The Polish Solidarity Movement - Communism from a family Perspective - Part 1.

A Personal Family Perspective of The Struggle Against Communist Tyranny

"Polish Voting Rights," Making the History of 1989, Item #93

My mother and father were born in Poland several years after World War Two came to a close in 1944. The country that they were born into was a devastated nation that would need a massive rebuilding effort after a lot of major cities were ruined and millions upon millions of Poles killed. To make matters worse what was left of Poland was also given away in a traitorous act to Stalinist USSR to be ruled under their control.

Poland was just one of the many Eastern Bloc nations that were left in devastation and ruins to fall under the USSR’s Iron curtain and be controlled from Moscow via proxy communist dictators that were inserted into power. It would be many decades of Communist oppression before the nation of Poland rallied its people into a massive nationwide Trade Union strike that created a revolution and eventually led to the downfall of the one-party communist dictatorship. This movement was called Solidarity (in Polish, Solidarność)

The revolution and uprising of the citizens of Poland drew worldwide attention and support. Poland with it's revolution under Solidarity became the the catalyst for the cracks to appear in other Eastern Bloc regimes being oppressed under the Iron Curtain. On 4th June 1989, Poland held elections in the Sejm (Lower House of Polish Parliament) and Senate. The Solidarity/Solidarność Citizen's Committee won all seats in the Lower House and all but one in the Senate. In November that same year the Berlin Wall fell, torn down by Germans on both sides of the wall who were sick of being divided by Communist ideologues. Countries in Eastern and Central Europe regained their sovereignity after many decades of crippling economic and working conditions under their respective communist dictatorships. Thusly, the USSR being the oppressive master of these proud patriotic nations was mangled beyond saving and collapsed onto itself.

Why I'm Writing This Now. Why Revisit A Painful Past?

I write this now because there is a worrying trend coming from #Academia which is filtering down into the Gen Y / Millenial age group. This trend is based upon the embracing of the principles of Marxism and Communism, as if it were some savior for all of societies' inequalities and it’s economic problems. This I feel, is simply not the case and I Intend to use the example of Poland’s struggle to tear away the bonds of Communist dictatorship to demonstrate the failure of utopian ideology translating itself into a functioning society.

Me: Born From Parents Seeking Asylum as Political Refugees

I am the first child from both sides of my parent’s lineage to be born in the Southern Hemisphere as a free being. I was born in Western Australia into a community which contained many Polish families who were fleeing as political refugees from Poland. There is still quite a large expatriate community here in Western Australia today and my mother still maintains the over 30 year old friendships with them. These are the same Polish refugees fleeing the brutal Communist Uprising that my mum did and these friendships were made on the long haul flight from the refugee camp in Austria to Australia back in 1982.

It’s incredible that they formed this community over this series of flights and it's a testament to the strength of community that they still all maintain in close contact with each other. They still organise many Polish events, run a Polish school, have a Polish Church, participate in the Local Polish radio station, have several Polish clubhouses and restaurants where they get together and celebrate.

There is so much I could write about and explore in relation to this incredibly important political event and my place in relation to it. Currently I consider it crucial to share some pieces of memorabilia from my family history and photos of my latest overseas trip to Gdansk in 2014. I spent the bulk of my 5 months abroad that year in the town of Gdansk and it’s immediate surrounds absorbing it’s incredibly overwhelming history and will share some of the photos and experiences in Part 2

The 1970's. Revolution Borne on the Baltic Tri-city Area

My Parents met each other in Gdansk, the large port and shipyard city upon the coast of the Baltic Sea. They were married soon after and started to raise a family with my oldest brother being born in Gdynia where my parents had a small apartment. Gdansk/Danzig a very historic place with a rich history of culture, trade, politics and social change that spans even up to the time they emigrated to Australia to escape the Rozruchy Solidarnosci (Solidarity anti-communist uprising). Whilst living in Gdynia, my mother would commute to her job to Gdansk.

Whilst the call to drop tools and start a strike in the Lenin Shipyards commenced in Gdansk, December 1970 (a moment that would be the birth of the Solidarity Trade Union Uprising), the brutally violent suppression was felt in Gdynia also.

• A great summary of the 1970-71 events that sparked the Solidarity uprising

The above link gives a very good account of what sort of despotic oppression my parents lived through and the moment it all boiled over into what would soon be a nationwide protest.

My parents attended strikes and rallies throughout December 1970. They, like all of Poland were swept up in the flashpoint strikes and riots that occurred in Gdansk a few days earlier. They were still young and like all of Poland had enough of the Communist Regime, their crippling economic policies and suppression of freedom. On top of not having freedom in what to read, what to watch, where to go, where to work, what to eat, they were now told that prices of all foodstuffs would be increased by the communist department that fixed prices and controlled rationing. The Poles were already downtrodden due to low wages, oppressive totalitarian control and incredibly high prices.

This latest round of proposed price increases would literally ruin lives that were already upon the razor’s edge of poverty and destitution.

Queue Board-Game / Kolejka

For an accurate insight you would be best to look at the popular Polish Board Game “Kolejka” which translates to “Queue”. A strange premise to base a board game upon, it still faithfully offers clear insight to what life was like in Communist occupied Poland and it’s crippling economic policies.
Kolejka focuses on food rationing and what the common practices were amongst Poles who had to embark daily on a struggle of waiting in queues, haggling on black markets, smuggling and generally subverting the enforced food rationing system to ensure that their families could have enough to eat.

Kolejka Wikipedia Entry: Source of image

Black Thursday (Czarny Czwartek) Massacre

The massacre that occurred on the 17th December 1970 is remembered as part of Polish history even today. An imposing monument containing the names of the murdered workers and citizens in this uprising stands in Gdynia today. I remember my father struggling to tell me how as a young student he went to the bridge where the massacre unfolded; the Milicja (Army/Police of Communist Poland) fired upon the people. Poles died around him, some of his fellow students and friends were injured. He watched a Milicja (Communist Military Police) be hauled off their Armored Personnel Carrier by an enraged crowd of compatriots to be literally torn limb from limb.

He has difficulty remembering much more of the details as it’s something that even today he wants to put behind him, yet cannot completely erase.

Archival Footage of some of the Czarny Czwartek Massacre
In the video above you can hear regular citizens decrying the barbaric actions of the Milicja “these are your people, they are you, they are your brothers”. Another man taps his skull dumbfounded by the barbarism and opposition he is witnessing: the universal sign for “you are utterly insane”.

Monument to the fallen workers and students of the 1970 Black Thursday/ Czarny Czwartek massacre

The terror of 1970 Milicja quashing the birth of the trade union protests in Tricity Area

To The spread of the Solidarity movement spurred on by Trade Unions
(often with outbursts of protest and violent enforcing of martial law)

To 1980, the massive strike that stopped the nation

To my parents fleeing to a refugee camp in Austria in 1981

These are all things that are indelible from my character and my heritage. I will be continuing to hopefully educate those readers out there that believe that Communism has some semblance of merit anywhere within it. History has endless examples showing us that all it is, is a perfect vehicle for the suppression and destruction of a national identity and it's native peoples.

My parents were forced to learn Russian over and above their own native language as soon as they attended the compulsory communist public schools....

I can't even imagine what that would have been like. Me a child, now adult of a free land. Enjoying liberty and freedom in ways unfathomable to my family even 35 years ago.

Still taken from Documentary "Black Thursday - Why?"

And it is only fairly recently that Poles are willing and able to translate that horrific Czarny Czwartek / Black Thursday into art, literature and cinema to help future generations understand what life was like back then.

Thanks for reading.