Abstract

Poland still celebrates the euphoric weeks of 1980 when a huge strike threatened to bring down the Communist government. While the euphoria is long gone, the strike's importance is unmistakable, marking as it did the beginning of the only political movement in the Eastern Bloc that was not defeated in a few days. Defying the Polish regime for a decade, even while outlawed under martial law, the movement was spearheaded by an organization without historical analogue. Solidarity styled itself as a trade union, challenging the Party-State's prerogative to shape industrial relations and wriggling out concessions for labor. Yet the putative…