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WE've caught god by the arm-
Hello my friends,The next couple days I am going to share afew facts about some countries that were around my country,I will be doing this on Ukraine, Romania and Yes poland.
Overview
The Soviet forces that liberated Poland from the Nazis at the end of World War II have installed a client communist regime, under which workers cannot organize or represent themselves before the state-owned enterprises that employ them. By the 1970s frustration with 30 years of one-party rule begins to surface, as workers all over Poland twice protest price increases. The regime responds with only temporary concessions that are quickly followed by renewed repression.
By the late 1970s the Polish economy is on the brink of collapse. Prime Minister Edward Gierek eases press constraints and opens a dialogue with the Catholic Church. A visit by Pope John Paul II in 1979 — highlighted by an outdoor mass for three million people — draws Poles together on a scale far larger than anything workers and dissidents had dreamed of. In July 1980, when the government more than doubles meat prices, a series of nationwide strikes ensues. Workers realize that they can escape reprisals by taking their own shipyards and factories hostage.
Former Warsaw factory worker Zbigniew Bujak talks about hearing of the strike in Gdansk.
While many strikers are bought off with higher wages, striking employees at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk remain adamant in their demands. The regime threatens to smother the strike by sealing off Gdansk. Shipyard workers fan out across the city, and sympathetic students and professionals slip through roadblocks, bringing news of the strike to other regions. Vesting ultimate authority in the Gdansk-based Inter-factory Strike Committee (MKS), the workers elect Lech Walesa, a shipyard electrician, as its head. By late August the MKS represents 400,000 workers. Bulwarked by a wave of support from foreign trade unions and intensified media coverage, the MKS soon presents 21 demands, with free trade unions the highest priority. But the committee wisely does not threaten the regime politically by asking for free elections. Ignoring rumblings from the Soviets and squeezed by growing economic pressures, the regime bows to expediency and agrees to free unions, wage increases, and limits on censorship.
Calling itself "Solidarity," the movement decides to expand its charter. At its first national congress in the fall of 1981, an Action Program promotes "self-management" in all areas of society including the establishment of democratic local governments, independent judges, and equal protection under the law. Against Walesa's advice, Solidarity calls for a national day of protest, coupled with an inflammatory referendum amounting to a vote of "no confidence" in General Jaruzelski and the Party. Under Soviet pressure, the state suspends free unions, arrests Walesa and most of Solidarity's national commission, and gags the media.
A new generation of striking workers accelerates the final breakdown. After several years of underground resistance by Solidarity, the Communists are forced to invite Solidarity to help them reconstruct the Polish nation on the basis of a different, multiparty democratic model.
Thanks,many blessings,kathy martin
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