Interviews with Bogdan Borusewicz

The August Strike [of 1980 in Gdansk] was initiated by five people. That is five people knew about it, and the strike itself was started by three young workers. Such were the forces we commanded. Yet it transformed into something huge. And by the time we were exiting the strike as winners, we were in command of an immense movement. This strike was controlled from the very beginning by my group, and, through the beginning of 1981 the creation of Solidarity was also controlled by my group. And this was why we were successful. Because we knew one another very well.

We trusted each other. We had many discussions about the mistakes that were made in December of 1970 [worker strikes in Poland that were crushed by the regime], and later. We knew which things not to do; we knew the direction to follow. In addition, we had the experiences of Hungary in ‘56 and Czechoslovakia in ’68 [anti-communist uprisings put down by Soviet military power], so that all made it successful. I continued to analyze these individual situations with my friends, the young workers. And they knew what needed to be done.

They knew that you should not let the people outside the walls of the plant; you have to lock yourself in these factories, because there were too few of us to control whatever might happen out in the street. So I was the leader of that opposition group, I was the one who chose the moment to initiate the strike. Then of course I had my input on the progression of the strike, the demands we issued, the framework of how to act in the face of our strike spreading beyond the boundaries, which we had envisioned. But the leadership of the strike went to Lech Walesa [the leader of the Solidarity independent trade union and served as president of Poland from 1990-1995], he would head up the strike, and later became the leader of the entire movement. So he became the steam engine of sorts, pulling the strike.

The August [1980] Strike – there were two components to it – the reasons why it started in that place at that time and why it wound up being successful. In the Lenin Shipyard and in the course of implementing Lenin’s theory – we folded up Marxism Leninism. What Lenin wrote, or what Lenin said, was what is required for revolution are the awakened masses and a group of determined revolutionaries – and he was right. And I was aware of that – because I had read this.

So at the Lenin shipyard, you could say a true paradox came about: At the shipyard which bore Lenin’s name, Marxism Leninism was undone, with application of Lenin´s theory.

Bogdan Borusewicz is the Speaker (Marshal) of the Polish Senate. He was born in 1949 and studied history at the Catholic University of Lublin.

Under communism, Borusewicz was an ardent democracy activist. His career as a dissident started in high school, when he was arrested in 1968 for engaging with the opposition movement. In the 1970s, Borusewicz became involved with the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR) and the Free Trade Unions of the Coast, workers’ advocacy organizations that preceded the Solidarity independent trade union.

Borusewicz rose to prominence as the principal organizer of Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard strike in August 1980, which led to the formation of Solidarity. When martial law was declared in 1981, Borusewicz went into hiding for four years. During this time, he married fellow freedom activist Alina Pienkowska in secret. When Alina gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Kinga, Borusewicz attended her baptism in disguise for fear of being arrested by authorities. He was later arrested in 1986 and imprisoned for two years. After receiving amnesty, Borusewicz renewed his activism, serving as deputy leader of Solidarity in 1990 and 1991. He was elected to the lower house of parliament in 1990, where he served until 2001.

In 2005, he was elected to the Senate, where he was chosen by his colleagues to serve as Speaker (Marshal). In 2010, he served briefly as the interim Polish President after President Lech Kaczynski died.

http://www.b-borusewicz.pl/