Solidarity

Poland's rejection of communism and it's rippling effects today

Mar 28, 2025

*Poland’s Solidarność movement, circa 1980 (Suspendable Edit)*

Although tempting to once again take a sweep through the centuries of another country’s history, I will abstain (mostly) from that this week. In recent weeks we’ve looked at various revolutions in Eastern Bloc countries which occurred in 1989. Poland is our next stop. We’ll look at a bit of Polish history, but I promise I won’t go as far back as we did with Ireland’s last week. 🇮🇪

Poland's breakaway from communism in 1989 was a pivotal moment in the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and a major event in the end of the Cold War. The transition was largely peaceful and led by the Solidarność movement, a trade union and social movement that had been challenging communist rule since the early 1980s. In 1980, workers at the Gdansk Shipyard, led by Lech Walesa, formed Solidarność, the first independent labor union in the communist world.

It was the firing of Anna Walentynowicz, who would become known as “the grandmother of Solidarność,” which served as the spark to ignite the freedom kindling that had been drying for decades. Walentynowicz was dismissed from her position as a crane operator in the Gdansk shipyard a mere five months before her retirement. She had long been a thorn in the side of her bosses, as well as that of the governing authorities. Her dismissal, for “antigovernment activity,” is what began the workers’ strike which soon swept the entire nation.

Walesa had been fired from the same shipyard back in 1976 because of his involvement in “unlawful” unions and strikes, as well as a commemoration to the victims of the 1970 protests where at least 45 people (according to the corrupt government’s official numbers) were killed across Poland for protesting a rapid increase in food prices. Although fired in ‘76, Walesa remained active in his dissident behavior and at the firing of Walentynowicz helped form, and then lead, Solidarność.

The movement quickly gained millions of members and became a powerful force advocating for political and economic reforms. Walentynowicz and Walesa were both reinstated at the shipyard. But it was too late. The fire was rising across the whole of Poland. The government came to terms with the newly formed union making guarantees for free speech, pay raises and official recognition of Solidarność as a union.

Within two years, the union had 10 million members. But, before Solidarność would reach that milestone, the communist government, declared martial law, banning Solidarność, arresting its leaders in the process, and going back on their agreements to terms by the close of 1981. Despite this repression, the movement survived underground and continued resisting. After 11 months in prison, Walesa was released in November 1982. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and continued underground Solidarność related activities through the mid 1980’s and beyond.

Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism, played a crucial role in Poland’s breakaway from communism in 1989. The Catholic Church was deeply intertwined with Polish national identity and provided a moral and organizational backbone for the opposition to communist rule. The election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II in 1978 was a turning point. As the first Polish pope, he became an international symbol of resistance to communism and an inspiration to the Polish people.

His 1979 visit to Poland was a pivotal moment. He delivered powerful speeches advocating for human rights and dignity. Millions attended his masses, showing that the people’s loyalty was with the Church, not the communist state. His famous words, "Do not be afraid!" emboldened opposition movements like Solidarność. The Vatican and John Paul II also supported the Solidarność movement diplomatically and financially, working with Western leaders like Ronald Reagan to aid the opposition.

Under communist rule, most organizations independent of the state were banned, but the Church remained one of the few institutions outside government control. Churches became centers for political discussion, hosting underground meetings for Solidarność and dissidents. Catholic priests helped distribute banned literature and provided moral and logistical support to activists.

Father Jerzy Popieluszko was a Polish Catholic priest and chaplain of the Solidarność movement who became a powerful voice against communist oppression. His sermons on human dignity, freedom, and justice made him a target of the communist regime. He actively opposed the regime in word and deed. When the Solidarność trade union was formed, he became its spiritual advisor. After the communist government imposed martial law and cracked down on Solidarność, Popieluszko used his sermons to condemn government repression, promote nonviolent resistance based on Christian values, and offer moral support to imprisoned activists and their families. His monthly "Masses for the Homeland" at his church became major events, drawing thousands who sought hope and guidance.

The communist government saw him as a major threat and began harassing him with surveillance, threats, and false accusations. On October 19, 1984, he was kidnapped by members of the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB), Poland’s secret police. He was beaten, tortured, and drowned in the Vistula River. His body was discovered on October 30. His death further galvanized opposition and he later became a symbol of martyrdom for the movement. His sermons on human dignity, freedom, and justice made him a target of the communist regime. His martyrdom further galvanized the Polish opposition and cemented his legacy as a symbol of resistance.

In the short video above about Father Jerzy, the filmmaker of Popieluszko: Freedom Is Within Us says of him, “He had the courage to say things that people were thinking but not talking [about] and not saying, and he died for this.” Father Jerzy lived his faith as too few have and do.

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” -James 1:22-25

Ah, the secret police. Of course Poland had their own secret police like many other nations at the time, including Romania and Czechoslovakia, both of which were covered on the Substack in recent weeks. The main secret police organization in Poland during this time was the Służba Bezpieczeństwa (SB), or Security Service. The SB was an intelligence and security agency operating under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MSW). Its purpose, like all secret police throughout history, was to monitor, intimidate, and neutralize political, social, and religious opposition. The SB worked closely with the KGB and was modeled after Soviet intelligence services.

The SB played a major role in suppressing dissent, particularly during the rise of Solidarność and the events leading up to Poland’s breakaway from communism. The SB monitored Solidarność activists, intellectuals, clergy, and students. They tapped phones, intercepted letters, and planted informants in opposition groups. Activists were followed, threatened, fired from jobs, or denied access to education.

When martial law was declared in late 1981 the SB took the lead in making mass arrests. As mentioned earlier, some 10,000 Solidarność members and opposition figures were arrested. They were also held without trial. Protests were violently suppressed, with some activists tortured and others, like Father Jerzy, killed. The SB planted agents and informants within Solidarność to disrupt the movement. Some high-ranking opposition figures later discovered that trusted colleagues were secret police informants.

Information later came to light than even Lech Walesa was alleged to be one of these informants from 1970-1976, before being fired from the shipyard. A 2008 book called SB and Lech Walesa. Contribution to Biography says that Walesa “wrote reports and informed on more than 20 people and some of them were persecuted by the Communist police. He identified people and eavesdropped on his colleagues at work while they were listening to Radio Free Europe for example." In a previous 2002 book, the author claims that Walesa admitted to signing something while being interrogated during his 1970 arrest.

Whether or not he cooperated with the communist tyrants, Walesa eventually became one of the SB’s top enemies due to his role in Solidarność. By the late 1970s, he was under constant surveillance, harassed, and repeatedly arrested. Then, in the 1980s, the SB launched disinformation campaigns against him, attempting to divide Solidarność and discredit its leadership.

These tactics are nothing new and likely don’t surprise you if you’ve been reading the Substack for a while. We’ve covered secret police organizations in Nazi Germany, Romania, Czechoslovakia, gross similarities to the fbi in their past and more recently, and now Poland’s version. Some of the tacts of the SB were psychological pressure and harassment, fabrication of evidence and disinformation, blackmail using past mistakes, and infiltration to divide and conquer dissident groups.

ALL of these tactics are used by our own government and the fbi. The SB followed activists, bugged their homes, tapped phones, and intercepted mail. They often pressured opposition figures by threatening their spouses and children, and those involved in activism were frequently fired or blacklisted from employment, leaving them financially vulnerable. Surveillance, threats against families, and job loss especially resound for me since I have been on the receiving end of all three.

I suppose I can’t say for certain that I absolutely know that I have been surveilled, but with the training and experience I have, including the fbi’s Surveillance Certification Course (SCC), I am highly confident that I have picked up surveillance on me more than once. Certainly they have surveilled certain aspects of my life such as this Substack and other social media, having been informed by X that the fbi subpoenaed my user profile this past June, as well as Apple notifying me that even my wife’s account had been subpoenaed this past summer. By suspending me mid-transfer, itself an fbi policy violation, the fbi threatened my family. They rendered us homeless and retained our own belongings for nearly two months. Then of course, although I am still *technically* an fbi employee, they have severed all normal connections, including pay, health insurance, retirement, etc., that are typical of an employee/employer relationship.

The SB sometimes created false records to make it appear that a dissident had been an informant. This is part of the contention with Walesa’s information eventually being made public. Some suspect the SB doctored documents about Walesa’s alleged collaboration to discredit him. We know that former fbi attorney Kevin Clinesmith altered an email, thus a doctored document, that led to continued spying on Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign; which I wrote about here. Some activists were also falsely accused of being criminals, spies, or Western agents.

The SB would dig into activists' pasts, including personal or financial issues, to find leverage. Again, we know the fbi has routinely done this type of activity for decades. The most prominent example being that of Martin Luther King Jr., which I wrote about in COINTELPRO 2.0, one of the most read posts on this Substack for a long time. Even minor cooperation, like signing an agreement under duress, could later be used to control and silence individuals. The SB planted agents within Solidarność to create internal divisions. They spread rumors that certain leaders were secret informants, causing mistrust and weakening the movement. This too is true of the fbi. Although I haven’t written about it yet at length, the Gretchen Whitmer fednapping hoax is the most recent prominent example. The fbi used a minimum of 12 informants in that case and introduced any potentially criminal element into it themselves.

With increasing strikes and protests through the mid and late ‘80’s, the communist government agreed to negotiate with Solidarność and other opposition groups. The Round Table Talks, between February and April of 1989, resulted in major concessions, including legalizing Solidarność, allowing partially free elections and establishing the office of President. Like the concessions the communist government made in 1980, they likely planned to go back on their agreements here as well.

However, the June 1989 elections met the communist tyrants with a stunning defeat. The semi-free elections on June 4, 1989, saw Solidarność win almost all the contested seats in the Polish parliament. This result shocked the communists and demonstrated the people's desire for change. By August 1989, Solidarność’s candidate, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, became the first non-communist Prime Minister in Eastern Europe since WWII.

In December 1989, Poland officially removed references to communism from its constitution. The Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR), the communist party, dissolved in 1990. 1990 also saw Lech Walesa elected President in Poland’s first fully free elections. Poland’s peaceful transition set a precedent for other Eastern Bloc countries, accelerating the fall of communism across Central and Eastern Europe. They were the first block to fall. It influenced events like the fall of the Berlin Wall and democratic revolutions in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Poland later transitioned into a market economy and joined NATO (1999) and the European Union (2004).

Today, Poland is one of the strongest countries in Europe. They have made critical investments in military might in recent years, on top of already having one of the most stable, productive, diversified, and growing economies in Europe. They essentially saw economic growth from 1991 until the COVID era, and have continued to bounce back and move ahead since.

I just had to do it didn’t I. I had to mention COVID 😂 That brings us to our next chapter in the wide reaching ripples of history.

If you haven’t ascertained it yet, Solidarność means Solidarity. What does Solidarity have to do with COVID you might wonder, and the history of the Solidarity movement in Poland. Quite a lot, turns out. But, it also takes us to Canada. Canadian resident Artur Pawlowski was born under the Iron Curtain in the Eastern Bloc Poland. He was there in the 80’s and even recalled in this interview the Solidarity movement and how the Polish people took to the streets to resist the communist dictatorship that he grew up under.

Pawlowski, who pastors the The Cave of Adullam church in Calgary, came to international attention for the bold stand he was making against the governing authorities in Canada during the COVID era. According to Pawlowski, he was arrested 16 times and received 150 tickets for his actions. COVID wasn’t the first time tyrannical government in Canada came for him though. Back in 2010, his church was stripped of it’s “charitable status” (that would be non-profit or 501(c)(3) status here) for spending more than 10% of it’s time on what the government deemed "non-partisan political activities."

Of the government’s actions back then he said his church “has nothing to do with politics and we do not advertise for a party or a candidate. The only political activity you can connect us to is defending our right to speak.” Continuing he added, “When we feed people we don’t care whether they are homosexuals or have had abortions or been divorced but we preach what the Bible says about those issues.” Similar to Jacob Reaume and James Coates who are also from Canad, and today’s example of Father Jerzy, as well as others discussed on the Substack before, Pastor Pawlowski is doing what all pastors should be doing. Truly, what all who claim Christ should be doing. Boldly standing for biblical truth.

Like the others mentioned, and a small handful more worldwide, Pawlowski is standing firm against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:10-20). He’s not leaning into the “cheap grace” false doctrine that Bonhoeffer exposed in Germany. The just preach the gospel, stay in your churches, obey the government no matter what, don’t go forth and make fishers of men satanic lie that so many have fallen victim to. In reality they have fallen victim to their own cowardice. Most churches in America enjoy that 501(c)(3) status. That status effectively renders them useless as the shepherds they are called to be. They have bent the knee to Caesar instead of to Christ. Pawlowski is living out James 1:22-25, mentioned above in the portion about Father Jerzy.

During the epic Canadian trucker convoy to protest COVID vaxxxine mandates, Pawlowski was asked to give a sermon. For wearing a hoodie with Solidarity on it, the government accused him of incitement. After the brief history on Poland’s own Solidarity movement, and it truly was brief, Canada is not a far cry at all from Iron Curtain Poland. In fact, it is more aligned than not. In many ways, so too is America.

So often throughout history it seems that those who have faced the most tyranny are often the ones who end up resisting it when it rears its ugly head again in their life. Pawlowski is no different. He lived through the 1980s communist rule and then change to a freer society. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” -Ecclesiastes 1:9

As many of you know, I reside in Wisconsin these days. If you are in this state, or the surrounding area, Pawlowski will be providing a sermon next Sunday, April 6th at 10am, at Mercy Seat Christian Church, 415 W. Capitol Drive, Hartland, Wisconsin.

Here are a few more relevant links that helped me put all of this together. Thanks for stopping by.

It may not seem like it, but there is a bit of method to my madness and often times common threads through my posts that help current ones build on previous. Here are some relevant ones: