The emergence of Solidarity in Poland in the summer of 1980 had major repercussions among trade union movements in Western Europe. In Britain, the TUC had agreed to send a delegation to visit the official Communist unions in Poland in September 1980, and the emergence of Solidarność caused major debates about whether this visit should go ahead or not.¹ Those, like Frank Chappel, President of the electricians’ union (EEPTU), who were in favour of ending relations with Communist unions behind the Iron Curtain, threw their weight behind Solidarność immediately, while the majority of the General Council of the TUC were reluctant to do so in 1980. In Germany, not unlike in Britain, many leading representatives of the DGB saw in the emergence of Solidarność both a success of détente and a danger to détente, and the latter aspect explains some initial wariness to endorse wholeheartedly the Polish union. In Austria the situation was similar. When the Austrian trade union leader Engelmayer from the Christian Social wing of the ÖGB visited Poland in 1980, the ÖGB leadership expressly refused to authorise him to speak on behalf of the entire Austrian trade union movement. In Spain, the reaction to the emergence of Solidarność was very cold and by the end of 1980 only the syndicalist USO had made some positive contact. Disinterest also characterised the situation among many trade unionists in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark, whereas, elsewhere in Scandinavia, observers have even spoken of considerable levels of hostility towards Solidarność. In Norway, for example, the President of the LO, Tor Halvorsen, still assured Polish diplomats at the end of October 1980 that his organisation was avoiding contact with Solidarność. In Belgium, the trade union federations were slow to react, but later on they became the strongest supporters of Solidarność in Western Europe.

Arguably the quickest and strongest endorsements of Solidarność came in France and Italy. In Italy, Catholic union leaders had long established contacts with Catholic intellectuals in Poland and were expecting the emergence of an independent workers’ movement, more so than elsewhere in Western Europe, where many union leaders were taken by surprise. In France, the leftist CFDT and the syndicalist FO formed a bedrock of early and strong support for Solidarność.

As this brief review of some of the Western reactions already indicates, they were extremely varied. In order to provide some answers to the question of why the reception of Solidarność was so different, this essay seeks to shed some light on the national and trans-national political, institutional and cultural determinants that brought about such wildly differing reactions. In this short article, I will only be able to sketch some of the arguments and to provide selective examples from a variety of different Western countries.

All Western trade unions were under some pressure to show solidarity with Solidarność. The stance of Western trade unionists was determined to a great extent by their ideological position in the Cold War. Communist and pro-Soviet unionists were more likely to be wary of Solidarność or reject it altogether, whereas anti-Communist unions, foremost among them the American AFL-CIO, were most enthusiastic in their support for independent trade unionism in Poland. Especially where there was rivalry between Communist and non-Communist, e.g. Christian unions, the support for Solidarność was often used by unions to legitimate their own position in national struggles for supremacy. For many trade unionists, the strong Catholicism of Solidarność was difficult to understand or endorse. In Spain or France, where left-wing trade unions were often consciously anti-Catholic, Solidarność and its intimate relationship with the Catholic Church was eyed suspiciously. Whereas Catholic unionists in Western Europe often had excellent relations with the Catholic intellectual milieu close to Solidarność, the unions in Germany, traditionally close to the Social Democrats, had few contacts and found that milieu rather alien (in marked contrast to their excellent contacts with Czech dissidents, who tended not to be aligned to the church). The traditionally strong influence of the Catholic Church over American unions also ensured that the struggle of Solidarność received a sympathetic hearing in the USA from early on. If the national trade union movement was split into ideological factions, as was the case in France, Italy or Belgium, the Catholic unions tended to be very supportive of Solidarność, whereas the Communist ones were more sceptical or outright hostile. However, the Communist CGIL in Italy was far more positive about Solidarność than the Communist CGT in France. In line with its more Euro-Communist stance, CGIL emphasised its independence from Soviet Communism through its support for Solidarność and together with its socialist and Catholic rivals the CGIL financially supported the ‘Solidaritá con Solidarność’ campaign, although there was also considerable resistance for such support from sections of its Communist rank and file. The Catholic CISL in Italy had long monitored the situation in Poland and, in 1976, had received a four-page report from Jan Kułakowski, the general secretary of the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) predicting that an independent workers’ organisation would appear in Poland and impact on the whole of Eastern Europe. CISL had circulated the letter to other trade union organisations in Western Europe and maintained strong relations with Polish Catholic intellectuals and was therefore well prepared for early and strong support for an independent Catholic union in Poland.

Where the trade union movement was united, as in Britain or Germany, the leadership tended to tread cautiously in order not to offend any particular section within the movement and thereby threaten trade union unity. The TUC congress in Brighton in the autumn of 1980 is a good example. Here pro- and anti-Solidarność voices clashed badly. Whereas Chappel spoke of his disappointment in the General Council of the TUC for failing to issue ‘a single line of support… for the demands of the Polish strikers,’ L.G. Guy from the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers, Coppersmiths, Heating and Domestic Engineers called on the General Council to ‘close our ranks against the voices of anti-socialism.’ Seeing in the striking Polish workers ‘anti-revolutionary forces,’ he showed ‘no truck with the pack of anti-socialists yapping like wild dogs at the heels of a wounded lion [i.e. the Polish Communist government].’² In this situation, the General Council steered a middle course announcing that it would not break off relations with the official Communist unions but that it would seek to encourage truly independent workers’ organisations everywhere, including Poland. For the critics of Solidarność in the West, it became of paramount importance to argue that it was not really a trade union organisation. If it was perceived as a political movement intent on bringing down the Communist government in Poland, Western trade unionists could argue that Solidarność did not deserve solidarity from fellow trade unionists in the West.

Ideology and trade union unity were, however, by no means the only factors determining the positioning of Western trade unionists towards Solidarność. For some unions, Solidarność meant an opportunity to unite around a particular issue, namely the support of Solidarność, and thereby paper over internal crises or other problems of identity. Unions such as the French CFDT, which were in favour of syndicalist strategies and emphasised the activism of rank and file movements, saw in Solidarność proof of their theories about workers’ action and therefore made use of Solidarność to campaign within their nation states for their particular understanding of the role of a trade union. Christian unions, including their international organisation, the WCL, grasped the emergence of Solidarność as an opportunity to revitalise Christian trade unionism, which had been declining steadily in the post-Second World War period. Elsewhere in Western Europe, unions also tried to raise their own profile through support of Solidarność and to argue that the Polish case clearly demonstrated the need for independent representative institutions of workers. After all, the 1980s were a period in which many trade union movements across Western Europe found themselves in deep crisis, as de-unionisation accelerated. Self-interest and the ability to functionalise developments in Poland in their own national contexts were therefore important in determining the reaction of Western trade unions towards Solidarność.

National political circumstances clearly mattered. In Britain, for example, the governments of Margaret Thatcher had, in the eyes of many trade unionists, waged war on the trade union movement. For an anti-unionist like Thatcher to support Solidarność raised suspicions among British trade unionists.³ At best they accused Thatcher of double standards, but some also accused Solidarność of being a pawn in the game that Cold Warriors and anti-left wing political forces played in the Cold War. It was unfortunate that one of its strongest supporters in Britain, the electricians’ union, had disqualified itself in the eyes of many fellow unionists by breaking the printers’ strike at Wapping in 1981. In Spain, the very recent emergence of independent trade unions from the right-wing dictatorship of Franco meant that they were focused on rebuilding and reorganising the trade union movement in Spain and therefore their gaze was directed more inward than outward and the closeness of the Catholic Church to Franco also did nothing to endear Spanish left-wing unions to the cause of Solidarność. In France and Italy the marked enthusiasm among unionists stood in marked contrast to the position of the French and Italian governments who were far more willing to make concessions to the ruling Communist Party of Poland, both before and after the declaration of Martial Law. Nowhere in Western Europe had the intellectual disillusionment with Soviet Communism been as stark as in France during the 1970s, and Solidarność was greeted by many (formerly Communist) intellectuals as an opportunity to cleanse themselves of their past errors. In West Germany, relations with Poland were traditionally poor, despite the attempts of Ostpolitik to begin a more constructive chapter in German–Polish relations. The Polish authorities immediately fell back on anti-German stereotypes when it condemned West German support for Solidarność, arguing that it was just the latest instalment of a long tradition of revanchism in West Germany intent on undermining Poland in order to regain its ‘lost territories’ in the East. The West German unions’ caution in its dealings with Poland and Solidarność in the early 1980s thus also reflected the special historical circumstances of Polish–German relations.

A variety of other factors need to be taken into account when assessing the reactions of West European trade unions to Solidarność: geography, history, feminism and traditions of internationalism among them. Geography clearly played a role. No Western country bordered directly on Poland, but Poland shared a border with East Germany, which meant that the West German–East German situation was directly affected by events in Poland. This was in marked difference to the situation in Spain, where Poland seemed geographically and mentally very far away. In France, the memory of historically strong links with Poland also ensured high levels of public interest in the Polish situation. Western trade unionists who took a feminist stance were often sceptical of Solidarność, not only for its obvious links with the Catholic Church (whose stance on abortion, for example, was deeply inimical to feminism), but also because it was so obviously a male-dominated movement. However, as Western trade unions were themselves male-dominated and rarely a bulwark of feminism, this motif was perhaps influential only among the minority of feminist trade unionists. Some Western trade unions were also more internationally minded than others. The American AFL-CIO had a long history of acting as the foreign policy arm of the American government in international labour relations and lived up to its reputation in the crisis over Solidarność. In Europe, the West German and the Scandinavian – in particular the Swedish – trade unions had a particularly strong interest in international affairs and were therefore important in determining the Western trade unions’ responses to Solidarność. For many Western trade unionists, pro- and anti-Communists alike, Solidarność raised, above everything else, serious issues about East–West relations in the Cold War. The 1970s marked the high point of détente, and many Western trade unions had embarked on a dialogue with their counterparts behind the Iron Curtain. The motivations for such a dialogue were diverse, ranging from the belief that ‘the really existing socialism’ in Eastern Europe was a workers’ paradise, to the idea that one could bring about change in the Communist regimes by talking to its representatives.⁴ Foremost among the desire for dialogue was the hope that it would contribute to a lessening of tensions and the securing of peace in Europe. The emergence of Solidarność threw into sharp relief the contacts of Western trade unions with official trade unions in Eastern Europe, because it highlighted the character of the official trade unions as puppets of the Communist regimes unable to represent workers’ interests independently. If some Western trade unionists were hesitant about recognising Solidarność in the summer and autumn of 1980 and if they dithered between establishing relations with Solidarność and maintaining relations with official Communist unions, this was in no small measure due to the repercussions of Solidarność on the process of détente.

For those Cold Warriors who had opposed détente all along, such reactions only demonstrated that representatives of détente put their cosy relations with East European Communists and stability above everything else and were morally compromised by such a position. The followers of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the foremost representatives of the Second Cold War in the West, tended to be on the political right, and therefore left-wing organisations, such as unions, were intrinsically hostile to their policies. An organisation such as Solidarność, which became the darling of Reagan, Thatcher and other Cold Warriors in the West, almost automatically drew scepticism and criticism from the Left in Europe. During the Cold War, what was right wing and what was left wing was still fairly clear-cut. Despite what has been described as the beginnings of the de-ideologisation of labour movements in the 1980s,⁵ siding with Solidarność also meant siding with Cold Warriors. Solidarność in some respects highlighted the question what it meant to be on the left for many trade unionists. It is therefore not surprising that the staunchest pro-Solidarity voices on the left tended to come from lapsed Communists, independent leftists and Trotskyites, i.e. people who did not fit into the bipolar world order of the Cold War. Was a workers’ movement challenging an authoritarian and repressive Communist regime less on the left than workers’ movements in Latin America challenging right-wing authoritarian and repressive regimes? Clearly, for some trade unionists in the West there was a difference, whereas others argued that both should be supported

The stance that Western trade unionists took vis-à-vis Solidarność did not only depend on circumstances and actors in the West. It also had much to do with the way that Solidarność policies and actions were presented to the West by key Solidarność members. Personal contacts mattered a great deal. Many British trade unionists, for example, were very taken with Bogdan Lis, when he visited Britain in late February and early March 1981 and support for Solidarność rose markedly thereafter. Lis himself was amazed that British trade unionists seemed keener to talk about détente than about trade union issues, reflecting differences in perception between Polish and Western observers in the early 1980s. The Solidarność Coordinating Office Abroad, founded in Brussels in July 1982 and led by Jerzy Milewski, was particularly important in acting as an intermediary between the Polish movement and the West, including Western trade unionists.

In many Western countries with many Polish migrants and exiles they became active on behalf of Solidarność and influenced the reception of the Polish union movement. If we take the Polish Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in Britain as an example, we can see that Polish migrants were extremely active.⁶ In fact, a breakaway group from the PSC under the charismatic, if somewhat self-centred, leadership of Tadek Jarski, the Solidarity with Solidarity group, consisted almost entirely of Poles living in London (both PSC and Solidarity with Solidarity were highly metropolitan phenomena). The TUC relied on the Solidarity Trade Union Working Group (STUWG), which consisted of Solidarność members who found themselves stranded in London after the imposition of Martial Law. PSC members Jacek Rostowski and Wanda Koscia had been instrumental in setting up STUWG and there were very good relations between the STUWG and the PSC. In France, Gabriel Meretik, who had left his native Poland after the anti-Semitic wave of 1968 to pursue a successful career in French state television and to become its director in the early 1980s, was credited with providing highly sympathetic media coverage for Solidarność. In Belgium, the Christian union AVC/CSC actually had a separate section for Polish workers (mainly miners from the Limburg region), who raised support for Solidarność.

But in a Cold War scenario, what did Western trade unionists do to help Solidarność? First, they issued political statements in support of the independent Polish trade union movement and they lobbied their respective national governments on behalf of Solidarność. After declaration of Martial Law, they also put pressure on their national governments to grant asylum to those persecuted by the Polish government in Poland. Representatives of the AFL-CIO lobbied their government to adopt tougher economic sanctions after the declaration of Martial Law – something that several West European unions, including the TUC, were opposed to. Trade unionists across the West lobbied their governments and the Polish embassies to release known trade unionists who were imprisoned. They issued strong notes of protests against the persecution of fellow trade unionists and participated in demonstrations and other public actions of support for Solidarność. They invited fraternal delegates from Solidarność to their annual congresses who would speak, often movingly, about the struggles of their fellow trade unionists under a Communist dictatorship. Visits of Western trade unionists to Poland had been an important means of direct communication before the imposition of Martial Law, thereafter, Western visits were also seen by some as an important tool to keep up the pressure on the Communist regime, but became increasingly difficult to organise.

Western trade unions gave aid to the Polish people; interestingly, the German DGB, whilst hesitant to endorse Solidarność wholeheartedly, was among those who gave most generously in order to help the Polish people in the dire economic crisis that gripped the country in the early 1980s. Money was collected throughout Western Europe to buy food, medicine and clothing often distributed through the Catholic Church in Poland. In France, Solidarité France-Pologne organised the pairing of French and Polish families to give direct help for Poland, and the French unions organised summer holidays for Polish children in France.

Apart from humanitarian aid, Western trade unions gave financial and material aid to Solidarność as a trade union. It was not so much money which helped Solidarność, but typewriters, duplicating machines, paper and printing equipment. The biggest donor was the AFL-CIO, but West European unions also contributed massively. Many West European unions, both at national and regional level, signed cooperation agreements with Solidarność, promising training and the sharing of expertise in how to run a trade union.

The Western trade unions united through international organisations, in particular the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), but also the international professional union organisations, such as the international miners’ or the international transport workers’ federations, in order to give financial, moral and political support to Solidarność. As there was a strict division of labour between the European Trade Union Congress (ETUC), which was responsible for Western Europe, and the IFCTU, responsible for Eastern Europe, we find few statements of the ETUC on the Polish situation. As national union movements often delegated their international political work in Eastern Europe to the ICFTU, it was crucial in terms of information circulation and support actions. It issued declarations of support, gave financial assistance and especially after the declaration of Martial Law organised international protests and relief actions (e.g. International action day, 30 January 1982). As an organisation specifically founded to support free trade unionism around the world, it was ideally positioned to give assistance to Solidarność. The WCL, which often acted jointly with the ICFTU, did not have the financial means to support Solidarność on a par with the ICFTU, but it gave material help, e.g. providing accommodation or travel assistance for Solidarność members. The ILO was vitally important in confronting the Polish government with its own contradictions, as it claimed to represent working class interests, while crushing a genuine workers’ organisation.

The reasons Western trade unionists reacted towards Solidarność had much to do with the national circumstances of particular unions and their representatives. Only if we analyse those reactions in a comparative way, do similarities and differences between these national circumstances become apparent. We can then better understand which reasons were truly national ones, and which ones were trans-national and we can assess how positive or negative that national reaction was in comparison to other national trade unions. Which trans-national actors, both personal and institutional, were active on behalf of Solidarność and the Western trade unions? What influence did they have on different national trade union movements? Overall, historians will only be able adequately to assess the impact of Solidarność in the West and the Western reactions towards Solidarność if they work in comparative and trans-national ways, overcoming the long national orientation of historical writing and contributing to a further Europeanisation of history writing.⁷

Popular perceptions of Western trade unions betraying and ignoring a fellow trade union movement behind the Iron Curtain are largely without foundation. Financial and material support for Solidarność was forthcoming from Western trade unions, even if the situation was complicated by the Cold War in a variety of ways. The existence of small pro-Soviet factions in the West (smaller in some countries than in others) received much attention in the Cold War media of the West, but their influence should not be overestimated. The desire to maintain détente influenced the reaction of Western trade unionists much more than pro-Sovietism. The attachment to the belief that dialogue with Eastern European Communism was desirable and helpful often put Western trade unionists in a difficult situation vis-à-vis Solidarność, in which their actions could be interpreted as only half-hearted support for Solidarność. But the situation was often not as straightforward as Cold Warriors made it out to be. Many Western trade unionists tried hard to maintain their support for the principles of free trade unionism without abandoning hopes for détente. Trade unionists were often supportive of the many solidarity campaigns with Solidarność across Western Europe, and their political, moral and financial support contributed vitally to keeping Solidarność going even after the declaration of Martial Law.