The Polish Revolution: Solidarity, 1980-82 - Hardcover

Ash, Timothy Garton

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224020420 ISBN 13: 9780224020428

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1983

Synopsis

In August 1980, workers occupied the Lenin Shipard in Gdańsk and won from their communist rulers the right-to. form independent trades unions - adrcesAon unprecedented in the history of the Soviet bloc. For the next sixteen months, Solidarity led a peaceful revolution in the shadow of Soviet tanks, while the western world watched on its television screens. Then, on 13 December 1981, General J aruzelski's military and security forces occupied their own country, interning thousands and imposing a 'state of war'.

Why did this workers' revolution against a Workers' State erupt in Poland, and why in 1980? Who was responsible for the country's economic collapse, and who for the military take-over? Did Solidarity 'go too far'? Timothy Garton Ash, who was with the strikers inside the Lenin Shipyard, sets out to answer these and mans' other questions being asked about Solidarity. His fluent and scholarly narrative history makes sense of an often bewildering sequence of events, using a wide range of sources in four languages. Beside the main actors, like Lech Waēsa, he deftly evokes the 'ordinary' people whom he met in this supremely popular movement. We see the peasants unselfconsciously celebrating Mass in the headquarters of the communist trades which they have occupied - with a statue of Lenin standing in the corner, face to the wall.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0224020420
• ISBN 13: 9780224020428
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400