In contemporary Poland a war is being waged over the history of Solidarity and the defeat of communist rule in 1989. Both sides in this battle include veterans of the Solidarity movement. Both sides credit Solidarity with the decisive role in the changes of 1989. However, they clash over which individuals were most significant in Solidarity's success and also over the degree to which communists were ousted from power in 1989. While outside of Poland Lech Wałęsa is still treated as the paramount hero of Solidarity, the Polish government under the Law and Justice Party (October 2015–present) has conducted a multi-front campaign to recast Wałęsa as a traitor.Footnote ¹ Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość; PiS) activists have sought to construct a new Solidarity hero to replace Wałęsa: Lech Kaczyński, the twin brother of Jarosław Kaczyński, who is the leader of PiS. While Lech Wałęsa was Chairman of Solidarity from 1980 to 1991, Lech Kaczyński was one of a number of Solidarity advisors.Footnote ² Kaczyński was not a dominant figure in Solidarity in 1980–1; yet, in a poll in August 2017, only 48 per cent of Polish respondents believed that ‘Lech Wałęsa rendered greater service to Solidarity than Lech Kaczyński’. In the Polish press, this result was portrayed as a triumph for PiS.Footnote ³ Certainly, the positioning of Lech Kaczyński as the central figure in Solidarity is a victory for PiS. The undermining of Wałęsa's reputation, however, has much deeper roots, reaching back to the Polish communist state's exploitation of censorship in 1980–1.

This article focuses on the censoring of Solidarity in 1980–1, outlining the ways in which censorship impacted the Solidarity press. It explores the role of preventative state censorship, interference by the state security services and self-censorship by Solidarity itself. It argues that in the context of the People's Republic of Poland, Solidarity's commitments to both a free press and legality were impossible to reconcile and that the state authorities capitalised on this inherent difficulty by utilising its control of the press to undermine Solidarity's leaders while also casting history as a venue for state regulation. It posits that communist state interventions into the Solidarity press in 1980–1 contributed to the contemporary war over the history of Solidarity.

In August 1980 a strike erupted at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk that irrevocably changed Polish history. During the strike, the workers, led by Lech Wałęsa, laid out twenty-one demands to which the state had to agree before they would return to work. The third demand was that the state comply ‘with the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, the press and publication, including freedom for independent publishers, and the availability of the mass media to representatives of all faiths’. The demand was carefully worded; the workers did not call for an end to censorship.Footnote ⁴ Shipyard workers, in private deliberations, endorsed an end to censorship; however, opposition activist Bogdan Borusewicz advised them against including this demand. Borusewicz had previously helped to smuggle mimeograph machines to Poland for underground publishing and was active in opposition press initiatives. Borusewicz rejected state censorship and yet also rejected the demand for its dismantling. The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 had convinced Borusewicz that repealing state censorship would provide an excuse for Soviet intervention.Footnote ⁵ The demand for reform of state censorship was the embodiment of Solidarity's self-limitations and its adherence to legality and negotiated change in its struggle to effect change in Poland without bloodshed.

In ‘Power of the Powerless’ Vaclav Havel noted that ‘because the [post-totalitarian] regime is captive to its own lies, it must lie about everything’.Footnote ⁶ He explained that the state did not require that the populace believe its lies, but that they outwardly behave as if they did. ‘Demanding that the laws be upheld is thus an act of living within the truth that threatens the whole mendacious structure at the points of maximum mendacity’.Footnote ⁷ The insistence by Polish workers in 1980 that censorship laws be publicly codified and respected was not only about providing access to factual verity but also about ‘living in truth’; it was a twofold manifestation of Solidarity's commitment to honesty in public life. At the same time, Solidarity's steadfastness to legality, within the context of the Polish communist state, required acceptance of the curtailing of truth. The censoring of Solidarity laid bare the fundamental tension between Solidarity's dual commitment to legality and truth; this has had lasting repercussions.

In order to bring a halt to the strike wave that consumed Poland in August 1980, the state authorities agreed to the August Social Accords. The Accords allowed for the creation of independent trade unions that would have the right to produce bulletins for internal union use. These union bulletins were not to be subject to preventative state censorship. In addition, the state agreed to present to the Sejm, the Polish parliament, a law reforming and curtailing state censorship while making it more transparent. Historian Anna Machcewicz termed the fruit of Solidarity's negotiations for new censorship laws ‘a true success, as it provided the chance for clear regulations on the question of free speech’.Footnote ⁸

In September 1980 Poland's numerous new independent trade unions united and created a national union: Solidarity. The hope was that, in banding together, Poland's independent unions would have the strength to confront the state authorities and ensure that they enacted the August Social Accords. The chairman of the new union was Lech Wałęsa, the electrician from Gdansk who had led the strike in the Lenin Shipyard.Footnote ⁹

Between September 1980 and December 1981 Solidarity created a multitude of publications; in 1981 over 1,200 Solidarity serial titles were produced.Footnote ¹⁰ A handful of these titles were newspapers which were published under preventative state censorship with supplies provided by the state. The vast majority of Solidarity periodicals were the union bulletins permitted in the August Social Accords and carried the phrase ‘for internal use’ in the masthead. Solidarity publishers also produced monographs ‘for internal use’. Although these publications were not subject to preventative state censorship, they were not free of state censorship either. When editors did not satisfactorily self-censor, the state authorities interceded with threatening letters and even arrests.

Preventative state censorship in Poland fit the liberal model of censorship as being ‘external, coercive and repressive’, while the free speech pursued by Solidarity was that advocated by liberal theorists.Footnote ¹¹ John Stuart Mill applied his ‘harm principle’ when treating censorship, arguing that speech should be free and unfettered so long as it does no harm to others.Footnote ¹² Similarly, John Rawls described free speech as a basic liberty but also contended that ‘political speech when it becomes an incitement to the imminent and lawless use of force is no longer protected as a basic liberty’.Footnote ¹³ It was a principle across the communist bloc that state leaders were immune from criticism in the press.Footnote ¹⁴ Solidarity editors sought free speech but also self-censored condemnations of the state leadership and Soviet alliance because of concerns that the state and its Soviet backers would, as they had in the past, resort to violence if such limitations were not heeded. Like the workers in the Lenin Shipyard in August 1980, Solidarity's editors were unwilling to provide the Soviet Union with an excuse to invade. The editors of Solidarity's union bulletins understood that Solidarity bulletins were meant to focus on union matters and so generally respected this limitation and self-censored.Footnote ¹⁵

The Solidarity press, for a time, curtailed criticism of the Solidarity leadership due to the belief that, in the contemporary context, attacks on the leadership amounted to attacks on Solidarity and so harmed the goal of greater freedom (of speech). Solidarity quickly embodied the hopes of much of the Polish populace; Solidarity's editors did not want to put Solidarity's promise at risk. This self-censorship proved controversial for the very reasons that Matthew Festenstein presents as grounds for self-censorship being denounced in democracies: it undermines accountability and trustworthiness.Footnote ¹⁶

Self-censorship remains an emerging field of research; the term self-censorship is one with various interpretations.Footnote ¹⁷ For the present study, the framework provided by Philip Cook's and Conrad Heilman's important work on self-censorship is utilised. They delineate two forms of self-censorship: private and public. Cook and Heilman define ‘private self-censorship’ as ‘the suppression by an agent of his or her own attitudes where a public censor is either absent or irrelevant’.Footnote ¹⁸ The self-censoring of critiques of the Solidarity leadership by Solidarity editors is as example of ‘private self-censorship’. Of a different nature was the self-censoring of criticism of Polish state leaders and the Polish alliance with the Soviet Union. This self-censorship is what Cook and Heilman refer to as ‘public self-censorship’, meaning when ‘individuals internalize some aspects of the public censor and thus censor themselves’.Footnote ¹⁹

Activists in the Solidarity press practiced ‘public self-censorship’ because they knew that, even when they were not subject to preventative state censorship, they were still being observed. Michel Foucault, in Discipline and Punish, argues that:

Solidarity's editors self-censored because of state censorship, but the public was not fully aware of what they censored. Just as Foucault explained that punishment is primarily intended to prevent repetition of offenses from occurring within the larger populace, the chief objective of state censorship was not to alter the ways that Solidarity authors and editors thought, but how the populace did – in this instance, to undercut social trust in Solidarity and its leadership.Footnote ²¹ Solidarity editors’ ‘private censorship’ (censoring criticism of Solidarity's leaders) was a response to this potential.

On 23 September 1980 the Solidarity leadership in Gdansk reached an agreement with local authorities that Solidarity would be allowed to have a section entitled ‘Self-Governance’ (Samorządność) three times a week in the official newspaper, Tygodnik Baltycki; it first appeared on 24 September 1980 with fewer than three columns of text. The editor-in-chief for this section was Lech Bądkowski, who had served as spokesman for the Gdansk Strike Committee in August 1980. With ‘Samorządność’, Solidarity gained access to official publishing channels and, for the first time, was allowed self-coverage in the state media. However, this was only a partial success as Bądkowski faced regular censorship from the newspapers’ editors as well as state censors. An anonymous article in the Warsaw Solidarity bulletin Niezależność noted in reference to ‘Samorządność’ that, ‘like a half-truth that is worse than a lie, a partial success is worse than failure’.Footnote ²²

Despite difficulties with ‘Samorządność’, the Solidarity leadership sought to produce an official Solidarity newspaper using state printers. In October 1980 the state agreed to Solidarity publishing a weekly, national newspaper which would be subject to preventative state censorship and have its printing supplies furnished by the state. The specifics involved with the production of this paper were not ironed out. During negotiations state representatives claimed that some existing Solidarity bulletins were not maintaining a ‘responsible’ line and insisted that Solidarity publishing would have to remain within the framework of the August Social Accords and be ‘responsible’.Footnote ²³ This was a reminder that self-censorship was required of those Solidarity bulletins that were not subject to preventative state censorship.

This reminder was driven home when on 20 November security services raided the publishing offices of the Solidarity leadership in Warsaw. They seized a state document, which was going to be printed, that outlined state prosecution of ‘anti-socialist’ elements and indicated that Solidarity was part of the opposition. Soon after, Solidarity printer Jan Narożniak and Piotr Sapełło (who worked in the Attorney General's office and had provided Narożniak with the document) were arrested. Narożniak was to be charged with ‘disseminating state secrets’, which carried a possible five-year prison sentence. Although both Narożniak and Sapełło were released after Solidarity threatened a regional general strike, the ‘Narożniak Affair’ underlines that censorship remained firmly in place in late 1980 and that while Solidarity had won the right to produce bulletins on and for Solidarity, it had not won the right to a free press. Solidarity's editors and printers were to self-censor or face retribution.Footnote ²⁴

While the state authorities prevaricated in allowing the publication of a Solidarity national newspaper, permission was granted in December 1980 to publish Jedność, a regional Solidarity paper in West Pomerania. Jedność had been founded on 24 August 1980 in Szczecin as the strike bulletin in the Warski Shipyard. Although the regional Solidarity leadership had already gained permission to publish its communiqués in the newspaper, Kurier Szczeński, like with ‘Samorządność’ this solution proved to be problematic. Therefore, the editors of Jedność sought and obtained legal authorisation to have their paper printed in a state publishing house. From 9 January 1981 Jedność was produced weekly with a print run of 100,000 (65,000 were sold in state kiosks and 35,000 were distributed within Solidarity) and was sold at newsstands across West Pomerania; Jedność was henceforth subject to preventative state censorship. The editor in chief was Leszek Dlouchy, an engineer.Footnote ²⁵

While readers of Jedność sought ‘the whole truth and the current state of things’,Footnote ²⁶ the editors of Jedność met with ‘unending confrontations with the censors’. On Wednesdays the editors submitted their newspaper to state censors and on Thursdays they discussed changes with censors. Consultations could last for hours. On Fridays Jedność was available for purchase. In extreme instances censors demanded that as much as half of the articles in Jedność undergo amendment. In January 1981 the state seized issues of Jedność after the editors ignored censors’ demands that they not print an article. The seizure precipitated a strike by print workers in Szczecin on 23 January.Footnote ²⁷

In early 1981 Jedność was Solidarity's only publication which was subject to preventative state censorship; however, it was not alone in feeling the censor's pen in its coverage of Solidarity. Articles on Solidarity were frequently and significantly censored within the state press. For instance, despite the state having agreed to the erection of a monument to the workers who had been killed in the 1970 protests in Gdansk, when state newspapers tried to report on Solidarity's commemoration of the anniversary of these events, which included the unveiling of the monument, they were censored. The censoring of information on Solidarity frustrated journalists; it also caused popular anger as the public was unaware of what had been censored because editors were not permitted to indicate when passages had been redacted.Footnote ²⁸

Some state printers, who were swept up in the Solidarity movement, proposed leaving blank spaces to convey that content had been censored. They insisted that after having spent years witnessing the effects of state censorship ‘they had a moral right to protest’ in order to prevent falsified news from reaching the public. Furthermore, they claimed that the significant self-censorship practiced by editors meant that what was being published was already a curtailed expression of truth. State censors, however, refused to allow blank spaces, which led to seizures when printers employed them. The Polish populace was to be left in the dark about the censoring of Solidarity.Footnote ²⁹

As 1981 dawned state censors at times intervened directly with the editors of Solidarity bulletins that were not subject to preventative state censorship. For instance, the Solidarity bulletin in the Katowice Steelworks, Wolny Związkowiec, received a cautionary letter from the state censorship office threatening preventative censorship if the editors did not remain within the confines of the August Social Accords. This letter underscores the ongoing monitoring of Solidarity's uncensored bulletins and that the ‘Narożniak Affair’ was not isolated.Footnote ³⁰

Due to the continued rigor of censorship of Solidarity, the Solidarity division of printers threatened, for 13 February, a ‘Day Without the Press’ during which they would print nothing but school textbooks. In order to get the Solidarity leadership to call off the strike, state representatives agreed to negotiations with Solidarity delegates. At the negotiation, Józef Klasa, who was representing the state, refused to sit at the same table with two of Solidarity's representatives, Adam Michnik and Jan Józef Lipski, because they were in the Committee for the Defense of Workers (Komitet Obrony Robotników; KOR), which was the foremost group within the Polish democratic opposition. Michnik left; however, Lipski refused to depart, insisting that Klasa could not dictate with whom in Solidarity he would negotiate. Despite the affront to Solidarity's delegation, Solidarity's leaders maintained their conciliatory stance and agreed to call off the strike.Footnote ³¹

On 25 February 1981, after months of negotiations, Solidarity received permission to begin publishing a national newspaper, Tygodnik Solidarność, with a print run of 500,000. On 3 April 1981 Tygodnik Solidarność appeared in state-run kiosks across Poland.Footnote ³² It was Solidarity's most significant newspaper and was subject to preventative state censorship.

Lech Wałęsa, as Solidarity's Chairman, appointed Tadeusz Mazowiecki editor-in-chief of Tygodnik Solidarność. Mazowiecki was a Solidarity advisor, co-founder of the Club of Catholic Intellectuals in Warsaw and editor of the Catholic paper Więź. Wałęsa consciously opted not to appoint someone from KOR and instead to choose a Catholic journalist who was familiar with the mechanisms of state censorship and would be perceived, by the state, as less confrontational than someone from the opposition.Footnote ³³

Tygodnik Solidarność began publication at a challenging time. Only a couple of weeks earlier, on 19 March 1981, state security services had violently put down an occupation strike by independent rural activists. This physical assault on society created widespread anger and nearly resulted in a nationwide general strike. The strike had been just avoided thanks to negotiations between Lech Wałęsa (who was counselled by Solidarity's top advisors) and state officials. The majority of the Solidarity leadership, in a vote, endorsed the fruit of these negotiations: the Warsaw Agreement. The Warsaw Agreement cleaved open a divide within the Solidarity leadership between moderates (who supported calling off the strike) and a less conciliatory minority.Footnote ³⁴

For many contemporaries and historians the Warsaw Agreement was the turning point for Solidarity. The violence of the attack, which left a leading Solidarity activist, Jan Rulewski, hospitalised, signalled to some that Solidarity's moderation was being abused. Those who supported the Warsaw Agreement have insisted that they did so because they believed that they were averting bloodshed and safeguarding Poland from threatened invasion. However, some of their opponents within Solidarity questioned whether their moderation denoted a lack of commitment to independence and democracy. These suspicions linger today and are central to a nationalist narrative which suggests that the Solidarity leadership was compromised from this point on.Footnote ³⁵

Since the founding of Solidarity a taboo had existed within the Solidarity press against attacks on the Solidarity movement and leadership.Footnote ³⁶ This was because many of Solidarity's editors sought to safeguard the only movement which, in the face of on-going state hostility, had the potential to deliver greater press freedom and societal change. Additionally, Solidarity was the subject of an on-going smear campaign in the state press and so it was thought that the Solidarity press should not join in attacks on its leaders.Footnote ³⁷

In the wake of the Warsaw Agreement, for the first time numerous Solidarity publications stopped self-censoring criticism of the Solidarity leadership. Condemnations of the union's leaders’ acquiescence to the Warsaw Agreement were printed across the Solidarity press in April 1981. The potential conflict between a Solidarity press which could not criticise the state authorities but could criticise the Solidarity leadership was realised from this time; Lech Wałęsa was criticised for the Warsaw Agreement but General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the leader of Poland, was not. Furthermore, the state prevented a full accounting of the events surrounding the Warsaw Agreement in all publications, including Tygodnik Solidarność, which were subject to preventative state censorship.Footnote ³⁸

In their first issue of 3 April 1981 the editors of Tygodnik Solidarność echoed the Solidarity movement's commitment to truth and legality. They explained that, ‘we want to speak the truth; if it is not always possible to speak the entire truth – at least not to lie’. The editors also contended that ‘we respect the laws of the Polish constitution and desire that its provisions are realised in practice’.Footnote ³⁹ The editorial board of Tygodnik Solidarność, like the Solidarity leadership, embraced moderation; it stressed unity in its reporting on Solidarity and emphasised deliberations within the Solidarity leadership rather than critiques of it. Tygodnik Solidarność eschewed overt condemnations of the state (which would have been censored anyway). Mazowiecki's editorial policy caused his co-deputy, Kazimierz Dziewanowski, to resign from the editorial board in May 1981.Footnote ⁴⁰

Tygodnik Solidarność's restraint resulted in its detractors referring to it as a ‘corpse of caution’. On 7 May 1981, in a meeting in Warsaw between the editors of Tygodnik Solidarność and representatives from Solidarity and the Solidarity press, Tygodnik Solidarność was denounced for its self-censorship in relation to both the union leadership and the state authorities. Those present demanded information on subjects including union elections, disagreements within Solidarity, the history of the democratic opposition and political prisoners. Mazowiecki defended the editorial policy at Tygodnik Solidarność. He insisted that, as the one nationally available union publication he did not want to interfere in union disputes (which is why there was little coverage of elections and discord within Solidarity). Furthermore, he explained that Tygodnik Solidarność had published an article on the pre-August 1980 opposition. Mazowiecki's statement that state censors had not removed an entire article from Tygodnik Solidarność reflected his editorial censorship of subjects about which the state stipulated silence.Footnote ⁴¹ For Mazowiecki it would prove to be an unrelenting challenge to balance the desires of union members, the constraints of state censorship and his own sense of editorial propriety.Footnote ⁴²

In May Karol Modzelewski, Solidarity's former spokesman who had resigned because of the Warsaw Agreement, criticised Tygodnik Solidarność in an interview with a Solidarity union bulletin in Wrocław. He claimed that Tygodnik Solidarność was censored by the state and its editors. Modzelewski suggested that Tygodnik Solidarność's silence on certain subjects amounted to lies. In this context, he referenced Tygodnik Solidarność's coverage of censorship reform.Footnote ⁴³

Despite conflicts over Tygodnik Solidarność, several additional Solidarity publications began production under preventative state censorship in mid-1981. The multiplication of Solidarity papers under preventative state censorship meant greater state control over the Solidarity press. The attraction to publishing under direct state censorship was related to supply and distribution. Solidarity editors suffered from constant shortages of paper and printing supplies; censored newspapers were produced on state equipment with paper provided by the state and then sold at state-run press kiosks. In addition, some Solidarity activists thought that censored publications carried the potential for more open debate within Solidarity.Footnote ⁴⁴ Andrzej Gwiazda, who had been at the forefront of Solidarity at its founding and had vocally criticised Wałęsa in the wake of the Warsaw Agreement,Footnote ⁴⁵ proposed that each of Solidarity's regions should have two papers: one which would be an organ of the regional leadership and one which was independent of the leadership and would include criticism of it.Footnote ⁴⁶ Because of difficulties in obtaining printing supplies, Solidarity publishing activists in Warsaw, who embraced a similar proposal, recommended that the first type of publication be produced on state equipment under state censorship while the second would be an uncensored bulletin.Footnote ⁴⁷ These proposals reflected growing concerns over the independence of the Solidarity press from the Solidarity leadership but did not deal with the issue of state censorship.

As criticism of the Solidarity leadership increased in the Solidarity press from May 1981, discord over the selection of the editors of Solidarity publications mounted. These debates were first sparked when Lech Wałęsa appointed the editors of the new Solidarity Press Bureau in May 1981. Disagreements over the selection of union editors snowballed into allegations that union leaders were trying to control the Solidarity press.Footnote ⁴⁸ Ultimately, some regional leaders dismissed and replaced the editors of local Solidarity bulletins although Wałęsa and the national union leadership did not.Footnote ⁴⁹ The context for these debates was that the state press was censored and unreliable which meant that that the Solidarity press was expected to be more than just a union press; it was expected to be the sole outlet for reliable information.

Debates over the independence of the Solidarity press and its right to critique Solidarity's leaders were paradoxical in that Solidarity editors continued to self-censor criticism of state leaders. The result was that coverage of negotiations between the leaders of Solidarity and the state was (progressively) distorted. Censorship ensured that the intransigence and threats of the state authorities in negotiations with Solidarity, as well as Solidarity activists’ fears of state violence, were largely absent from the Solidarity press. Solidarity's leaders’ ‘moderation’ and failure to gain concessions was thus broadcast without essential context.

Despite these complications and escalating friction over the Solidarity press, according to a public opinion poll done by Solidarity in May and June 1981, 86 per cent of respondents claimed that they trusted the Solidarity press. This poll raises questions about the degree to which the public was aware of the censoring of the Solidarity press and the self-censoring required of editors. Solidarity's uncensored bulletins certainly carried information on the economy, the opposition and history which previously had been impossible to find in a legally published publication. With every Solidarity region and major factory having its own paper with print-runs in the thousands, every week millions of Polish readers devoured this information. At the same time, Solidarity's editors could not provide unabridged truth on numerous topics, including Solidarity's negotiations with the state, fears of Soviet invasion and even recent Polish history.Footnote ⁵⁰

Self-censorship of the Solidarity leadership diminished from mid-1981; so too did self-censorship of Polish history, particularly in reference to wartime and post-war history as it related to state repression. Once Solidarity's editors self-censored less, state officials intervened more. In June 1981 the government seized 5,000 bulletins produced in Radom ‘for internal union use’ to commemorate the June 1976 protests. The state security services then began an investigation into the authors of the bulletin.Footnote ⁵¹ In July, in Wrocław, the security services seized copies of a brochure about the massacre by the Red Army of Polish POWs during the Second World War in fields by the Katyń forest; the regional Solidarity leadership had commissioned the volume for Solidarity.Footnote ⁵²

An instructive example of state interference with Solidarity publishing occurred in Piła, one of Solidarity's smallest regions. In June Jarosław Gruszkowski, the editor of the regional Solidarity bulletin, was brought in for questioning over alleged infringements to the censorship laws because he had had a poster printed that read ‘the empire of lies remains’ and referenced the local communist press. In July the secret services searched Piła's Solidarity printing office and confiscated 7,500 pamphlets about the popular uprisings of 1956, 1968, 1970 and 1976, as well as 3,000 brochures about the 1956 uprising in Poznan. The state then suspended the printing of Solidarność Pilska and Solidarność Polamowska (the regional Solidarity bulletin for Piła and the bulletin for the largest factory in Piła).Footnote ⁵³ Although these publications were not subject to preventative state censorship, they clearly remained under the watchful gaze of censors who were quick to alert the security services when Solidarity editors did not sufficiently self-censor.

Tygodnik Solidarność was censored when its editors attempted to provide an honest accounting of the recent past. In June 1981 censors eliminated from an article about the protests of June 1976 material about police brutality, including the ‘paths of health’ in which workers were forced to walk down halls with security personnel on either side beating them.Footnote ⁵⁴ State censorship required whitewashing of the communist state's history of violence against the populace. Given that it was the context of this violence that constrained Solidarity's leaders and editors, the censoring of this information impacted the ways in which decision making within Solidarity could be publicly portrayed, framed and understood. It also served as a reminder that history was treated as a political battleground by the communist authorities.

On 31 July 1981 the new censorship law was passed in the Sejm. A group of Solidarity activists had been working on it since the autumn of 1980. The bill did not curtail censorship to the extent that many in Solidarity had hoped. It also left the status of Solidarity's bulletins unclear. The Solidarity leadership's acquiescence to the new censorship law deepened divisions within Solidarity. Leading opposition activist and Solidarity advisor Jan Józef Lipski was charged with treachery for his part in drafting it. Wałęsa was verbally attacked for his endorsement of the bill. A year after Solidarity's founding it was evident that Wałęsa and Solidarity's leaders were in a situation in which the demands of both the state and society were impossible to accommodate.Footnote ⁵⁵ Moreover, it was increasingly clear that the state was not negotiating in good faith. Waldemar Kuczyński, an editor at Tygodnik Solidarność, remarked in August 1981 that, in spite of the passing of the new censorship law, the censors continued to act as they had previously.Footnote ⁵⁶

The Solidarity leadership responded to the state's heightened censoring of Solidarity publications, harassment of Solidarity editors and propaganda campaign against Solidarity in the state press with a call for ‘Days without Press’ for 19–20 August 1981. This print workers’ strike was in keeping with the legal right to strike, which Solidarity had won in the August Social Accords. With the exception of the cities of Bydgoszcz, Katowice and Zielona Góra the strike was almost fully met. Most publications that appeared were flyers rather than newspapers and were printed on army printers or at communist committees. Because newsstand workers in Warsaw joined the strike, publications which were produced in the capital had to be sold from cars.Footnote ⁵⁷ While the state, in its struggle to silence Solidarity, seized documents, arrested publishers and raised the spectre of foreign invasion, Solidarity's only real threat was workers’ strikes. Solidarity's ability to carry out such an effective strike over censorship highlighted Solidarity's sustained popular support as well as its on-going commitment to negotiated, peaceful change.

In September and October 1981 Solidarity held its First National Congress, which met in two rounds: 5–10 September and 26 September–7 October. An emphasis in the congress was Solidarity's demand for self-governance. In the first round of the congress Solidarity's delegates endorsed a proposal for self-governance, which focused not only on self-governance in workplaces but also within society at large. Between the two rounds of the congress the government presented a self-governance bill to the Sejm that included several key differences from that which had been endorsed in the congress. Wałęsa and his advisors met with state officials and negotiated a compromise bill and then pressured Solidarity's Presidium to endorse the compromise without a quorum present. Despite Wałęsa's cooperation, the government presented its original bill to the Sejm. Although Sejm deputies insisted on the inclusion of most of the compromise document, this affair undermined Wałęsa.Footnote ⁵⁸ When the second round of the congress opened on 26 September 1981, delegates roundly attacked Wałęsa; an official statement was endorsed by the congress and published across the Solidarity press condemning Wałęsa's actions in relation to the bill.Footnote ⁵⁹ As with the uproar over the Warsaw Agreement, censorship ensured that state officials were not similarly denounced during the tumult over the self-governance bill. Still, it was state officials who had decided to present the bill between the sessions of Solidarity's National Congress and then to disregard the compromise document drawn up in consultation with Solidarity.

During debates at the Solidarity National Congress about the self-governance bill, a number of delegates insisted that Solidarity's advisors had too much power in the union. This charge had been raised at the time of the Warsaw Agreement and related to their role in advising Wałęsa in his closed-door dealings with state officials. A number of Solidarity's intellectual advisors had previously participated in communist or communist-affiliated groups; as such the underlying concern was that these individuals were not fully committed to democratic change and that crypto-communists had infiltrated Solidarity.Footnote ⁶⁰

In the wake of the uproar over self-governance, Solidarity congress delegates repeatedly debated the self-censoring of criticism of the Solidarity leadership within the Solidarity press as well as the independence of the Solidarity press from the union leadership (and advisors). Some delegates argued that delegates should not destroy Wałęsa's authority by attacking him too harshlyFootnote ⁶¹ while others described critiques of union leaders as a ‘calling card of democracy’.Footnote ⁶² Similarly, some delegates argued that the ‘system of union information should be under the elected power of the union’ while others supported independence of the union press from the union leadership.Footnote ⁶³ Solidarity's attempt to create an oasis of free speech within a censored state was proving impossible.

At the end of the Solidarity National Congress elections were held for Solidarity's Chairman; although Lech Wałęsa won, the presentation given by Jan Rulewski, the most ‘radical’ candidate, is instructive for understanding the nature of state censorship of Solidarity publications. Rulewski, in his address to the Congress argued that, ‘I consider it to have been a mistake in the activities of our union that it has accepted the actual, or illusory, Soviet threat. This created a particular kind of censorship in relation to the attainment of all of our aims.’ The next section of Rulewski's speech was censored from Tygodnik Solidarność but appeared in the uncensored Solidarity bulletin Głos Wolny. In it Rulewski argued that Solidarity ought to reject its self-censorship, which is a response to ‘the imperialist politics of the Soviet power’. He then called on Solidarity to include in its programme the provisions of the European Security Council which Poland had signed. Rulewski explained that these confirmed the sovereign rights of all signatories and ‘create an important alternative for foreign policy’.Footnote ⁶⁴ While state censors allowed Rulewski to denounce Solidarity's self-censorship due to the perceived Soviet threat, they censored his appeal for less self-censorship because of these fears. The onus for censorship was thus placed on Solidarity. They also prevented Rulewski's proposal that Poland consider different international alignments from reaching readers of Tygodnik Solidarność.

Adam Michnik explained that, in 1981, the ‘possibility of Soviet intervention was often discussed’. It was Michnik's opinion that ‘the authorities were using the Soviet bogey only too willingly, in order to achieve the psychological effects of an intervention without an actual intervention’. This contention could not, however, be expressed in any publication that was subject to preventative state censorship; it was also generally self-censored from Solidarity bulletins.Footnote ⁶⁵ But not always: by late 1981 some Solidarity publications, especially in smaller regions, were printing articles which contested Poland's relationship to the Soviet Union. As a result, the idea was floated within Solidarity that an ex post facto censorship group be created to monitor the ways in which attacks were made on the Soviet Union within the Solidarity press. Nothing came of this proposal.Footnote ⁶⁶

On 1 October 1981 the new censorship law went into effect. It carried a provision that editors could appeal censorship decisions. When censors soon after removed from Tygodnik Solidarność a letter to the editors that decried state censorship and supported independent publishing, the editors went to the Main Administrative Court for redress. The offending letter was written from a Solidarity factory committee in Lublin. It insisted that, ‘Our desire – is achieving truth – and we will fight so that our children can learn it in Polish schools and speak without fear’. During the hearing, which was held on 2 November, it was revealed that in the previous month twenty-five entire articles had been removed by censors in Warsaw; twenty-one of these articles were from Tygodnik Solidarność. Thus, despite denunciations of Tygodnik Solidarność for its moderation, its editors were clearly self-censoring to a lesser degree than any other serial published in the capital. Tygodnik Soldiarność’s editorial board received a positive verdict in this the first court case against state censorship in post-war Poland. The letter was printed in Tygodnik Solidarność on 13 November 1981.Footnote ⁶⁷ Despite this victory, a full issue of Jedność did not appear in the first week of November after censors forbade the inclusion of an article on the Polish national economy and demanded significant cuts in articles on the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and the Polish independent press.Footnote ⁶⁸

Solidarity's irreconcilable struggle between truth and legality came to an end on 13 December 1981. On that day the state authorities declared Poland to be in a state of war; all legal independent life came to a halt. The Polish government, under Jaruzelski, had spent months drawing up plans for crushing Solidarity; on the night of 12–13 December, numerous leading activists in Solidarity, including Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Lech Wałęsa and Adam Michnik were interned. Solidarity and its press were forced to disperse or exist underground. The new censorship law was effectively overturned; much harsher punishments were passed for those who published independently. State media outlets only reopened after verification processes were held, mass firings occurred and loyalty oaths were signed. Jaruzelski insisted that he had destroyed Solidarity because it had grown too radical. The underlying implication was that Solidarity's alleged radicalism would provoke Soviet intervention and so by declaring martial law Jaruzelski was protecting the Polish people from the irresponsible, perfidious Solidarity leadership.Footnote ⁶⁹

Chronologically analysing the censoring of the Solidarity press from 1980 to 1981 lays bare the state's increasing unwillingness to genuinely compromise with Solidarity as well as Solidarity's continued self-limitations. Polish state media repeatedly insisted that Solidarity was becoming more militant and anti-socialist in late 1981; however, examination of the Solidarity press repudiates these claims. The Solidarity press, as the state stipulated, by and large focused on Solidarity and eschewed attacks on the state and the alliance with the Soviet Union. Although some (smaller) publications did not entirely heed these limitations, this was inevitable given the size and diversity of the Solidarity press. Moreover, efforts were made within Solidarity to curb these trends. Many Solidarity publications, with time, provided more coverage of the recent past; however, this coverage was neither untruthful nor hyperbolic. The spectre of Soviet invasion, although it hung over Poland in this era, was one which was largely self-censored from the Solidarity press. While the Solidarity press was restrained in its treatment of the state authorities and Poland's connection to the Soviet Union, it provided mounting criticism of the Solidarity leadership and its moderation in 1981.

The communist authorities employed negotiation with Solidarity and censorship in tandem to undermine Solidarity's leaders, specifically Lech Wałęsa. It is surely significant that the two major instances in 1981 when Wałęsa came under widespread attack in Solidarity were in the wake of negotiations with the state over the Warsaw Agreement and the self-governance bill. We now know that during these negotiations the Jaruzelski government was actively looking to destroy Solidarity and courting Soviet aid to do so.Footnote ⁷⁰

Censorship ensured that Solidarity's leaders were never able to fully and publicly discuss their negotiations with the state and to contextualise their viewpoints. Fears of Soviet invasion, which were stoked by the state authorities in closed-door negotiations with Solidarity's leaders and advisers, could not be publicised or examined within the Solidarity press. Although the general populace knew that state censorship existed, it did not know its extent or impact; as to self-censorship, no one truly did or ever will. Communist-era state censorship was indeed about blatant lies. This is why Solidarity could and did demand truth about specific historical events. However more insidious than censorship provisions that impacted what people thought were those that impacted how people thought – those that created an atmosphere in which state leaders were above reproach, Solidarity's leaders were traitors and history was open to state control. Pierre Bourdieu contended that:

The example of Solidarity's censored press raises important questions about the lasting effects of internalised censorship.

Since the 1989 overthrow of communist rule, a number of influential Polish political figures have promoted the theory that nefarious deals were brokered between Solidarity's leaders (above all Wałęsa) and communist leaders in 1989. These allegations echo those made in 1981 after the Warsaw Agreement and have gained much greater traction since the Law and Justice Party again came to power in October 2015.Footnote ⁷² In July 2017 the Polish Minister of National Defence, in part of the government smear campaign directed at Lech Wałęsa, described him as the ‘vilest of traitors’.Footnote ⁷³ In September 2018 Lech Wałęsa turned seventy-five. For his birthday he was presented with a document with well wishes from all the leaders of the European Union with the glaring exception of the Prime Minister of Poland, who is a member of the Law and Justice Party.Footnote ⁷⁴

The campaign against Lech Wałęsa is one facet of a much broader crusade aimed at rewriting Poland's wartime and post-war history. In order for the Polish government to wage ‘historical politics’ it has progressively interfered with the free press. In early 2017 Freedom House downgraded its estimation of press freedom in Poland from free to partially free ‘due to government intolerance toward independent or critical reporting . . . and restrictions on speech regarding Polish history and identity, which have collectively contributed to increased self-censorship’.Footnote ⁷⁵ Gazeta Wyborcza, one of Poland's main newspapers, long edited by former Solidarity advisor Adam Michnik, has been a particular target of the PiS government campaign against critical news sources.Footnote ⁷⁶

Certainly Lech Wałęsa has made a number of decisions and pronouncements since 1989 which would justify Polish citizens voting against his holding office. However, depictions of Poland's sole Nobel Peace Prize winner as a traitor who was anything other than the most influential person in Solidarity are so improbable that the explanation for their wide popular acceptance goes beyond the campaigns waged by the Law and Justice Party in recent years. A number of the individuals who now are portrayed as the betrayers of Solidarity in 1989 are the same people whom state censorship prevented from fully publicising and defending their negotiations with the state authorities in 1980–1. These are the people who were criticised widely in the Solidarity press by mid-1981, while their negotiating partners were treated with silence. Furthermore, communist state censorship ensured that throughout the 1980s individuals like Wałęsa and Michnik were vilified in the Polish press and denounced as traitors.

The idea that Wałęsa's intellectual advisors controlled him and thus Solidarity are also nothing new. The positioning of Lech Kaczyński, an advisor to Wałęsa, as more important than Wałęsa himself built upon tropes that the electrician from Gdansk was incapable of actually leading the Solidarity union. They echo arguments about the influence of Solidarity's advisors in 1980–1.

In ‘Power of the Powerless’ Vaclav Havel contended that ‘the “dissident” movements do not shy away from the idea of violent political overthrow because the idea seems too radical, but on the contrary, because it does not seem radical enough’.Footnote ⁷⁷ Solidarity's moderation did not reflect a lack of commitment to free speech or a free Poland, rather it was one element in an innovative struggle that was predicated upon peaceful civil resistance and negotiated change. This method of struggle stands in stark contrast to the armed upheavals of the Polish Romantic tradition. Zbigniew Bujak, a worker who would become the de facto leader of underground Solidarity from 1982, acknowledged when discussing Polish patriotic traditions in 1984 that it was possible that future generations might condemn the Solidarity leadership for not being sufficiently radical in their methods and yet Bujak justified their moderation on the basis of responsibility.Footnote ⁷⁸

In 1981 Bujak stated that Havel's ‘Power of the Powerless’ was the most important piece he had read in the independent press in the 1970s. Bujak claimed that ‘it convinced me that there are people who one can always trust, who never go beyond the truth’. Bujak contended that from the moment that trust and truth became overarching commitments within the opposition, the developments that led to Solidarity quickly unfolded.Footnote ⁷⁹ Solidarity's ongoing battle for truth was one of its most potent and complicated struggles, the legacy of which remain very much alive. In pursuing and believing in truth and trust, Solidarity provided a tradition hopefully more enduring than that of censorship and suspicion.