Solidarity Citizens' Committee Solidarity Citizens' Committee The Solidarity Citizens' Committee ("Komitet Obywatelski "Solidarność"", acronym KO "S"), also known as "Citizens' Electoral Committee" ("Obywatelski Komitet Wyborczy"), previously named "Citizens' Committee with Lech Wałęsa" ("Komitet Obywatelski przy Lechu Wałęsie") was an (initially semi-) legal political organisation of the democratic opposition in communist Poland. Formed on 18 December 1988 in the premises of the Divine Mercy church in Warsaw, it spontaneously evolved into a nationwide movement attracting a vast majority of supporters of radical political change in the country after the conclusion of the Round Table talks (6 February to 4 April 1989) and the announcement
Solidarity (Polish trade union) nonetheless exerted an influence on the Solidarity movement. Underground copies of his books and essays shaped the opinions of the Polish intellectual opposition. His 1971 essay "Theses on Hope and Hopelessness", which suggested that self-organized social groups could gradually expand the spheres of civil society in a totalitarian state, helped inspire the dissident movements of the 1970s that led to the creation of Solidarity and provided a philosophical underpinning for the movement. Kołakowski later described Solidarity as "perhaps [the] closest to the working class revolution" that Karl Marx had predicted in the mid-1800s. Ironically, however, Solidarity featured many elements contrary