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Every One of You Is Walesa
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14122 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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1 / 1988 |
5,383 Words |
| Author
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Jozef Ruszar
Jozef Ruszar is a former Solidarity activist who works for
Radio Free Europe. |
The American version of Lech Walesa's autobiography, A Way of Hope, is now available, along with the French version, which has been selling well in Europe--more is covered in the six hundred-page French edition than in the three hundred-page American. But reading either version, one is struck by certain omissions. This is an honest book, not self-serving in any way: Walesa is open about his mistakes, his process of learning, his indebtedness--his qualities as a leader are also visible here. Yet certain facets of the opposition movement in Poland cannot be glimpsed through this book that are central to understanding it. Because Walesa's autobiography chronicles the events of his personal life, it naturally concentrates on the events in which he was most involved.
After reading A Way of Hope, one might be left with a rather simplified impression that the exploitation of Polish workers led to a workers' revolt that grew stronger and stronger until it became Solidarity. Walesa mentions the influence of the Catholic Church on his life and alludes briefly to various groups such as KOR, the Worker's Defense Committee, that were sympathetic to the workers' needs. However, an understanding of the variety of groups that made solidarity possible cannot be developed from Walesa's book, although he certainly acknowledges that every group in the society (as distinct from the government) contributed to the movement.
Solidarity was, as the book points out, more than a trade union movement; it was the full-fledged national liberation movement of a people rising to fight for democracy and their own identity. In this paper, I am going to discuss aspects of Polish life in the 1970s and 1980s that form a background to Walesa's life story. I want to
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