History of Solidarity History of Solidarity The history of Solidarity (, pronounced ), a Polish non-governmental trade union, began on August 14, 1980, at the Lenin Shipyards (now Gdańsk Shipyards) at its founding by Lech Wałęsa and others. In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country. Solidarity gave rise to a broad, non-violent, anti-communist social movement that, at its height, claimed some 9.4 million members. It is considered to have contributed greatly to the fall of communism. Poland's communist government attempted to destroy the union by instituting martial law in 1981, followed by several years of
Movement for Solidarity, Union and Progress Movement for Solidarity, Union and Progress The Movement for Solidarity, Union and Progress (, MSUP) was a political party in Benin led Adebo Adeniyi Djamiou. The MSUP contested the 1991 elections as part of three-party alliance alongside the National Movement for Democracy and Development (MNDD) and the Union for Democracy and National Reconstruction (UDRN). The three parties received 8% of the vote and won six of the 64 seats in the National Assembly. The alliance split prior to the 1995 elections, with the MNDD running alone and the other two remaining in an alliance. Although the MNDD won a single