Word: lech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...parliament outlawed not only Solidarity but all other existing labor organizations as well, clearing the way for a new set of factory-based unions that the government clearly intends to control. With Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa and some 600 other key members still in custody, Jaruzelski was gambling that a dispirited population would accept the union's long-predicted demise without major upheavals. Warsaw's bosses were also hoping that Western opposition would be largely rhetorical...
...crowbars and metal cable to use as weapons. Speaking at the graduation exercises of an officers' training school in Poznan, Jaruzelski warned that "excesses and irresponsible demonstrations" would "not be tolerated." Just before the scheduled demonstrations, the management of several major Warsaw factories played tapes of one of Lech Walesa's moderate speeches, followed by a commentary on how extremists had taken over the union. On the afternoon of the Solidarity anniversary, the state television even scheduled a replay of the now legendary soccer match in July when Poland eliminated the Soviet Union from the World Cup competition...
...Warsaw, about 1,000 demonstrators gathered on Constitution Square and began marching toward the monolithic, Stalin-era Palace of Culture and Science in an effort to link up with another group. Police moving in to break up the crowds were greeted with shouts of "Gestapo!" "Solidarity!" and "We want Lech!"-a reference to Lech Walesa, the detained leader of Solidarity...
...addition to demanding the release of Lech Walesa, the leader of the suspended Solidarity labor union, Poland's Primate outlined three conditions for "national reconciliation": the revival of free trade-union activity, the release of some 600 Poles who remain in detention camps and amnesty for the estimated 2,000 people convicted of violations of martial law and a firm date for a visit by Pope John Paul II to his native land...
Workers at the Lenin shipyard, in the Baltic seaport of Gdansk, laid down their tools on Aug. 14 and refused to leave. As news of the strike spread, an unemployed electrician named Lech Walesa climbed over the shipyard's iron-bar fence and into history. Under his leadership, the workers demanded higher wages, an earlier retirement age, better food supplies and, in a daring political challenge to the regime, the right to organize independent trade unions...