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 (Cyprus) Solidarity Movement (Cyprus) The Solidarity Movement (, "Kinima Allilengyi") is a Greek Cypriot nationalist party in Cyprus. It was founded in 2016 by Eleni Theocharous. Theocharous departed the conservative Democratic Rally in November 2015, in protest to their support of a bizonal, bifederal settlement to the Cyprus problem. She established the Solidarity Movement in January 2016 and right-wing Evroko merged with the party in March of the same year. The Solidarity Movement is contesting 56 seats in the 2016 Cypriot legislative election. On 9 March 2016, Eleni Theocharous joined the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, after she retired from