Solidarity Activists Research Articles

Dichotomies and contemporary social movements

In this essay Vincenzo Ruggiero explores the dichotomy between theories of new social movements that draw upon rationalist/resource‐mobilization approaches and those that focus on collective identity and cultural difference as key motivators. Taking contemporary social movements (CSMs) engaged in opposition to globalizing neo‐liberalism (from anti‐G8 protests to the World Social Forums) as the focus of analysis, the paper argues that because ‘the different components of the movement have extremely diversified needs’ it is as difficult for activists as it is for researchers to identify a common purpose or set of unifying principles. However, Ruggiero suggests that by refusing to succumb to traditional organizational ‘leader‐follower’ paradigms, CSMs begin to resemble the ‘free city’ of ‘the multitude’, which so bewildered Kreon's messenger from the dictatorial city‐state of Thebes. The multitude do not speak with one voice, however, and in this ‘movement of movements’ we find rejectionists that eschew all forms of engagement with capitalism's economic and social manifestations, international solidarity activists building resistance ‘from below’ with grass roots movements around the world, and finally regulators and reformers who seek to utilize existing legal and democratic resources to constrain and encourage corporations into more pro‐social and pro‐environmental behaviour. Ultimately, though, CSMs are attempting to work through the eternal conflict between reason and utopia—imagining Rimbaud's new life while, as Marx implored, changing the existing world, or as Ruggiero puts it—‘between real achievement and contestation of the official notion of the real’.

The Role of the Church in International Peacebuilding: Lessons from the US-Central America Solidarity Movement

Oppressed groups struggling for peace, justice and economic reform are increasingly appealing to the international community for support and assistance. Yet these groups face numerous challenges as they try to capture the attention and commitment of potentially sympathetic audiences. Given the success of the United States-Central America peace movement of the 1980s, this article focuses on the methods used by solidarity organisers to persuade members of US faith communities to participate in various transnational citizen peacemaking campaigns. These initiatives were designed to end the region's civil wars and to promote opportunities for the poor of Central America to reconstruct their socioeconomic and political systems without foreign interference. Based on archival research and in-depth interviews with solidarity activists and organisers, this article examines how the church – as an established, respected transnational institution – played a critical part in this movement. Additional attention is given to the role of missionaries, who served as a link between faith communities in the United States and Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The article concludes with several lessons that international peace and justice movements can learn from the successes and failures of this case.

A Communist Comeback? The Dissolution of Solidarity

A Communist Comeback?The Dissolution of Solidarity Aleksander Smolar (bio) The Polish parliamentary elections of 19 September 1993 had two winners: the party known as the Social Democracy of the Polish Republic (or SdRP, which led an electoral coalition called the Alliance of the Democratic Left, or SLD), and the Polish Peasants' Party (PSL). Although each had just finished comprehensively refurbishing its facade, the old colors still peeked forth from beneath the fresh paint. In the former case, they were those of the old communist party, formally known as the Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP); in the latter, they belonged to the United Peasants' Party, a longtime satellite of the PUWP. The parties most directly descended from Solidarity suffered a bitter setback. The trade union itself lost all its seats in the national legislature. The Liberal Democratic Congress (KLD), which has played an important role in the making of economic policy over the last few years, met with the same fate. The post-Solidarity Right, broken up into a congeries of quarreling factions, was swept out of office: conservative and "national" parties (the ones most closely linked to the Catholic Church) all went down the tubes. The Democratic Union (UD)—the party of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Bronistaw Geremek, Jacek Kuroñ, Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, and most of the former dissidents—was relegated to a distant third place behind the two front-runners. Only one party descended from Solidarity scored a clear success: the Union of Labor, led by Ryszard Bugaj, Karol Modzelewski, and Zbigniew Bujak. But this resolutely leftist group had deliberately broken with the heritage [End Page 70] of Solidarity, and, letting bygones be bygones, so to speak, had opened its ranks to former communists. Not counting the German minority, which has a handful of guaranteed seats, the only other two parties to exceed the threshold (5 percent of the total nationwide vote for parties and 8 percent for coalitions) required to win seats in the Sejm, the lower house of Poland's bicameral parliament, were the rightist-populist Confederation for an Independent Poland (KPN), and the Non-Party Bloc in Support of Reforms (BBWR), endorsed by President Lech Watłęsa. (See Table 1 on the following page for fuller results of the 1993 elections.) The euphoria of 1989 was short-lived. Everybody quickly realized that creating basic democratic structures, building a modern economy, and reweaving the social fabric of Eastern and Central Europe would not be easy. Alarming forecasts filled the air. From whence was danger expected to come? Two answers dominated Polish politics, one typically given by the Right, and the other by the Left. In the eyes of the Right, the threat was embodied by the nomenklatura of the former PUWP. Despite the recent changes, it had retained its grip on the economy and the provincial power structures. The secret-police files it controlled would allow it to blackmail whomever it pleased, and its ties abroad—especially with Moscow—would be maintained. Russia might be in a bad way at the moment, to be sure, but one day it might well recover its capacity to threaten the independence of Poland. The labor-union weekly Tygodnik solidarność, a large group of Solidarity activists, plus politicians like Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczyński and Jan Olszewski were among those who stated this view most clearly. To the Left, on the other hand, democracy in Poland seemed to be menaced above all by an explosive mixture of nationalism wedded to populism, authoritarianism, clericalism, and nostalgia for the precommunist past. This vision was put forth most powerfully in the pages of the influential daily paper Gazeta wyborcza, whose editor-in-chief Adam Michnik has long guided the way in which certain sectors of public opinion in both Poland and the West perceive the problems of the postcommunist world. These competing evaluations of the problems and hazards facing Poland led to the policies that in turn brought about the current situation. The Right's insistence on seeing all problems as flowing unfailingly from a mythical plot hatched by the old nomenklatura has not helped rightists to understand the process by which a large part of the population has turned away from their brand...

Konspira: Solidarity Underground

Konspira bares the soul and mind of Solidarity not long before the movement's stunning emergence as Poland's political vanguard. Written while martial law still gripped the country, Konspira tells the inside story of this inspiring contemporary workers' movement. The authors taped, then consolidated, over a hundred hours of secret interviews. Their subjects were eight of the most prominent Solidarity union leaders, gone into hiding as the result of a nationwide police-military crackdown by the Polish government. Solidarity activists were either locked up in internment camps or forced underground, where they coordinated a clandestine network to sustain their organization. compelling account of a crucial episode in the history of the Solidarity movement is both intimate and representative of the growing opposition to entrenched Communist regimes in East-Central Europe. This volume has benefited from the collegial support of The Wake Forest University Studium.

Leaders of the Solidarity Movement: A Sociological Portrait

Data on the social backgrounds of 33 leading activists of the Polish Solidarity movement are examined in the context of the character of the movement, its social basis, and historical background of mass dissent in Poland. In the light of a typology suggested by the author, the recruitment and composition of the leadership could be seen as reflecting the anti-partocratic and crisis-triggered character of the movement. The top Solidarity activists were leaders and organizers of the 1980 strikes. They were predominantly young and skilled industrial workers, manual and non-manual, employed in the large factories in traditional centres of workers' unrest. They represented this section of the `generation of People's Poland' whose upward mobility in a climate of political optimism generated high expectations and aspirations. These aspirations, frustrated by political exclusion and the economic crisis, led to the rebellion against the partocratic institutions. Although most of the Solidarity leaders were not involved in dissident activities before summer 1980, their backgrounds show a clear link with the political history of Poland and testify to the dramatic failure of the mechanisms of political participation and cooptation.