The Feud Within solidarity's offspring

Abstract

Solidarity as an organization never fully recovered from the impact of the imposition of martial law in December 1981, though it retained its mythic status. The round‐table talks in 1989 were negotiations between elites; society no longer believed in the efficacy of pressurizing government from below. Since then Solidarity has suffered a profound identity crisis. The Union was disoriented after 1989 by the rivalries between political forces that stemmed originally from it, and particularly by the ‘war at the top’ between Wałçsa the president on the one hand and the Mazowiecki government on the other. Solidarity was led to extend a ‘protective umbrella’ over the early reforming governments, but this was withdrawn as the consequences of those governments’ policies began to bite. Divided internally, the Union did enter the electoral contest, gaining representation in the Sejm as a result of the 1991 elections, only to fail to surmount the hurdle for representation with the 1993 elections.