual can truly claim the main responsibility for the victory over the Soviet Union? It will do so by means of the historical polemic surrounding some individuals and their role in the Cold War and, more particularly, in the Polish crisis. How has the contribution of Mikhail Gorbachev, John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Lane Kirkland been defined regarding the outcome of the Cold War? And, even more importantly, can such a thing be defined? These questions are essential for an understanding of this ‘Focus’ on ‘Western trade unions and Solidarność’ and, more particularly, for an understanding of the different trends in historical research regarding this subject as they will be presented in the contributions following upon the present one.

One of the most conspicuous players in the final years of the Cold War was Mikhail Gorbachev. This dynamic Soviet leader, who succeeded the geriatric leadership of the Soviet Union in March 1985, is most widely known for ‘glasnost’ (openness: the liberalisation of censorship and the authorisation of free speech and debate) and ‘perestroika’ (restructuring: the reforms of Marxist economy). However, even more important in the realm of foreign politics were the military concessions he made. In July 1985, he proclaimed a unilateral halt to the testing of nuclear weapons. This moratorium lasted 19 months and made Gorbachev hugely popular with Western peace movements. In December 1987, Gorbachev signed the Washington Treaty on Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces. For the first time, the Soviet Union agreed to curtail its arsenal of missiles, and this to a much higher extent than the US. In December 1988, Gorbachev went even further in a speech to the United Nations. He announced a dramatic unilateral reduction in Soviet conventional forces, and declared that the satellite states in Eastern Europe could freely decide their own political fate. The Brezhnev doctrine was replaced by the Sinatra doctrine (‘I did it my way’). Thus, Gorbachev opened the doors to the outcome of the Round Table negotiations in Poland.

Still, there is one major problem with Gorbachev: he did not intend the reforms he caused. Glasnost initially aimed to tackle local corruption, and not to reveal the system’s weaknesses. This was illustrated by the official silence after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 1986. Despite Gorbachev’s pleas for disarmament, the 1986–90 Five-year Plan projected an increase in military spending, and a push to end the Afghan War by military escalation. The Red Army interfered in demonstrations in Soviet cities and killed civilians in Alma-Ata (December 1986), Tbilisi (April 1989), Azerbaijan (January 1990), and Vilnius and Riga (January 1991).Reference Evangelista and Njølstad³ In the end, Gorbachev’s first objective was the rescue of the Soviet Union and the maintenance of the status quo. However, he failed. Such a man can hardly be credited with having put an end to the Cold War!

Understandably, one is keener to credit figures in the other camp. One of these is John Paul II. It is sometimes made to appear as if the Polish Pope single-handedly brought about the end of the Cold War. Neither his moral authority nor the influence he had on the Poles can be contested, but as regards his concrete support for the Polish opposition, opinions differ. At the beginning of the 1990s, several authors, such as Carl Bernstein and Peter Schweizer, stressed John Paul’s importance. The Pope was thought to have made a ‘Holy Alliance’ with Ronald Reagan, and to have set up a clandestine campaign, including secret operations with the CIA, to hasten the dissolution of the Communist empire.⁴

This view has been contested by other scholars. In his biography of the ‘Man of the Century’, Jonathan Kwitny cites numerous interviews to prove that the CIA did not support the Polish underground and that the Holy See and the US administration often severely disagreed – e.g. on Reagan’s tough social policy, on his arms’ race with the Soviets, on his government’s trade embargo with Poland, and on his support for the Falklands war. However, Kwitny seems willing to hold up the Pope as having been the only one who always continued to believe in Solidarność. In contrast, Józef Glemp, the then Polish Primate, is represented as having collaborated with the authorities, and as therefore having been bypassed by local priests in Poland that were responsible for the receipt and the distribution of Western aid.Reference Kwitny⁵

Kwitny’s views are not confirmed by other authors. In his memoirs, published in February 2007, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, the personal secretary of John Paul II, wrote that the latter never gave money to Solidarność, neither directly nor indirectly, and that such a thing had only been suggested to discredit the Pope.Reference Dziwisz⁶ Of course, this statement, like all others, needs to be subjected to proper historical criticism. Still, at least, it illustrates that also in this regard opinions differ, even among officials. Moreover, Kwitny seems to underestimate the role of the CIA. Although direct collaboration between the CIA and Solidarność has been denied explicitly and repeatedly, it would have been very strange indeed if such collaboration had not happened. In any case there is little doubt that US intelligence had been involved in earlier anti-Communist actions in Western Europe as well as elsewhere.Reference Carew⁷

This brings us to another central figure of the Second Cold War: Ronald Reagan. This US President too is often credited with having put an end to the Cold War. For some, he made the difference with his aggressive foreign policy against the ‘empire of evil.’ By launching his Strategic Defence Initiative, a program aimed at developing a space-based US anti-ballistic missile system, he kickstarted a new arms race. Critics at the time feared that this might end in ‘Star Wars’. Supporters praise Reagan for having put on the squeeze, and thus revealing the Soviet Union’s weakness, and consequently confronting its leadership with its huge problems. For others, Reagan should receive credit for the opposite reason. In his second term, he is said to have adjusted his policies to the new reality of perestroika and glasnost – a shift of a kind that is not often made by politicians. In this way, he permitted Gorbachev to implement new foreign and security policies.Reference Garthoff and Njølstad⁸

Still, regarding the Polish crisis Reagan seems to have taken a rather moderate stance. In the summer of 1980, Reagan’s immediate predecessor Jimmy Carter kept a low profile. He even pursued a form of discreet diplomacy with the Soviet ambassador. This was not evident at all. During Carter’s presidency, détente had collapsed, and a more confrontational policy had come in after the crises in Ethiopia and Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan too avoided extreme measures after the proclamation of Martial Law in Poland. The US administration adopted a series of measures directed against the Polish regime (e.g. the cancellation of landing rights for the Polish airline Lot, and the denial of commercial fishing permits in American waters), but did not take steps against the Soviets. It also refused to call in Poland’s debts and declare the country bankrupt.Reference Sjursen⁹

For this reason, there are other Americans that claim a bigger responsibility for the West’s victory in the Cold War. One of these is Lane Kirkland, the then president of the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labour–Congress of Industrial Organisations). His biographer Arch Puddington calls Solidarność’s victory in 1989 a ‘total vindication of Kirkland’s leadership and vision.’Reference Puddington¹⁰ Indeed, Kirkland was an early and fervent supporter of the Polish trade union. His lobbying for Solidarność brought him into immediate conflict with Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan: he found the official US response inadequate and proposed a real economic war upon the Soviet Bloc, urging ‘the toughest possible sanctions.’ In the autumn of 1980, the AFL-CIO created the Polish Workers Aid Fund to co-ordinate fund-raising and the sending of money, food, drugs and typewriters to Poland. After the proclamation of Martial Law, Kirkland continued to support the Polish trade union. The AFL-CIO became the most important foreign sponsor of Solidarność, giving about $200,000 a year in 1983 and 1984 and about $300,000 a year in the following two years.¹¹

Yet, the AFL-CIO’s subsidies to Solidarność after Martial Law largely stemmed from US government funds. Most were passed through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an institution that was first officially proposed by Reagan in June 1982, and that was finally approved by Congress in November 1983. Officially, the NED was an independent, privately incorporated, non-profit corporation that aimed to ‘advocate the principles of democracy abroad’. Critics called it an instrument to expand the US sphere of influence. Indeed, the NED supported only cases that could advance US national interest and foreign policy – nearly half its funds were allocated to Latin and South America. From 1984 through 1986 Poland received about $1,800,000, i.e. 3.5% of the total funds of the NED. About one third of this money was given to the AFL-CIO, for instance $304,000 in 1986. Even more significantly, the only money the organisation gave to the Solidarność representation abroad after 1983 came from the NED.Reference Cavell¹²

Gradually, the AFL-CIO was overshadowed by the Reagan administration, which increased its aid to Poland towards the end of the 1980s. On 1 July 1987, the US Congress awarded $1 million to Solidarność. In December 1987, the independent Polish trade union received a second $1 million grant. In September 1988 it was granted a further $2 million. Although the money was disbursed from the US Treasury to Solidarność by means of technical intermediaries, such as the NED and the AFL-CIO, the latter felt overlooked. Indeed, Lane Kirkland gradually disappears from the sources. It is, for instance, illustrative that a Human Rights Conference in Nowa Huta near Krakow on 23 and 24 August 1988 was attended by several assistants of US Senators who had been involved in the One Million Dollar Campaigns, and not by the AFL-CIO president.¹³

Processes instead of individuals

All these examples show that individuals can hardly be credited with having turned the decisive key that opened the door to the outcome of the Cold War – if there is such a key at all. They certainly played important roles, both in the Cold War and in the development of the Polish crisis, but they were all driven by their own objectives and did not realize that peace was close. Moreover, even if they had understood how things would develop in the following years, this still does not mean that they had a grip on them. As a matter of fact, Hinein interpretierung plays a very important role in this debate. Events and opinions are selected and represented in such a way that the role of a certain individual or group is put into the spotlight. History is reduced to a simplification of facts, in which deeper and more complex processes are neglected. Still, these less transparent developments are more important. They created the context in which individuals could act.

For instance, economic developments are often neglected – it is indeed a paradox that a Marxist approach was not central in the analysis of the end of the Marxist empire. Although the Soviet Union succeeded for a long time in making the West believe that it was a prosperous and advanced nation, many elements already pointed in the opposite direction early on. One of the Soviet Bloc’s weakest points was agriculture. Khrushchev had understood this, but he failed in his campaigns for exploiting virgin lands or introducing maize. As a result, the Soviet Union – the heir to Europe’s traditional granary – had to import grain from the West from the 1960s onwards. In the following decade, an acute decline manifested itself in other fields too. The reasons are diverse: bureaucracy and over-regulation, absence of motivation and other stimuli, lack of innovation, isolation from new developments in other parts of the world (such as drastic technological innovation) and, last but not least, imperial overstretch (the defence industry claimed an ever higher part of the Soviet state budget, and the satellite states proved an immense drain on Soviet resources). All these problems forced Gorbachev to embark on a new course.

The economy played a crucial role in Poland too. On the one hand, it was at the heart of the strikes that led to Solidarność. In the 1970s, the authorities had not been able to revive the declining economy. On the contrary, their strategy – seeking collaboration with the West and contracting loans – proved counterproductive, as they were left with huge debts which they were unable to repay after the oil crisis. They were obliged to raise the price of food and other basic products, but this provoked protest and strikes in 1976 and 1980. On the other hand, the Eastern Bloc’s economic crisis also influenced the outcome of the events in 1980–81. More and more sources suggest that, already by 1980, the Politburo in Moscow understood that an intervention in Poland was out of the question because the Soviet Union lacked the capability. This sheds another light on Jaruzelski’s theory of the lesser evil. Some historians even suggest that the Polish general actually asked the Soviets for help, but was met with a njet in Moscow.

Another process that is crucial in understanding the 1980s is the détente of the 1970s. Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik at the end of the 1960s had set the two blocs on the road to negotiations in 1972. This so-called Helsinki Process was concluded in 1975 with a treaty on cooperation, security, and human rights. In spite of this success, the period of détente is often perceived as a period of weakness and naiveté. The West is supposed to have made a lot of concessions to the Soviet Union. It gave economic help and recognised the Soviet domination in Eastern Europe and the division of Germany (the Second World War had never been followed by a new treaty of Versailles). True, Moscow had also agreed on the so-called ‘third basket’ concerning human rights – something the West had very much insisted upon, but it did not seem eager to give this high priority at home. As a result, many thought that the Soviet Union was actually winning the Cold War. This conviction was confirmed by the American defeat in Vietnam.

The 1980s would turn out differently, though. This was not only because of a Polish Pope or a neo-conservative US administration, but also as a very direct outcome of the 1970s. Détente created a great deal of contact between East and West and fostered the rise of new ideas in the East. Dissidents could refer to the commitment their leaders had expressed regarding human rights, and confront them with their own contradictions. But some Communist leaders too were truly inspired by détente. Gorbachev’s ‘New Thinking,’ projects for a Common European Home, and contacts with socialists such as Willy Brandt and Olaf Palme, issued directly from the 1970s. Moreover, the Helsinki peace process also deprived the Communists of a crucial ‘raison d’être’: the fear of a new, great, Fascist, and united Germany. In other words: the détente of the 1970s was crucial too, and its opponents are wrong when they represent it as a mistake, or when they explain 1989 only as an outcome of ‘the hard line’.

Western trade unions and Solidarność

These considerations show that there are several ways to explain the end of the Cold War. None of them is completely wrong, but almost all of them neglect – consciously or not – certain other aspects. This also goes for the subject of this ‘Focus’: the Polish crisis of the 1980s and, more particularly, the Western attitudes towards Solidarność and Jaruzelski. The two following contributions will deal with this subject from different perspectives and serve as illustrations of changing historical paradigms.

Marcin Frybes’ article on the French reaction to the Polish crisis is an example of the classic view. French society showed a lot of solidarity with Solidarność. Workers and intellectuals organised one of the biggest demonstrations in post-war France, and raised an amount of money that is usually considered to have been the biggest sum of Western aid given to the Polish opposition. As a result, a large number of studies and hommages have been published and their most important results are presented in Frybes’ article. All these things may be stressed, since they are a beautiful illustration of international solidarity. Yet, this is not the whole story. On the one hand, the focus on particular groups and even countries suggests that they somehow played a decisive role in the success of Solidarność. As mentioned above, though, history is much more complex. Although one could argue that the Polish underground would not have survived without French money and printing presses, this still does not mean that the contribution of other countries was less crucial. Ostpolitik was important too. On the other hand, the concentration on success creates an image of unanimity and unselfishness, as if the whole French nation showed a sincere sympathy with Solidarność.

Stefan Berger looks, precisely, at the involvement of other Western European countries in the Second Cold War – as the 1980s are sometimes called. His approach is different in that he does not primarily focus on the level or the amount of aid, but on the explanations for the different views held with regard to these matters. His appeal for a transnational approach to history is a plea for research on the complexities of history. His conclusion is that, instead of focusing on the winners, of giving victory a face, of judging attitudes towards Solidarność within a limited framework, and of neglecting underlying processes such as economic developments, changing interests and international contacts, European history should be studied from a more complex and more comparative perspective.