Lech Walesa, a key figure in leading Poland away from communism and the dominance of the former Soviet Union, said he and fellow workers at a Polish shipyard searched for inventive ways to rebel against Soviet authority before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Walesa spoke to nearly 300 students at Western Carolina University on Monday afternoon (Nov. 5). Later that evening Walesa, a recipient of the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize who became Poland’s first democratically elected president in 1990, gave an address to the general public on issues regarding democracy, free markets, and globalization.

Speaking through a translator to the students who had gathered in Hines Student Center Auditorium on Monday afternoon, Walesa briefly described how he and a few other dissidents had tried to find ways to fight effectively against Communism. Some 250,000 Soviet soldiers occupied Poland at this time, effectively squashing any hope of armed revolt. Street demonstrations and protests in the 1960s and 1970s had ended in arrests, bloodshed, and disillusionment.

The only possible weapon against oppression, said Walesa, was “to organize well and to be determined not to support communism.” Following this idea, he and others opposed to the prevailing political realities came up with the strategy of taking workers away from the Communist Party.

When striking workers in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk became dispirited by a government crackdown, Walesa, an electrician by trade, climbed atop a bulldozer and gave an impassioned speech which roused the weary workers and led to the creation of Solidarity, the labor movement that became the hope for Polish freedom. In an aside, he joked with the audience about unions, stating that unions needed to realize that they were like parasites on the host and that they needed to be careful not to kill the host.

Until 1979, Walesa said, only 10 other people in Poland were willing to deliver strong protests to the Soviet presence and the communist government. In that year John Paul II — the Polish cardinal who had become pope in 1978, the first non-Italian pope in 400 years — visited his homeland, which is predominately Catholic. After the pope’s electrifying visit, Walesa said, the number of people willing to protest against the communists rose to 10 million.

“I give the pope 51 percent of the credit for our success,” Walesa said. Another 30 percent of the success of the movement may be credited to the activities of Solidarity, with the remaining credit going to anti-communists like then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Walesa ended his brief remarks by showing the students that just as the challenge in his life was to end communism, their challenge was to implement globalization in a world in which there is only one superpower.

“We need to unite continents first, then seek globalization,” Walesa said. He spoke of the need for a world security and legal system, then opened the floor to the students.

Several students rose to put their questions to Walesa. When one asked how so many excommunists from the government were now able to hold positions of prominence in the government and society, Walesa replied, “Communists used to be like radishes — red only on the outside. Many became capitalists.”

Another student wondered whether recent elections indicated that Poland was turning communist again. Pointing out that the United States had a long history of democracy, Walesa replied that Poland’s democracy was not stable yet and that the challenge of making democracy work was equal to the task of getting rid of communism.

Near the end of the session, a student from Poland expressed fear that foreign students might find their status as visitors in jeopardy because of the recent terrorist bombings. After telling some jokes about his own problems with airport security — Walesa travels daily and is therefore marked by computers for many searches — Walesa informed the student not to resent the United States for tightening up various procedures, that such restrictions were the result of terrorism, “the madmen who declared wars.”

In a press conference following the student session, Walesa, a stocky man standing about 5’6”, dressed in a pale green suit and still bearing his trademark moustache, said he viewed the world as burdened with three major problems: terrorism, racism, and border conflicts. He reiterated his belief in the inevitability of globalism. When asked about how much young people related to the struggle against communism, Walesa said he understood that young people weren’t interested much in history and that he himself believed only today and tomorrow really matter.

Contrary to the information in current press releases, Walesa said he would run again for president of Poland. He told reporters he understood quite well that he had no chance of winning, but that participating in the race would give him media access and allow him to keep his ideas in the public forum.

In regard to a question about the hope for democracy in Afghanistan, Walesa cautioned that “the extent to which you enjoy democracy is relative to your bank account.” Afghanistan, Walesa said, would need a good deal of material help before it could possibly consider becoming a democracy.

Walesa, who at times appeared weary and somewhat abrupt in his manner, ended the news conference by saying the terrorist incidents on Sept. 11 might move the West, and the rest of the world as well, toward a more civilized state.

Later that evening Walesa ended his visit to WCU by addressing the public on democracy and globalization. His speech was the second in the 2001-2002 Chancellor’s Speaker Series. Former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, the third speaker, will visit the campus in February.

 

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