Interviews with Andrzej Gwiazda and Joanna Duda-Gwiazda

JOANNA DUDA-GWIAZDA: Paradoxically, the idea to create free labor unions surfaced after an analysis of the activities of the Workers Defense Committee [KOR], which in truth, we were earnest supporters of. Because we decided that even the noblest group of intelligentsia would not defend the workers. Things could not stay this way; the workers had to stand up for themselves. And also in addition to these political issues, pertinent to these worker cases, there are problems relating to work: exploitation; unfair piece-work, nonpayment for overtime, working conditions, you know? So that no one from the outside is able to resolve such things, except that a labor union has to be organized.

So that is exactly what happened. Solidarity [a labor union formed by Gdansk shipbuilders that transformed into a nationwide resistance movement] did not come into being all of a sudden. First we founded the Organizing Committee of the Free Labor Union. It was on the eve of May 1st of 1978. Andrzej [Gwiazda] was one of the signatories – there were three signatories of the Foundational Declaration. There was also Krzysztof Wyszkowski [a Polish labor activist], [Antoni] Sokołowski [a Polish labor activist] and Andrzej [Gwiazda]. And I have to say this was a bulls-eye because the Communist system had no resistance to being attacked from the left flank. We often repeated this adage of [Vladimir] Lenin’s [founder of the Soviet Union], that whenever there is a conflict between the –

ANDRZEJ GWIAZDA: This was a doctrine, really –

JOANNA DUDA-GWIAZDA: A doctrine, ok – between the working class and the [Communist] Party, then it is the working class who is right. In addition, we were protected, at least formally – it is something called the ILO, the International Labor Organization [an organization created in 1919, as part of the Treaty of Versailles, to safeguard social justice and workers’ rights; it became a United Nations agency in 1946], their conventions, and we cited these. In addition, a labor union is basically allowed to engage in anything. There is no – it is more secure than a political party.

If we had founded a political party, then of course we would have been open to instant attack. On the other hand, a trade union, the authorities didn’t quite know what to do with that. We received mass support immediately. I mean, even in the period of the Organizing Committee, for two years – in 1978 and 1979, and the outbreak of the [Lenin Shipyard] strike was in 1980.

So people came to us with some trepidation. But we were publishing our newsletter, which was read everywhere, people handed it off to one another, because this was finally, a newsletter for the workers. For regular folks.

JOANNA DUDA-GWIAZDA: So it was then the Organizing Committee wrote a leaflet in defense of Anna Walentynowicz [a Polish labor activist and shipbuilder whose firing helped spark the 1980 Lenin Shipyard strike], and attached an instruction on how to strike. And so the hope was that employees of the shipyard would go out on strike, and that is what happened. And of course the strike was decided on by the crew, but of course Anna Walentynowicz was such a popular person at the shipyard, her authority was so great there – she had spent many years working there. And she was a fantastic professional, who also had some significant achievements in social service. So it was over Anna Walentynowicz that the shipyard went on strike.

This is how the Great Strike began, though after 3 days it was over, Lech Walesa [the leader of the Solidarity independent trade union and served as president of Poland from 1990-1995] decided that there was no need to continue with the strike. But that is when members of the free labor union called together an inter-establishment strike committee, thereby unifying all the plants that were out on strike at that time. So beginning with August 16, strikes were being conducted by the group from the free labor unions.

We had all those situations, you know, sort out, we know how to do this. We were mainly about preserving as broad a base of democracy as possible. And so the rules were more or less such that in the minor affairs individual members of the board would make decisions, in a more important issue is the entire board would vote, and in crucial issues the delegates of all the plants which are on strike would have to. In the absolutely most critical affairs would be put to a referendum of the workers.

There were attempts to break up the strike with various methods, but one thing the authorities could not succeed at, was they could not say that the free labor unions were some kind of political creatures coming from the outside, because we were from these production plants. The people knew us, they knew that we were not politicos who were sent to them, but we were a part of them, part of the working crews.

ANDRZEJ GWIAZDA: The beginning of the strike showed us that we had underestimated ourselves – after all we had only published eight issues of the Coastal Worker periodical. And the quantity was – How much was there?

JOANNA DUDA-GWIAZDA: Between 1500 and 2000 copies.

ANDRZEJ GWIAZDA: So between 1500 and 2000 copies. Because we didn’t have a press; we had to print by hand. It was very difficult to get a hold of enough paper. Purchase of any large quantities – a ream or more was subject to suspicion by security. So then – And when I came to the gate of the shipyard and I said my name, people whom I had never seen before in my life told me, ‘well, we’re glad to see you here and here is your armband that you can walk around without anybody bothering you’ – and one of them gave me his strike armband.

So it turned out that we were well-known and our activities so to speak had circulated much further than we had initially thought. But as an example this is an understandable thing, Poles are commonly characterized as unruly troublemakers, but what I believe is that we have a national trait of respect for rule of law.

Andrzej Gwiazda, born in 1935 in Pinczow, Poland, and his wife, Joanna Duda-Gwiazda, born in 1939 in Krzemieniec, Poland, were prominent anticommunist opposition leaders in the 1970s and 1980s.

Andrzej studied electronics at Gdansk University of Technology and graduated in 1966. Joanna Duda graduated from the Gdansk University of Technology in 1963 with a degree in engineering and shipbuilding.

After marrying in 1961, Andrzej and Joanna became more active in opposition movements. Andrzej participated in the student protests against the Polish government in 1968; he also took part in the December 1970 demonstrations that were sparked by sudden increases in food prices. In 1976, the Gwiazdas wrote a letter to the Polish Parliament expressing their support for the Workers’ Defense Committee, an anticommunist underground civil society organization in the 1970s, formed to provide assistance to laborers and others persecuted by the government. Soon after, the Gwiazdas were officially banned from leaving Poland and were placed under surveillance.

In 1978, Andrzej helped to found the Free Trade Unions of the Coast and began publishing and delivering its bulletin, Worker of the Coast. Joanna worked as the bulletin’s editor. Andrzej was a member of the Presiding Committee of the Strike at Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard in August 1980, a workers strike that attracted nationwide, popular support and forced the communists to the negotiating table. Joanna also participated in the Lenin Shipyard strike and, along with her husband, co-authored the 21 demands issued by the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee to the communist authorities advocating for the establishment of an independent trade union and other workers’ rights. The government accepted these demands in what became known as the Gdansk Agreement.

In 1980, Andrzej became the Vice President of the Founding Committee of Solidarity, and served as the Vice President of Solidarity, the first independent labor union in the communist world that transformed into a nationwide freedom movement. Joanna was a member of the Regional Board of Solidarity in Gdansk until December 1981, when the Gwiazdas were imprisoned after the government declared martial law in an effort to crackdown on political opposition. Joanna was released in July 1982 and Andrzej was held in prison until May 1985.

While the Gwiazdas opposed the Round Table Talks that led to semi-free elections in 1989, believing that Solidarity shouldn’t meet the demands of a weakening Communist Party, they remained active in their opposition to communism until its collapse. They have since retired to Gdansk.

Poland is a central European country bordered by the Baltic Sea, Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, Russia, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Poland has a population of 38 million people; nearly 90 percent are Roman Catholic.

Poles struggled against foreign dominance from the 14th century and the modern Polish state is less than one hundred years old. Polish borders expanded and contracted through a series of partitions in the 18th century. After a brief period of independence and parliamentary democracy from 1918 to 1939, World War II brought occupation by Nazi Germany and the near annihilation of the Jewish population. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Poland’s Jewish population went from over 3 million in 1933 to 45,000 in 1950.

After the war, Poland became a Soviet satellite state and a communist system was imposed. Farms were collectivized, basic freedoms curtailed, and a culture of fear developed under a Stalinist regime. The 1960s brought greater prosperity and some liberalization. Labor protests in the early 1970s tested the communist government’s resolve and prompted modest reforms.

In 1978, Polish Archbishop and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century. The pope’s triumphant return to Poland in 1979 saw massive outpourings of public support, shaking the foundations of the government and inspiring the opposition to press for peaceful change.

In 1980, shipbuilders in the seaport city of Gdansk united to confront the government. Their calls for greater political liberties and improved working conditions developed into the Solidarity movement. Solidarity’s leader, Lech Walesa, became the movement’s voice. Protests and unrest spread throughout the country and the communists replaced their leadership. General Wojciech Jaruzelski became prime minister and declared martial law on December 13, 1981. Solidarity was outlawed and Walesa and other Solidarity leaders were imprisoned.

While martial law was lifted in 1983, Poland continued to stagnate. Mikhail Gorbachev’s elevation to leadership of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985 brought new pressures for reform in Poland. A failing economy and continued repression incited workers to a new wave of strikes in 1988. A desperate regime agreed to legalize Solidarity and conduct semi-free elections. In the 1989 parliamentary elections, Solidarity won 99 of the 100 Senate seats and 160 of the 161 lower house seats they were allowed to contest. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a Solidarity leader, became Poland’s first non-communist prime minister in over four decades. In 1990, Lech Walesa was elected president with 74 percent of the vote. While Solidarity splintered as Poland democratized, a coalition government of anti-communist parties won fully free parliamentary elections in 1991.

Poland transitioned to a market economy and applied for integration into western institutions. Economic dislocation returned the former communists, now social democrats, to power in 1993. Free elections and peaceful transitions in the following decades solidified Poland’s multi-party democratic system. Reforms eventually led to a more robust economy and Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2013, Poland earned the status “Free,” (as it has since 1990) receiving the best possible rankings in the categories Political Rights and Civil Liberties.