The birth of Solidarnosc
A quarter of a century ago, Poland’s Stalinist police-state system was rocked by a massive wave of working-class action. In just six weeks the Polish workers built Solidarnosc (Solidarity), a trade union movement of 10 million workers that had the potential to be much more. The period from August 1980 to December 1981, when the workers’ movement was driven underground by a military coup, is one of the high points of working class history. Amina Saddiq tells the story. “Lodz is a city of women who are exhausted, jaded, ill and prematurely aged, a city of people crippled socially and...