Word: lech
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Without that sea change in Moscow, it would be difficult to imagine the events of last week. There could hardly be more dramatic evidence of a break with the old thinking than the recent events in Poland. Solidarity leader Lech Walesa signing an agreement, smiling even, with Polish Communist officials. The union grew out of economic despair in 1980 and was crushed the next year by the imposition of martial law, one of the last ironfisted displays of Brezhnev-style authority...
...cafes, discovered the potential (and, yes, the frustrations) of private entrepreneurship; they have watched candidates debate on television and be asked whether they believe in God. And they have read articles brushing the dust off Trotsky, probing the demonic mind of Stalin and introducing them to the ideas of Lech Walesa...
...second chamber of parliament, a revived senate that would include non-Communist candidates. Party leader Wojciech Jaruzelski, who presided over the crackdown outlawing Solidarity in 1981, was uncharacteristically exuberant: "Significant progress is being made to construct parliamentary democracy in Poland." In a church basement across the city, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa told his supporters that Poland was entering a decisive stage "we hope will lead to democracy and freedom...
...17th century Palace of the Council of Ministers, 57 people took seats at a massive table built especially for the occasion. Ranged around one side were negotiators for Poland's Communist government, led by the Interior Minister, General Czeslaw Kiszczak. On the other hunched the portly, moustached figure of Lech Walesa at the head of a 25-member team from the banned Solidarity trade union and other opposition groups...
...must meet: renouncing all foreign financial support -- including U.S. aid -- and vowing to suppress any attempt by its members to hold public demonstrations or marches. The statement proposes that the timetable for introducing trade-union pluralism should be reached at "round- table talks" that include the government, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa and other groups. Jaruzelski left little doubt that his new approach to Solidarity was motivated by the realization that his only hope for revitalizing the Polish economy lay in enlisting the cooperation of the country's disaffected workers. It is also a tacit acknowledgment that both Jaruzelski's economic...