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
Solidarity Movement with Chile read letters that arrived most often indirectly from Chile to Moscow that denounced cases of human rights violations. Radio programming in solidarity with Chile also came from Radio Prague, Havana, and Berlin. To communicate between the local groups, several solidarity organizations produced and distributed newsletters. The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) spread information and calls to action in their magazine "Report on the Americas", consistently during the Dictatorship. Of any other U.S. journal, NACLA served as the greatest source of information about Chile for people in the U.S. Political art played a central role in the movement. Activists