Talk:Solidarity

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[edit] Old talk

Hmm. This needs disambiguastion, don't you think? Przepla 22:10, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Agree but should Solidarity be about the Polish union federation with the disambig page beeing Solidarity (disambiguation). Or should Solidarity be the disambig page? (I'd go for option one myself). Saul Taylor 10:01, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Done. I initially went for option two, but then remembered that this page contains all history, so I created separate disambig. page. Przepla 20:58, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Why isn't there a page on the concept of solidarity? Shouldn't this be the main sense of the word? NTK 03:00, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Because nobody created it yet? Solidarity union is basically here as in Wikipedia articles references to Solidarity are almost always references to this trade union. Przepla 23:18, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a US-based initiative and most americans and most netizens (young paranoid gun-loving male people) are very hostile to positive rights of humans in general, so the philosophical and moral issue of solidarity does not mean anything for them and they do not want to see that in their encyclopaedia. 195.70.48.242 11:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Have you seen the disambig at the top of the article? [[Solidarity (disambiguation)].--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name

What does "Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy Solidarność" mean precisely? A-giau 11:14, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union ‘Solidarność’--Emax 20:03, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-Semitism

I deleted a section on Anti-Semitism, inserted by some anon user. While I agree that Anti-Semitism is an important issue in many cases, the case of Solidarity is not one of them. Presenting the views of two former members who are morons and anti-Semites as if they were spokespeople for the entire, once 4-million strong organization, is a fishy thing. Halibutt 09:29, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


I want to try to find a compromise about this issue. I think, dear friend, that deleting the whole section is not the best thing to do, because it was clearly said at the beginning of the article that Solidarnosc is not an antisemitic organization but some of its members, including Lech Walesa, made antisemitic statements ( Walesa also apologized for it). But I agree with you that calling the section "Anti-semitism" can give a wrong idea of what is Solidarnosc, that's why I insered again the text but calling the section "Polemics about antisemitic claims". I think this can be a good compromise, no? Anyway, it's always better to add informations then to delete them. For example, to balance the section you could say that many Jewish intellectuals were members of Solidarnosc. Best regards!

(Virgilio 12:10, 16 September 2005 (UTC))

Virgilio, I think you missed the point here. The relations with any ethnic group are neither the primary aims of any trade union nor were they ever important to its functioning. As a matter of fact the trade union Solidarność is leftist, but is still a trade union and not a party. Therefore it unites people of all backgrounds, from rightists to leftists, from communists to nationalists. Yet the trade union does not have any official policy towards any ethnic minority in Poland. If you want to add info on specific people, then please do so on their respective pages. However, your remarks on alleged anti-Semitism of some of the former members of Solidarity have nothing to do with Solidarity itself. Also, take note that what you wrote in the article can be said of any other organisation in the world. "Although the United Nations is not an anti-Semitist organisation, one of the former spokespeople of one of the representatives of that organisation is known to publicise....". This is not an information and is completely irrelevant to the main topic of the article. Move it to Henryk Jankowski, Zygmunt Wrzodak or wherever you please. Halibutt 12:36, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


Sorry dear Halibutt, but I don't agree with you. And in my opinion the comparison you made with United Nations is not a good one, beacuse it never happened for example that Kofi Annan made an antisemitic statement but, on the contrary, it is happened that Lech Walesa, the "flag" of Solidarnosc, said an antisemitic bullshit and then he also apologized for it. That's why I think the presence of a section about Antisemitism has a certain importance and telling you honestly reading texts written by Solidarnosc members unfortuntanetely it happens to me to find things like "Jewish bankers control the world" ( maybe not written so explicitely but still..). But I really don't want to start an "edit war", so I'm not going on it anymore leaving the task to who is interested in this section, just I think it's discouraging that sometimes the "myth" is stronger than the truth. My feeling is that maybe when one touches the "flags" it's always a problem. What a pity.

Best regards!

(Virgilio 13:04, 16 September 2005 (UTC))

If you really need to address the anti-Semitism of Wałęsa, you should do it in the article on him and not here. Especially that the only non-PC remarks by him I know come from the times of his presidency and not from the times when he was the head of the trade union.
And the comparison with the UN is completely valid as I bet you'd find some anti-Semite in its ranks, be it current or former. Yet we do not address the anti-Semitism of its members on the page on United Nations. If you don't like the comparison, then exchange the name of that organisation with any other you like, be it American Congress, CDU, Forza Italia, McDonald's or Coca Cola. Halibutt 14:37, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


About Walesa I think it's a good idea to write about his non-PC statement in the article about him and I think I'll do. Your comparison with the UN was wrong not because of the fact that there you can't find antisemites ( I bet there were and there are plenty of them ), but because the man who represent UN never said antisemitic statement and, on the contrary, the man who represented Solidarnosc did. This is the difference! I make you an example. In Italy the biggest trade union is CGIL and between the members of CGIL, even if it is a leftist sindacate, for sure there will be some racist person because, as you rightly said before, a trade union unites people of all backgrounds, but the leader of CGIL, Guglielmo Epifani, never said a racist statement in his life and I never heard a prominent member of CGIL saying a racist word. I think that if a famous member of CGIL would say a racist statement he would be expelled from the union. In the case of Solidarnosc this happened quite often between notorious members like Jankowski. This is what I meant and this is the reason why I thought it was important to write this in the article. But I think that for someone Solidarnosc is "sacred" and they don't want to see the word "antisemitism" in the article. I understand but I don't agree, sorry. Best regards! (Virgilio 20:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC))


Especially that the only non-PC remarks by him I know come from the times of his presidency and not from the times when he was the head of the trade union.

Not exactly my friend. Walesa's statement about the fact he is "100% pole with no Jewish blood" was made a bit before he became president, to be more precise it was during the electoral campaign for 1990 elections. Also others of his non-PC remarks were claimed before his presidency. For more details see [1]. Just to make a punctualization ;) Best Regards! (Virgilio 21:16, 16 September 2005 (UTC))

I think we need to differentiate between personal opinion statements of some people and the organisation policy. Did Walesa and some other Solidarity members made antisemitic remarks? Yes. Did they influence the Solidarity policy so it became an antisemitic organisation? No. Thus, this is not relevant to this article, by but all means, feel free to mention it in their biographical articles. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:27, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I think you're right. Ok, for me the discussion can be closed here. Wish you all a nice weekend;) Best regards (Virgilio 12:58, 17 September 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Vatican's fifth coloumn

It is now fully well known that polish Solidarity was controlled by JPII and the Vatican and was financed by the CIA with money flowing through the Banco Ambrosiana bank of the Vatican. The head of that bank was infamously assassinated in a made-up suicide plot on a bridge because he was concerned that the Vatican's espionage and clandestine diversion actitity against a souvereign state threatens the basic morals and continued existence of the roman catholic church and so he was about to disclose the info. But he did not have the time to do so, as he was assassinated.

This should be clearly addressed in the article, since it shows that Solidarity was not a honest popular movement, but something pre-organized, a puppet hand controlled from the west. 195.70.48.242 11:10, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

please provide your sources.--JK the unwise 11:36, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Ditto.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
The money to run Solidarity came from the CIA via the Vatican (its Banco Ambrosiano affiliate). When the money laundering scandal hit the news, they tried to cover up the purpose of money siphoning activity as a mafia affair. And the banker Roberto Calvi who knew everything was assasinated in London. BBC writes everything here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4737052.stm
The polish movement was only as genuine as the 1956 hungarian events, both were orchestrated and controlled in timing and development by the CIA, who exploited the local people's genuine discontent with the communist regime to serve the imperialist bloc's selfish interests. 195.70.32.136 08:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
And could you back up this statement with a single academic reference?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clerical reaction braked Poland to a food crisis standstill

It should be noted that the reason for food crisis in Poland had nothing to do with communism or socialism. To the contrary, Poland was the only place in the soviet block, where kolhoz-es and sovkhoz-es (people-owned and state-owned agricultural production associations) were NOT forcibly created.

In fact, most land in Poland was continously owned by individual small peasants, who only had a few acres per capita. Because of this they did not have the capital to buy and use tractors and other machinery or the use of advanced fertilizers, etc. They plowed with horses and oxes, like in the third world countries. Because the polish state had little agricultural land, advanced production methods could not be introduced from upside down.

All these peasants were very catholic and the church indoctrinated them to be very hostile to any kind of assocication, even voluntary and any progress in general. The church discouraged them and their children from education since they may be infested with atheist and worldly thoughts. So they remained dumb and didn't even take agricultural-specific secondary school or college. Due to their low standards of methods and lack of specialist knowledge and general void of tools, they were unable to produce sufficient volumes of crop and meat.

So the very problem what made the catholic church's facet movement "Solidarity" popular, the protest against continued food crisis and the food stamp necessity, was in fact created by the very same catholicism, which kept peasants dumbs and hostile to progress.

In many other estern bloc countries, including Hungary, where kolhoz movement (locally called "mgtsz") was forced on the people, agricultural production was good through the 1970's and 1980's and a lot of export was done and yet, there wasn't any food shortage in Hungary. We even had banana in the shops thanks to Kadar's politics. In Poland, tomato soup was made by pouring boiling water into red-coloured dishes... according to the popular and very true joke.

The polish agricultural situation was similar to what we see with the EU in France today, that catholic small peasants become the obstacle to economic progress and oft cause of unrest, but France has a much better situation because it is richer and because they have placed big controls on the catholic worldly power since 1905.

As much as the polish and hungarian people are close historical friends, I must say that the 1980's polish crisis was caused by the polish people (esp. the peasants) themselves and the retrograd church and should not be blamed mainly on communist repression. I am really afraid for Poland's future, because they are now even more firmly in the fist of the Vatican and the popes use them for their own aims, especially russophobia and anti-orthodoxia, which can only end bad for the polish people due to the size comparison of the two countries.

Regards: Tamas Feher from Hungary <etomcat@freemail.hu> 195.70.48.242 11:37, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Please provide sources. I have not seen logic like this outside mariginal communist/right-wing pamphlets (that's a nice marriage - right-wing communist :>). Fact is, because Poland avoided collectivization, it suffered food shortages on a much smaller scale then other Soviet bloc countries (Holodomor, anyone?). Since you are from Hungary, you may find articles on shortage economy by your János Kornai interesting.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:53, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Shortage economy, possibly. If you wanted to buy a color TV or a semi-automatic washing machine or a good sports bike you had to "hunt" around shops in communist Hungary because there was no continuous availability. Cars were utmost hard to get, because Hungary did not make any, all came from COMECON import. But food, never seen it lacking. I got chocolate every day when I was a kid (and that did hurt my teeth). We had "winter salami" and bread, butter, beer that could be drunk and meat and vegetables, maybe not as many different versions as sold today, but food shortage was unknown. In fact, when communism fell suddenly we had an almost empty fridge during the early 1990: the market economy arrived but money wasn't available due to collapse of industry and unemployment. Most hungarian people are still vocal about their fond memories of "3.60 forint priced bread-loafs" sold during the communist era.
In contrast, Poland had a genuine food shortage. This was due to peasant's resistance against collectivization, even though they did not have the private resources to modernize as invidiual agricultural producers. So strong was the polish small peasant class that their own agricultural political party continued to legally exist besides the big "polish workers' socialist party" all the time during the communist regime. This is unprecedented, because in all other soviet-block countries, only the one and undivided "worker's party" was allowed to exist (the one-party-state totalitarian system).
The ukrainian holodomor (massive famine) happened in the 1930's when Poland was a capitalist state. Communism arrived to eastern Europe in 1945, and the period we were talking about is the 1970s and 1980s, so the comparison has no meaning. 195.70.32.136 10:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
First of all, the food shortage was a direct result of the economical policies of the commies in the 1970's, and not the collectivisation in the 1950's (which, by the way, failed in most cases but the Recoverred Territories). The reason why Krakus ham, Polish sausages and Polish wheat was available everywhere apart from Poland herself was that, after taking zillions of dollars in credits, the Edward Gierek had to start exporting everything it could just to pay off the interest. Same applied to coal: Poland was both one of the major agricultural producers and exporters of coal, yet these goods were hardly available at home. It is worth noting, that the agricultural production of private held farms was much supperior to that of much larger PGR (Polish version of Sovkhoz), especially in the 1980's (with few notable exceptions).
As to the peasant party - the ZSL was but a facade party, a left-over after the once-mighty Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe. After the commies had destroyed the latter party (using what is called a salami tactics, BTW - a Hungarian trace!), the ZSL was left only as a facade. In fact it had absolutely no independence and was fully dependant on the Party. BTW, in 1960's and 1970's, the ZSL was a party of intelligentsia rather than peasants as it was seen as a safe choice for those who had to be members of the party and did not want to join the PUWP (such was the case of my grandpa, a University professor). Halibutt 15:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Food shortages in Poland never have been big, and ended the moment capitalism was reestablished. In fact there is overproduction of food, because of too many farmers. If there were full collectivization in Poland (as in Ukraine - which has much better soils th Poland, and have starved under Soviet regime), things would have been worse. By the way if so many home-produced food appeared on market in 1990, where it was before? Population of farmers can't increase so fast so much. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.190.48.185 (talk) 09:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Name - move?

What do you think of moving this to Solidarność and moving Solidarity (sociology) here?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:53, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Sadly, we have the usual problem: English language publications almost universally use Solidarnosc and never include the diacritics. Check search results on Google Book Search ([2]). Of course to a Polish-speaking person this form looks atrocious, but it is admittedly easier on English-only speakers. Making both groups happy will be impossible here.
To avoid these problems, I suggest we go with Solidarity movement, or better yet Solidarity movement in Poland to avoid any confusion. This could be an umbrella article which could discuss all the organisations listed in pl:Solidarność. Google Book Search shows plenty of hits for the first option ([3])
More specifically, the search for "solidarity movement" and Poland gives 258 books [4] (Balcer 02:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
  1. Nor would you use the diacritics if they weren't available in your typeface, or if your publisher charged extra for setting them. But that isn't a problem on WP.
  2. I may be stupid, but I fail to understand in what way omitting the diacritics is "easier on English-only speakers". It's not as if they would have to type them in themselves. —Blotwell 09:28, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox Union

I added the Union infobox. It is has been created as part of WikiProject Organized Labour. This is the first article it has been added to, but as Solidarity is used for the example at {{Infobox Union}} it seemed appropriate. Please feel free to comment on both the content fields and style of the infobox on the template disscusion page. There is a (fairly arbitrary) date of March 1st as an aim for a more general usage of this infobox, and any input would be appreciated. Cheers. --Bookandcoffee 23:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PR and FAC

Those are my goals for this article. To be ready for PR, three things are necessary:

  • expantion (in progress - I am translating the article from pl wiki)
  • copyedit (English language - not my speciality)
  • references (I'll take care of that after expantion)

Comments and help appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:09, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Seems a decent idea. As soon as I get back from my family's place I'll try to apply as much of my reference paranoia as possible here :) //Halibutt 09:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I just realized that the article is more of History of Solidarity then Solidarity: we need to expand on struture, influence and other non-history issue.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:16, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I think of splitting the history part into the above article, this seems to have enough material to be set on the GA/PR/FAC track. However we have nothing on organization, and a stub section on worldwide importance, so this article needs major content expantion before it can be put through that.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Propsed new categories

Comments?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] <ref>

I converted the introduction to the <ref> format. I'll come back and work on the rest of the article in a few days if no one is too opposed to the change.--Bookandcoffee 18:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA move

As I have splitted most of the content to History of Solidarity, I don't think this article can be viewed as GA any longer, I am removing the GA notice and listing History... for GA.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Today

We need more information about what Solidarność is up to at the moment. --LakeHMM 23:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

The first two paragraphs are repeated essentially verbatim in the next two sections. At least one set should be deleted or rewritten.


Repeating paragraph has been deleted from the introduction section. Content was identical with influence abroad. Do not reintroduce unless expanding content

198.96.180.245 19:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Dear anon. WP:LEAD is supposed to be a summary of the article. This article is still a draft, thus I agree the paras need expansion and being rewritten - but I think it's better to have a more comprehensive lead than not.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Piotrus, we cannot have identical paragraphs in the same article, we have to make a choice of which section one we want to keep it in. Agree with me, it would be unreasonable to keep this paragraph as a stub, we can always refer to the paragraph whenever the summary or expansion actually starts being written. 216.58.96.134 00:19, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Dear anon (please consider registering - it's easy and gives you access to additional editing tools) - perhaps you'd consider expanding the article? Please note we have a high quality subarticle at History of Solidarity.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:43, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Piotrus, thank you for your offer to contribute to the article. I will consider doing so in the future. At the moment I believe that we will do a service to users who would like to print the article by keeping redundant material off of it. I believe such users exist notwithstanding the incompleteness of the article. I do agree with you that History of Solidarity is an excellent article. 209.195.119.84 07:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
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