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
Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of the People Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of the People The Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of the People (" Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario del Pueblo ", MNRP) was founded in April 1965 by Jaime Arellano Castañeda following a split in the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement. The objective of the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement of the People was to fight the right-wing military dictatorship of General René Barrientos Ortuño. The MNRP was a left nationalist party and was opposed both oligarchism and colonialism, and it advocated the replacement of feudal structures by a progressive system under which natural resources would be exploited mainly by the state and the public