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
History of the socialist movement in the United States vote for Socialism, but that under the name of liberalism, they would adopt every fragment of the socialist program". When the twenties began, "... the IWW was destroyed, the Socialist party falling apart. The strikes were beaten down by force, and the economy was doing just well enough for just enough people to prevent mass rebellion". Thus the decline of the socialist movement during the early 20th century was the result of a number of constrictions and attacks from several directions: The socialists had lost a major ally in the Wobblies and their free speech had been restricted, if not