Word: solidarnosc
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...funny thing is, the Sparts don't even act like real communists. There are plenty of Leninist parties, notably the pro-Moscow Communist Party (CPUSA) which oppose Solidarnosc, but none of them would endager a union by mixing their anti-Walesa slogans with support for a negotiating American union...
Undeterred by the show of force, Solidarity members and supporters put up a huge poster of their leader, Lech Walesa, who remains interned. When banners bearing the suspended union's familiar SOLIDARNOSC logo were unfurled, the crowd's cheers were interrupted by the shrill sound of police loudspeakers issuing orders to disperse. Then the militiamen charged, beating demonstrators and bystanders indiscriminately. When the protesters responded with shouts of "Gestapo!" the militia began firing flares and tear-gas canisters into the crowd. High-powered water cannons drove some demonstrators into side streets. Others, less fortunate, were knocked down...
...accomplishment of Solidarity and Walesa was that they made it possible for Poles once again to speak their minds. In Solidarity bulletins and hundreds of newly established independent newspapers, articles regularly appeared that would shock the most tolerant censor in any other East bloc country. Solidarity's national weekly Solidarnosc, for example, last month ran a blistering two-part expose on the privileges of top Communist officials. In student clubs, journalists' groups and literary unions, there were open discussions of topics that had been forbidden in the universities, such as Poland's history between the world wars. New publications bloomed...
Dressed in his familiar baggy gray suit, Lech Walesa proudly led his delegation into Room 203 of the Warsaw district provincial court. As hundreds of sympathizers jostled one another outside, the Baltic labor leader slid an eight-page document across the long table. It was the charter of Solidarnosc (Solidarity), the new Gdansk-based umbrella organization representing 36 independent unions from all over Poland. Judge Zdzislaw Koscielniok declared he would examine the charter for two weeks and then rule on its legitimacy. As Walesa departed from the drab sandstone building, cheering workers hoisted him on their shoulders and carried...