Lech Walesa

For thirty years Poland, like the other countries of eastern Europe's Communist bloc, had not been free. Attempts to oppose the power of the Communist Party had been met with police repression, censorship and imprisonment. But then in 1980 came Solidarity, the first free trade union in the Communist bloc. Solidarity's leader, Lech Walesa, was an ordinary, rather scruffy and bumbling electrician. In front of the world's television cameras he led his followers in non- violent opposition to the state and its police. He calmed his people and kept them from grasping at freedom if it would provoke violence. In 1981 Solidarity was banned. But the people had tasted the hope of freedom. In 1989, when the food shortages and hardships were too much for the state to deal with, they turned to Lech Walesa. Once again Solidarity scored a first when the eastern bloc's election showed almost total support for Solidarity.