GDANSK: Poland’s anti-communist icon Lech Walesa on Monday warned against populism as his deeply divided country marked 40 years since a landmark deal gave rise to the freedom-fighting Solidarity trade union.

Concerns over the strength of Poland’s democracy have mounted since 2015 when the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) won office and began introducing controversial reforms, criticised both at home and abroad.

“People today are electing populists and demagogues because they promise change... they (populists) have correctly diagnosed (today’s problems) but their cure is wrong,” Walesa told hundreds gathered at the historic Gdansk shipyard on the Baltic coast.

It was here on August 31, 1980, that a deal was sealed between the communist regime and striking shipyard workers led by Walesa — an electrician at the time — which enabled the creation of Solidarity, the Soviet bloc’s first free union.

“We need to take over the initiative from these populists and demagogues and replace it with wiser solutions and better structures,” said Walesa, 76.

He then placed flowers on the shipyard gate and symbolically opened it as he did four decades ago after inking the Gdansk Accords.

The communist regime backtracked on the deal in 1981, imposing martial law to crush Solidarity, which had snowballed into a movement of 10 million members, or more than one Pole in four.

Solidarity went underground, returning to the fore in 1989, when it negotiated a deal for free elections with the regime.

This victory accelerated the largely peaceful demise of the entire Soviet bloc over the next two years.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2020