August 14, 1980 · Europe Theater
August 14, 1980
A strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk on August 14, 1980, led by electrician Lech Wałęsa, rapidly grew into a nationwide movement. The Solidarity trade union enrolled 10 million members — a third of Poland's working population — and negotiated the Gdańsk Agreements that gave workers the right to strike and form independent unions. Jaruzelski imposed martial law in December 1981, interning Solidarity leaders, but the movement survived underground, sustained by the Catholic Church and covert CIA funding. The 1989 Round Table talks gave Solidarity the political opening that began the fall of Eastern European communism.
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