The Little-Known Polish Woman Who Brought Down the Soviet Empire

AMAC Exclusive – By Ben Solis

The death this week of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has inspired renewed discussions about the end of the Cold War, as the world also reflects on leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher who finally pushed Gorbachev and the Communist Bloc to their breaking point. But in addition to presidents and prime ministers, the downfall of the Soviet Union was also brought about by millions of ordinary people who showed great courage and bravery in the face of oppression.

One such person was Anna Walentynowicz, a shipyard worker from Gdansk, Poland. 42 years ago last month, a wave of labor strikes that began following Walentynowicz’s firing from her job quickly spread throughout the country, paralyzing some of the Soviet Union’s most important industrial hubs. Though her name is often overlooked in histories of the Soviet period, Walentynowicz played a crucial role in bringing down the Iron Curtain.

From the early 1970s through the fall of the Soviet Union, Walentynowicz was one of the most instrumental figures in opposing Communist oppression in Poland through her involvement in organizing workers against the regime. Along with Lech Wałęsa, Walentynowicz helped found the the Solidarność or “Solidarity” movement, the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country, which eventually played a critical role in bringing about the end of Communist rule in Poland.

Walentynowicz was born in 1929 to a protestant family of five in the Polish region of Wolyn, today part of Ukraine. From an early age, Walentynowicz witnessed the brutality of the Soviet regime, with her brother being sentenced to 15 years in a Siberian concentration camp. Her mother died when she was just eight years old. In 1943, at the height of Nazi Germany’s power, Anna was taken without the knowledge of her father by the owner of a sugar mill to live him with and his family in the Western part of German-occupied Poland. There, she worked as a maid for the wealthy mill owner until she left to work at the shipyards in Gdansk as a welder and crane operator in 1950.

Initially, Walentynowicz was heralded as a hero of socialist labor for her hard work. She became a leader at the shipyard, earning the title of “Hanka of the Proletariat.”

Soon, however, Walentynowicz began to grow disillusioned with the Soviet regime. In 1968, she was fired for the first time from the shipyard for exposing the corruption of a supervisor. Two years later, in December 1970, the government announced major increases in the price of food, a prospect that left many families on the brink of starvation. Protests broke out in several northern Polish cities, including Gdansk. In response, the Soviet regime sent in troops to put down the unrest, leaving more than 40 dead and hundreds more injured.

For Walentynowicz, it was a breaking point. In subsequent years she made efforts to preserve the memory of those who were killed, earning stern warnings, threats from the secret police, and even imprisonment. Her growing dissent became open rebellion, and she fully committed herself to the cause of opposing the regime.

Over the next ten years, Walentynowicz devoted herself to the opposition movement, giving every spare moment and penny to their cause. Her humility and total devotion to the opposition quickly endeared her to its members, and she became one of the leading voices of the movement. In addition to distributing anti-government magazines, writing columns, giving money, and opening her small apartment for opposition meetings, Walentynowicz also became a mother figure for the opposition. She cooked, washed their clothes, and turned her spare bedroom into a guest room. Walentynowicz also continued to give generously to her fellow workers, earning a status of enormous respect within the Gdansk shipyard.

Walentynowicz’s recollection of her first meeting with opposition leaders captures her characteristic humility and genuineness. “They are so wise and educated, and I am a simple worker, a shipyard’s crane operator,” she remembers. “After all, I have no idea about the conspiracy! Will they accept me?” 

In response to her growing involvement with the opposition movement, the secret police continued to threaten Walentynowicz. At work, the shipyard directors transferred her to different sections and deprived her of entrance cards, punishing her with reprimands, salary cuts, and even imprisonment. But nothing deterred her.

Eventually, the authorities were forced to act, and Walentynowicz was fired on August 7, 1980, just a short time before her retirement and pension. In response, her colleagues in the trade unions movement signed a statement in her defense, calling upon workers to protest.

Many thousands answered the call, effectively shutting down Poland’s crucial northern port cities. The demonstrations eventually culminated in the Gdansk Agreement, authorizing Solidarity as the first free-trade union in Communist Europe. Solidarity soon became the world’s largest trade union, with more than 10 million members, although its numbers have dwindled in recent years.

Eventually, the shipyard was forced to offer Walentynowicz her job back. A year later in December 1981, Walentynowicz was arrested and jailed for seven months for anti-government activities. But eight years later, in 1989, Solidarity prevailed in the first semi-free and open elections in the country in decades, effectively ending Communist rule in Poland. Just a few months later, the Berlin Wall would fall, followed by the Soviet Union two years later.

Walentynowicz’s firing helped transform what had originally been protests over rising bread prices into an all-out assault on the Soviet regime. The protestors did not seek a compromise with the Communist regime, but demanded recognition of their rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and dignified treatment of the workers. In many ways, the Solidarity movement stood for what the American Founding Fathers had defined as “unalienable rights.”

There was also a religious component to Walentynowicz’s actions which undoubtedly played a role in the success of the Solidarity movement. Walentynowicz became a close friend of Pope John Paul II, whose portrait she helped place at the entrance to the Gdansk shipyard. It was Walentynowicz who, after several hours of battle with local government bureaucracy, won permission for Sunday masses in the shipyard. That unique service unified the city’s inhabitants that surrounded the shipyard and the workers behind the gate, paving the way for closer cooperation against the regime.

Despite her relatively low profile in history textbooks, Walentynowicz stands as one of the most important figures of the 20th century. Her courage helped pave the way for the fall of Communism in Poland and the rest of the Soviet Bloc. As the world reflects on the life and legacy of Gorbachev, people should also remember the bravery of individuals like Walentynowicz, who can continue to inspire us to this day.

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