Interviews with Lech Walesa
Poland
Gorbachev and the Fall of Communism
“Anyone wanting to stop this thing would have had to kill between one million to ten million people.”
Transcript
Gorbachev [Mikhail Gorbachev, last President of the Soviet Union and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, served from 1985 to 1991] is a decent man, but he was not a man about to fight against Communism. He was about wanting to save Communism. Seeing what is going on, he proposed an overhaul of Communism, believing deeply that he would be successful in this. Now, we are good friends, we are both retired already. So when I would meet with him, I would always ask him two questions.
For starters, you know, “Did you betray Communism?” He would always say, no. Then I would say, “But listen, you are a bright man, so did you really believe that you could overhaul Communism?” And here is the part where he gets upset with me, because he winds up looking either as a traitor against Communism, or as a naïve individual who trusted that you could cut some slack, and then reform it from there and believe that Communism would not fall. So then he played a constructive part, so we are clear, because without Gorbachev it is hard to even imagine all of it. But not in spite of himself, but rather in assessing the situation in a clear headed way.
So he had the tools of violence, but he did not exercise violence. And again, I considered this possibility, [because] when Gorbachev came to power, we were sufficiently strong already, we had built up to a level, both in Poland and in the world at large, that anyone wanting to stop this thing would have had to kill between one million to ten million people.
He was not prepared to do that. He tried, he shot a few people in Lithuania, some in Estonia, but he got it that the resistance was even greater, so he didn’t continue on this path – he tried rather to escape into the future. He tried reforming. So it ended the way it ended. So we have to recognize he is a constructive actor, though under compulsion and not as a volunteer. He did not plan this departure from Communism.
About Lech Walesa
Lech Walesa was born on September 29, 1943, in Popowo, Poland. After primary and vocational education, he pursued a career as an electrician and was employed at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, on the Baltic coast of Poland. As a shipyard worker, he became increasingly active in labor matters and committed himself to promoting workers’ rights. In the 1970s, he became a leader of the effort to establish independent trade unions, which were forbidden in communist Poland. Walesa organized shipyard workers, distributed underground leaflets, and educated workers on their rights.
Walesa was a principal organizer of the Lenin Shipyard Strike in August 1980 and as spokesman for the workers, he quickly became the public face of the independent labor movement. His tenacious negotiations with communist authorities and steadfast support of workers’ rights inspired Poles and resulted in the establishment of the Solidarity trade union, the first independent labor union in the communist world. Solidarity soon expanded its reach beyond labor issues and became the hub for the country’s dissident activity, uniting democratic forces across Poland.
The communist regime attempted to crush Solidarity’s influence and popularity by declaring martial law on December 13, 1981. As the movement’s leader, Walesa was among the first to be arrested and imprisoned. During this time, Poland’s communist government banned Solidarity, but Walesa wouldn’t surrender. He remained a symbol and spokesman for the ideals embodied by Solidarity as the movement continued its activities underground. Walesa’s struggle was recognized by the international community when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983.
As popular dissatisfaction grew against the regime in the late 1980s, Walesa led negotiations with the government to ease tensions. The negotiations resulted in elections on June 4, 1989, that saw the establishment of the first non-communist government within the Warsaw Pact. With the acquiescence of the Soviet Union and inspired by the moral leadership of the Polish Pope, John Paul II, Poland began its transformation to democracy and free markets.
On December 22, 1990, Lech Walesa became the first democratically elected president of Poland. While in office, Walesa was a driving force in Poland’s European integration, laying the groundwork for Poland’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. After leaving office in 1995, he founded The Lech Walesa Institute, an organization committed to supporting democracy throughout the world.