Word: walesa
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...Miroslav Chojecki, an associate of arrested Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, added that he could foresee anoptimistic end to the present crisis in Poland, only if the Soviet Union decides that "Poland is necessary to them as a well-functioning social and economic system...
Even more important than the organizational problems for Walesa and Solidarity was the question of defining policy and strategy. In the beginning, Walesa insisted that Solidarity should be a pure and simple labor movement, not a political opposition. On the day he showed up at a Gdansk apartment building to open Solidarity's first makeshift headquarters, a wooden crucifix under his arm and a bouquet of flowers in his right hand, Walesa told a crowd of reporters, "I am not interested in politics. I am a union man. My job now is to organize the union...
...union were becoming unbearable; martial law, not yet imposed, was only days away. He had been awakened at 4 a.m. by a Solidarity delegation from the city of Radom, which warned him it was going to call a general strike that would affect an important armaments factory. Walesa was furious to find such a strike was being considered, and the men had argued for hours. At breakfast, he made peace with the delegation, which agreed to put off the strike. "lam absolutely finished and run down," he said later. "I have more problems than the hairs on my head." Then...
...holding talks with a committee of leading Catholic laymen. Poggi delivered a letter from the Pope to Jaruzelski and had a long discussion with him. The Pope also received a personal report on the Polish situation from Polish Bishop Bronislaw Dabrowski, who had twice visited Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa in detention. What was most interesting about these diplomatic contacts between the Warsaw government and the Vatican was the implication that Poland's present rulers would welcome the support of the church in the event of future negotiations between the government and Solidarity...
Hence the extraordinary challenge that Lech Walesa and Solidarity-the real Polish united workers' party-have represented not only to the Communist regime of their own country but to its prototype and master that watches, waits, worries and issues warnings from across the border in the Soviet Union. The Kremlin may still dismiss the Poles as indolent dreamers, but the whole world knows better. Even if their stubborn defiance ends tragically, the Poles have proved themselves tough, determined and courageous enough not to work for a system that does not work for them-and to work for something better...