It was the beginning of Solidarity [a labor union formed by Gdansk ship builders that transformed into a nationwide resistance movement]. There were many sociologists who studied after the events, after the birth of Solidarity and the short legal life of Solidarity, those 16 months of 1980 and 1981 until martial law was imposed on December 10, 1981. So during this time, there were sociologists saying that the strongest centers of Solidarity were set up in those regions and towns in which Robotnik [The Worker], this underground short review, printed on small sheets of A3 size paper, this small journal was published and distributed.
And if we think how it happened with me, with myself – so I started as a political author writing under a nickname, and I was known in Poland as Maciej Poleski, Matthew Poleski. In Poland – or abroad– within the circles of Polish emigration, but it was a very small circle you could count on one hand or perhaps one and a half who knew that Czeslaw Bielecki is Maciej Poleski. So during my second trimester of Mokotow jail ‘studies’ and they put me in the same cell with Adam Michnik [a prominent anti-communist activist and Solidarity leader] for one month, I told him in secret during the walk in the cage outside, this half an hour walk, after receiving from him an obligation that he wouldn’t tell Jacek Kuron [a prominent anti-communist activist and Polish opposition leader] and others, that I am Matthew Poleski.
And it was a very, very nice position because during the whole Solidarity period, just I made one poster, you can know, with [entitled] ‘Cardiogram.’ [In ‘Cardiogram’] There’s a brief history of Poland, which starts from ’44 through ’56, ’70, ’76 till 1980 and ends with the logo of Solidarity. That’s such a brief history of Poland, which is now exposed in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum of Berlin Wall in Berlin [Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie]. So I think that my activity during the carnival was an activity of someone who was certain that this day or day after, they will attack us. And that’s what I wrote as Matthew Poleski, that this – only the time of a break, but for sure, communists will attack us, and we have to be prepared.
So I didn’t declare who I am. I didn’t play with my underground articles published under my nickname Poleski. So when martial law came [Poland’s communist government declared martial law from 1981-1983], they didn’t look for me. I was an anonymous person. When they kept me this time, when they put me in the same cell with Michnik, they didn’t know who I am. They knew only that I am someone, let’s say, in the situation where they kept me, that I’m someone linked with a distribution network. But they didn’t identify who I am, what I’m doing, that I founded the CDN [To Be Continued] publishing house [an underground publisher].
Born in Warsaw in 1948, Czeslaw Bielecki is an architect who graduated from the Warsaw University of Technology in 1973 and received his Ph.D. from the Krakow University of Technology in 1997.
Under Communist rule in Poland, Bielecki was a freedom activist who joined the 1968 pro-democracy demonstrations. Despite harassment and imprisonment, Bielecki remained committed to nonviolent struggle throughout the 1970s. He joined the Solidarity independent trade union in 1980. Bielecki was a key figure in Solidarity’s clandestine publishing efforts, including the Solidarity Weekly newspaper. Bielecki also applied his experience and professional artistic background to the development and management of and independent underground publishing house, challenging official censorship and offering Poles alternative news to that offered by the regime. He was twice arrested for his anti-government activities and was held in prison for two years.
From 1997 to 2001, Bielecki was a member of parliament, during which time he served as the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He also served as an advisor to President Lech Walesa between 1990 and 1995.
Bielecki has authored and coauthored a variety of publications describing strategies and experiences from Poland’s freedom movement including The Little Conspirator and Freedom: A Do-It-Yourself Manual. His writings offer advice on how dissidents can organize more effectively and maintain their resilience against tyranny.
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.
See all Poland videos