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  Poland's Forgotten Battle: Who Deserves Credit for the 1989 Revolution?

Poland's Forgotten Battle Who Deserves Credit for the 1989 Revolution?

By Jan Puhl

Part 2: A Matter of Respect

"Solidarity was the drop that filled the barrel of freedom," Sniadek says. He is hardly surprised that few Europeans today remember what his labor union achieved. "The media needs icons," he says, "and the fall of the Wall is a more effective visual symbol of the collapse of communism in 1989 than the change of government in Poland, which we achieved following difficult negotiations." Still, he adds, his country does deserve more recognition for the contributions it made at the time: "We Poles have not emphasized this clearly enough."

He couldn't be more right. Solidarity and the state of Poland officially celebrated the 20th anniversary of the elections of June 4, 1989 separately and at a clear distance from each other. Sniadek and the members of his union marched through Gdansk to mark the anniversary and to voice their support for the shipyards, which are constantly being threatened with going broke.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, on the other hand, marked the anniversary by inviting state guests, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to the heights of Wawel Castle in Krakow. It would seem that he was eager to spare them the sight of angry Solidarity demonstrators, who were celebrating the anniversary by throwing stones.

Still, it wasn't just the workers who wrested power from the communists at the time. In fact, the strike movement only gained clout after Walesa joined forces with dissidents like Stefan Bratkowski.

Today, Bratkowski gives lectures at the Warsaw School of Journalism, where his work focuses on freedom of speech issues. The communist punished the 74-year-old for years by refused to let him publish his writings.

The fact that the world hardly recognizes Poland's contributions to the fall of communism does not overly upset the professor. "Sitting around the round table, we had no idea at the time that we would bring about the overthrow of the regime," he says.

Bratkowski also feels that it's simply "obscene" that people are now taking General Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's prime minister at the time, to task for having imposed martial law. Despite all objections, Bratkowski still credits Jaruzelski with having made the change of government possible in the first place.

Poland's political right, on the other hand, believes that the changes in the system are incomplete and that the communists were never fully purged from Poland's economic and governmental apparatus. Even today, Walesa must contend with accusations that he collaborated with the Polish analog to East Germany's dreaded secret police, the Stasi. Indeed, the central issue of the campaign platforms of the Kaczynski brothers in the parliamentary election two years ago was the fight against old Communist Party networks.

The twins Lech and Jaroslav Kaczynski -- the former Poland's current president and the latter its opposition leader -- have made it their life's work to finally win for their country the position they believe it has earned in history. Two years ago, for example, Lech wrangled with EU leaders in Brussels over how much future weight Poland's voice should have within the organization.

Jaroslav supported his brother's claim that, if it hadn't been for the losses Poland suffered in World War II, it would have a population of 66 million instead of the 38 million it has today. For that reason, he argued, Poland is entitled to a particularly strong voice in the EU. But Kaczynski failed to get Brussels to back his position.

Sharing a Place in History

Still, there are also those who don't think that Poland should continue fighting for greater recognition. Journalist Wojciech Duda, for example, thinks that doing so is a bad idea because it "would make us unbearable."

Duda, a slim, gray-haired intellectual, meets with visitors in the offices of Prime Minister Tusk on Gdansk's main thoroughfare. Duda also advises Tusk on questions of government policy related to historical issues. "We can't just present Europe with a bill for freedom," he says. The Kaczynski era, Duda adds, was a confrontational era that divided Europe. In his opinion, instead of achieving greater respect, the shrill tones coming from Warsaw during that time tended to attract European suspicions on Poland and revive old prejudices. For these reasons, Duda believes it is wrong to celebrate the landmark year 1989 merely as a year of Polish triumph. "In 1989, all of Europe had a historic experience," he says, "which we intend to stress as a shared memory."

The image of American actor Gary Cooper (1901-1961) is now being used to promote Solidarity and its victory as part of a broader European heritage. The Polish Embassy in Berlin has revived a motif from the June 1989 election campaign. A 66x17 meter poster hangs from the embassy building on Unter den Linden, Berlin's main boulevard, that depicts Cooper in the 1952 western "High Noon." He is wearing a Solidarity emblem above his sheriff's star; and instead of a revolver, he is carrying a ballot. The intended message: It all began in Poland.

The PR campaign has already chalked up its first success. Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit has put a life-sized version of the Gary Cooper poster on the wall of his study.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan