Lech Walesa


Lech Walesa (pronounced "Lek va-wen-sa", born September 29, 1943, Popowo,
Poland), is a Polish electrician, trade union activist, and politician. He
founded Solidarity, the Soviet block's first independent trade union, won
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland from
1990 to 1995.

Short summary of his political and social activity:

   * employee of Gdanska Shipyard (Stocznia Gda?ska) as an electrical
     technician: 1967-1976, 1980-1981 and from 1983 till 1990.
   * 1970 - member of the illegal strike committee in Gdanska Shipyard.
     After the bloody end of the strike (after killing 80+ workers by police
     riot) - arrested and convicted for "anti social behaviour" - spent one
     year in prison.
   * 1976 - lost his job in Gdansk Shipyard for collecting signatures for a
     petition to build a memorial for the killed workers. Due to his being
     on an informal blacklist he couldn't find another job and lived thanks
     to his friend personal help.
   * 1978 - together with Andrzej Gwiazda and Aleksander Hall, he organised
     the illegal underground Free Trade Union of Polish Seashore Workers
     (Wolne Zwi?zki Zawodowe Wybrze?a)
   * 1979 - arrested several times for organising "anti-state" organisation,
     but not found guilty in court and left free at the beginning of 1980.
   * August 1980 - after the beginning of occupational strike in Gdanska
     Shipyard - crossed illegally the wall of the Shipyard and became a
     leader of this strike. The strike was spontaneously followed by similar
     strikes across Poland. Several days later he stopped workers who wanted
     to leave Gdanska Shipyard, and persuaded them to organise National
     Coordination Strike Committee to lead and support naturally occurred
     general strike in Poland.
   * September 1980 - Communist government signed an agreement with the
     Strike Coordination Committee to allow legal organisation, but really
     free trade unions. Strike Coordination Committee legalized itself into
     National Coordination Committee of Solidarnosc Free Trade Union. Wa??sa
     was chosen as a chairman of this Committee and kept this position until
     December 1981.
   * After Prime Minster Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of martial
     law, Wa??sa was imprisoned in a "luxury jail" since October 1982.
   * 1983 - applied to come back to Gdanska Shipyard to his former position
     as a simple electrician. Formally treated as "simple worker", he was
     practically imprisoned in his home since 1987.
   * 1983 - awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was unable to accept the prize
     in person, due to a passport ban. Wa??sa donated the prize money to the
     Solidarity movement's temporary headquarters in exile (in Brussels).
   * 1987-1990 Organised and led "half-illegal" Temporary Executive
     Committee of Solidarity Trade Union.
   * 1988 - organised occupational strike in Gdanska Shipyard. The only
     demand was the re-legalisation of the Solidarity Trade Union. After the
     strike had lasted eighty days the government agreed to enter into
     round-table talks.
   * September 1988 - The "Round Table Talks" started. Wa??sa was an
     informal leader of the "non-governmental" side during the talks. During
     the talks the government signed an agreement to re-established the
     Solidarity Trade Union and to organised "half-free" elections to Polish
     parliament.
   * 1989 Wa??sa organized and led Citizenship Committee of the Chairman of
     Solidarity Trade Union, which was formally just a kind advisory body -
     but practically it was a kind of the political party, which won
     parliament elections in 1989 (Formally they took 48% of seats, but the
     51% of seats were given automatically to Communist Party and his ally
     parties according to the Round Table agreements, and 49% were chosen if
     free election).
   * 1989-1990 - Wa??sa was formally just a Chairman of Solidarity Trade
     Union but in fact he played a key role in politics - at the end of 1989
     he persuaded leaders from formally communist ally parties to choose
     first in the Soviet Block non-communist goverment. After that
     "half-secret" agreement, to big surprise of Communist Party, the
     parliament chose for prime minister of Poland - Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a
     close friend of Wa??sa. Poland - still formally being a communist
     country started to change its economy to the free market system.
   * 1990 - Wa??sa won the election and become president of Poland for next
     5 years. During his presidency he started so called "war at the top"
     which practically meant changing the government annually. His style of
     presidency was strongly criticized by most of the political parties,
     and he lost most of the initial public support at the end of 1995.
     However, during his presidency Poland was completely changed - from an
     oppressive communist country under strict soviet control and with a
     weak economy to an independent and democratic country with a fast
     growing free-market economy.
   * 1995 - Wa??sa lost in presidential election. After that he claimed to
     go to "political retirement", but he was still active, trying to
     establish his own political party.
   * 1997 - Wa??sa supported and helped to organise new party called
     "Election Action Solidarity" which won the parliament election.
     However, practically his support had a minor meaning, and Wa??sa had
     very low position in this party. The real leader of the party and its
     main organiser was a new Solidarity Trade Union leader Marian
     Krzaklewski.
   * 2000 - Wa??sa stood in the presidential election again, but received
     less than 1% of votes. After that Wa??sa claimed again to go finally to
     political retirement.


Apart from his Nobel Prize Wa??sa, received several other international
prizes. Despite not having even high school diploma he has been awarded
doctor honoris causa of several US and European Universities. Lech Wa??sa
has been married since 1968 and has 7 children.

Lech Wa??sa is believed by some people in Poland to have been a paid agent
of the SB (Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa - the State Security Service) for more than
10 years during his rise to the top of the Solidarity movement in the Gdansk
shipyards. Wa??sa, under the codename "Bolek", is said to have been
recruited to pass information to the SB, and was bumped into the top
leadership position within Solidarity by other embedded agents of the SB in
an attempt to control the movement. His subsequent break from SB control is
attributed to a new arrangement Wa??sa made with Reagan/Bush's CIA.

Another, slightly "softer" version of this hypothesis is that Wa??sa was
indeed recruited by SB in 1976-1978 when he was jobless and short with
money, and he was their secret informer until 1980, but SB lost completely
control over him during the strike in Gdanska Shipyeard, so he became the
leader of this strike, and letter leader of the Solidarity movement simply
due to his natural personal leadership skills.

The third "spy" hypothesis claims that he was recruited in 1970 or 1971 when
in prison, but he off broke contact with SB in 1976, which was a real reason
of losing his job in Gdanska Shipyard.

Finally there are also "combinations" of these hypothesis: one of those
suggests that he was first recruited in 1970, then indeed he broke his
contacts in 1976, but after losing job, asked for reestablishing of these
contacts due to lack of money, and then, he broke these contacts finally
again in 1980 during the strike.

However, none of this "spy theories" have never been seriously proved. In
fact - all his activities during the strike in 1980 and leadership of
Solidarity Trade Union during 1980-1981 are strongly against the theory that
all that time he was a SB spy, and it require assumption that secret service
wanted to destroy their own political system by bumping such a good and
effective leader to the top position of strongly anti-communist social
movement. However, the possibility that he was temporarily a SB informer in
1970 or 1976 seem to be psychologically probable.

Wa??sa himself has consistently maintained that the SB attempted to recruit
him several times, as was the case of most of the prominent anti-communist
leaders, but he never agreed; and that all the documents with his signature
found in SB files were prepared in order to destroy his position within the
Solidarity movement.

Prior to the 2000 presidential election, he was cleared to hold political
office by a special "vetting court", which held the photocopies of documents
pertaining to agent "Bolek", including signed receipts for payments from the
SB, were inadmissible. The original documents, if they in fact existed, were
likely pulled from SB files and destroyed together with many other files,
which disappeared at the end of the communist regime.