Lessons From Polish Resistance Forty Years On

As the world faces down more threats from creeping socialist influences at home and brutal communist dictatorships abroad in countries like Cuba, Russia, China, and North Korea, we can look to the example of the Polish Solidarity movement for instruction on how to undermine Marxist ideology through a Christian ethic and a unity that arises from a commitment to the truth over lies. December 13 marks the 42nd anniversary of the Moscow-backed Polish Communist Party imposing martial law, installing a military junta as the new head of government to crack down on the Solidarity movement that was stirring up resistance to Soviet rule.

The conflict between the Soviet regime and the Solidarity movement in some ways represents the apogee of the Cold War in Eastern Europe. While the junta attempted to forcefully uphold a Marxist vision of the world in Poland, one where each person was only a cog in a machine built to serve the state, Solidarity proposed a Christian worldview, one where each person is an individual made unique in the image of God and therefore imbued with inherent worth.

Solidarity, then, posed a grave threat to communist rule not because it threatened a violent military revolution, but because it did precisely the opposite: the ten million Polish workers of the Solidarity trade union rejected the socialist notion that war and conflict are the immovable foundations of human society.

As the late philosopher Leszek Kolakowski, a one-time Marxist who later became one of Marxism’s foremost critics, told me back in 2002, “stripped of all slogans, Marxism teaches social salvation by bringing the morals of war into the peacetime relations of men.” Every member of society, Kolakowski said, is, according to communism, a soldier. Workplaces, whether they be schools, hospitals, or offices, are combat fronts where any dissent to communist orthodoxy must be identified and destroyed.

In accordance with this combat ethic, the Polish Communist Party did not tolerate “soulful ravings,” expelling members for mentioning things like “love,” “humanity,” “justice,” and even “morality.”

The Solidarity movement was the antithesis of this ideology. It drew heavily from the leadership of religious figures like Pope John Paul II (formerly Karol Józef Wojtyła) who, before his election in October 1978 as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, had served as the Cardinal Archbishop of the Polish city of Krakow and consistently taught believers that they should reject the devaluation of human life inherent in the Marxist view of the world.

“God created the human person to dialogue with Him and his fellow man,” Wojtyła said in a sermon after the communist-controlled Polish army killed shipyard workers in Gdansk in December 1970. “Man should always build for and never against another person; man is called to sow and cultivate solidarity.”

The Solidarity movement promoted a different kind of unity than the one enforced by the Soviet regime. While Moscow attempted to force every man, woman, and child to adhere to Marxist doctrine, the Solidarity movement harnessed a natural unity that arose from a shared commitment to values like individual liberty, the rule of law, and an adherence to moral and biblical truths.

This commitment to the truth was perhaps best displayed by Anna Walentynowicz, one of the unsung heroes of the Solidarity movement. As just one example, in 1980 when the Polish Communist Party unveiled a monument to those workers killed in a shipyard uprising in 1970, she refused to recognize it as a “reconciliation memorial,” saying instead that it must be a tribute to the fallen and a reminder of the crime against the Polish people perpetrated by the communist regime.

In the lead-up to the imposition of martial law, the Soviet regime rejected any attempts at a dialogue with the Solidarity movement, adhering to their combat ethic that any dissent must be destroyed. They falsely told the families of communist party members that the Solidarity members wanted to attack and even kill them. When the communist secret police arrested Solidarity leaders on the night of December 13 before declaring martial law, the party arranged for theatric evacuations of party officials’ families to “protect” them from the enemy.

The junta continued a purge of the Solidarity movement – but this only stiffened their resolve further. The movement went underground, continuing to rally resistance to the Soviet regime and undermining the authority of the junta.

Finally, in the late 1980s Solidarity leaders entered into negotiations with the Soviet government. In 1989, Poland held the first semi-free pluralistic elections since 1947, resulting in Lech Wałęsa, one of the prominent figures in the Solidarity movement, becoming president.

This stunning occurrence lit the fuse that just a few months after the Polish elections resulted in the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Two years later, the Soviet Union itself dissolved and disappeared from the map of Europe.

A year before the Polish elections, inspired by the progress being made by the Solidarity movement and the teachings of Pope John Paul II, a group of Catholics in Cuba led by the late Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas founded the Christian Liberation Movement. In the group’s publication “Pueblo De Dios,” they called for solidarity and Christian dialogue based on truth to achieve justice that would ensure liberties for all, drawing from the rhetoric of the Solidarity movement.

“Marxism is foreign to our roots. It has no connection with our birth as a nation,” they said. The government responded with persecution and long-term imprisonment.

To this day, the Christian Liberation Movement, Ladies in White, and dozens of other Cuban opposition groups are continuing to be faithful to the principles of the Solidarity movement by offering proposals, petitioning, praying, and organizing peaceful protests while rejecting the socialist language of war and degrading Marxist ideology.

The free world now also faces a resurgent Russia, led by a man who longs for a restoration of the Soviet Union, communist China, and communist North Korea. There has additionally been in recent years a dangerous resurgence of socialist-sympathies and behavior corresponding with the communist logic of war throughout the West, including in the United States.

In confronting these threats, we would do well to look to the Solidarity movement for inspiration. Like the Poles a generation ago, the West today should recognize the power of Christian faith in countering the dehumanizing and destructive worldview put forth by modern socialists. Moreover, freedom-loving peoples everywhere can look to the Solidarity movement as an example of how even the most authoritarian government regime is no match for the unified yearning of a people to be free.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.