Lech Wałęsa; born September 29, 1943) is a Polish politician and a former trade union and human rights activist. He co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland from 1990 to 1995 (succeeded by Aleksander Kwaśniewski).

Lech Walesa

Wałęsa was born in Popowo, Poland, to a carpenter and his wife. He attended primary and vocational school, before entering Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk (Stocznia Gdańska im. Lenina, now Stocznia Gdańska) as an electrical technician in 1967. In 1969 he married Danuta Gołoś, and the couple now have eight children.

He was a member of the illegal strike committee in Gdańsk Shipyard in 1970. After the bloody end of the strike, resulting in over 40 people killed by the riot police, Wałęsa was arrested and convicted of "anti-social behavior" and spent one year in prison.

In 1976, Wałęsa lost his job in Gdańsk Shipyard for collecting signatures for a petition to build a memorial for the killed workers. Since he was on an informal blacklist, he could not find another job and was supported, for a time, by friends.

In 1978, together with Bogdan Borusewicz, Andrzej Gwiazda, Aleksander Hall, and others, he organized the illegal underground Free Trade Union of Pomerania (Wolne Związki Zawodowe Wybrzeża). He was arrested several times in 1979 for organizing an "anti-state" organization, but not found guilty in court and released at the beginning of 1980, after which he re-entered the Gdańsk shipyard.

On August 14, 1980, after the beginning of an occupational strike in the Lenin Shipyard of Gdańsk, Wałęsa illegally scaled the wall of the Shipyard and became the leader of this strike. The strike was spontaneously followed by similar strikes, first in Gdańsk, and then across Poland. Several days later, he stopped workers who wanted to leave Gdańsk Shipyard, and persuaded them to organize the Strike Coordination Committee (Międzyzakładowy Komitet Strajkowy) to lead and support the naturally occurring general strike in Poland.

In September of that year, the Communist government signed an agreement with the Strike Coordination Committee to allow legal organization, but not actual free trade unions. The Strike Coordination Committee legalized itself into National Coordination Committee of Solidarność Free Trade Union, and Wałęsa was chosen as a chairman of this Committee.

Wałęsa kept this position until December 11, 1981, when he was arrested. General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of martial law on December 13. Wałęsa was interned for 11 months in south-eastern Poland near the Soviet border until November 14, 1982.

In 1983, he applied to come back to Gdańsk Shipyard to his former position as a simple electrician. While formally treated as a "simple worker", he was practically under house arrest until 1987. The year 1983 also saw Wałęsa being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was unable to receive the prize himself, fearing that the government would not let him back in. His wife, Danuta Wałęsowa, received the prize in his place. Wałęsa donated the prize money to the Solidarity movement's temporary headquarters, exiled in Brussels.

From 1987 to 1990 Wałęsa organized and led, the "half-illegal" Temporary Executive Committee of Solidarity Trade Union. In 1988 Wałęsa organized an occupational strike in Gdańsk Shipyard, demanding only the re-legalisation of the Solidarity Trade Union. After eighty days the government agreed to enter into talks in September. Wałęsa was an informal leader of the "non-governmental" side during the talks. During the talks the government signed an agreement to re-establish the Solidarity Trade Union and to organize "half-free" elections to the Polish parliament.

In 1989, Wałęsa organized and led the Citizenship Committee of the Chairman of Solidarity Trade Union. Formally, it was just an advisory body, but, practically, it was a kind of a political party, which won parliament elections in 1989 (the Opposition took all seats in the Sejm that were subject of free elections and all but one seats in the newly re-established senate; according to the Round Table agreements only members of the Communist Party and its allies could stand for the remaining 64% of seats in the Sejm).

While technically just a Chairman of Solidarity Trade Union at the time, Wałęsa played a key role in Polish politics. At the end of 1989, he persuaded leaders from formerly communist ally parties to form a non-communist coalition government, which was the first non-communist government in the Soviet Bloc's sphere of influence. After that agreement, to the big surprise of the Communist Party, the parliament chose Tadeusz Mazowiecki for prime minister of Poland. Poland, while still a communist country in theory, started to change its economy to a market-based system.

He was the first non-head of state to address a joint meeting of Congress on November 15, 1989 . He was also the first recipient of the Liberty Medal on July 4, 1989 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In his acceptance speech, he said, "Liberty is not only a right, but also our common responsibility and duty."

Presidency and afterwards

On December 9, 1990, Wałęsa won the presidential election to become president of Poland for the next five years. During his presidency, he started a 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 by the end of 1995. After downfall of Jan Olszewski cabinet on June 1992, following uneveil list of secret collaborainistry of Internal Affairs and Administration of the Republic of Poland Antoni Macierewicz, Lech Wałęsa was allegedly linked with illegal prosecution and disintegration of Polish conservative and independent rightist parties (so called Instruction UOP nr 0015/92).

Wałęsa lost the 1995 presidential election. This was by less than 1%, a margin which many people considered would have been comfortably overturned if the revelation had come earlier that his opponent had falsely claimed to have a university degree - and used Wałęsa's lack of higher education as a political weapon. Calls for a new election were dismissed.

In the early 1990s, Wałęsa had proposed a "NATO-bis" as a subregional security framework. The concept, though supported by Polish right-wing as well as populist movements, and by politicians such as Leszek Moczulski, gained little support abroad, as Poland's neighbors, some of whom had only recently regained independence, tended to perceive the concept as imperialistic.

After that, he claimed to go to "political retirement", but he was still active, trying to establish his own political party. In 1997 Wałęsa supported and helped to organize a new party called Solidarity Electoral Action (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność) which won the parliamentary elections. However, his support was of minor significance and Wałęsa held a very low position in this party. The real leader of the party and its main organizer was a new Solidarity Trade Union leader, Marian Krzaklewski.

Wałęsa again stood for the presidential election in 2000, but he received only 1% of votes. Many Polish people were dissatisfied with the fact that once again he wanted to regain his political power. After that, Wałęsa again claimed his political retirement. From that time on, he has been lecturing on the history and politics of Central Europe at various foreign universities. Although not politically engaged anymore, Wałęsa is still publicly addressed as President.