Rural Solidarity for formal registration of their independent union. However, on December 30, 1980, the Supreme Court announced that its ruling on Rural Solidarity had been postponed. As a result, tensions rose rise between the peasants and local governments across the country. Southeastern part of Poland was the area in which individual farmers were very numerous and where position of the Roman Catholic Church was the strongest. Therefore, in early 1981, main center of farmers’ protests was established in the city of Rzeszów, where the strike and the sit-in began on January 5, 1981 and where the center of the movement was
History of Solidarity Monument to Fallen Shipyard Workers was unveiled in Gdańsk, and on June 28, 1981, another monument was unveiled in Poznan, which commemorated the Poznań 1956 protests. On January 15, 1981, a Solidarity delegation, including Lech Wałęsa, met in Rome with Pope John Paul II. From September 5 to 10, and from September 26 to October 7, Solidarity's first national congress was held in Hala Olivia, Gdańsk, and Lech Wałęsa was elected its president. Last accord of the congress was adoption of republican program "Self-governing Republic". Meanwhile, Solidarity had been transforming itself from a trade union into a social movement or