Solidarity (Polish trade union) Solidarity (Polish trade union) Solidarity (, pronounced ; full name: Independent Self-governing Labour Union "Solidarity"—"Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy "Solidarność"" ) is a Polish labour union that was founded on 17 September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first trade union in a Warsaw Pact country that was not controlled by a communist party. Its membership peaked at 10 million members at its September 1981 Congress, which constituted one third of the total working-age population of Poland. In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement, using the methods of civil resistance
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