Zbigniew Bujak (born 29 November 1954) is a former Polish activist and anti-Communist dissident.
Zbigniew Bujak (born 29 November 1954) is a former Polish activist and anti-Communist dissident.
Bujak was an electrician and foreman in 1980 at the Ursus tractor factory near Warsaw, Poland. He became engaged with trade union activists, and during the strike action, he organized strike committees at the Ursus factory. He became chairman of the Warsaw Solidarity branch in September 1980 and was one of the few Solidarity leaders who escaped arrest in 1981 after martial law in Poland was declared to break Solidarity. He became one of the leaders of the Solidarity's underground movement, organizing underground committees including underground press and radio. He was finally arrested in 1986, becoming the last Solidarity leader to be captured. Soon afterwards, he was released in general amnesty, and participated in Polish Round Table Talks with the government in 1989. He was elected to the Sejm (Polish parliament) in the 1989 elections. In the 1990s he joined right-wing, liberal political parties, including the Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action, Democratic Union and Freedom Union. In 1992, he helped found the Labour Union (UP) party and was one of the party's leading members. He won a seat to the Sejm at the 1993 legislative elections, representing UP, and served as a member of parliament until 1997. He also held the position of chairman of Główny Urząd Ceł (Main Tariff's Office). In the 2000s (decade), after his 2002 defeat for the post of mayor of Warsaw, he stopped participating actively in politics.
Bujak was a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1986. [1]
Solidarity, full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity", is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subsequently, it was the first independent trade union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state.
The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Communist Poland, from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarność and other opposition groups to defuse growing social unrest.
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president, he previously served as President of the Supreme Audit Office from 1992 to 1995 and later Minister of Justice and Public Prosecutor General in Jerzy Buzek's cabinet from 2000 until his dismissal in July 2001.
Bronisław Geremek was a Polish social historian and politician. He was an opposition activist in the Polish People's Republic and participated in the Polish Round Table Agreement.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime minister since 1946, having held the post from 1989 to 1991.
Antoni Macierewicz is a Polish politician and the former Minister of National Defence. He previously served as the Minister of Internal Affairs, Head of the Military Counterintelligence Service, and Minister of State in the Ministry of National Defence.
The Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action was a political faction in Poland coalescing several members of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee.
Communism in Poland can trace its origins to the late 19th century: the Marxist First Proletariat party was founded in 1882. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania party and the publicist Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) were important early Polish Marxists.
Bogdan Michał Borusewicz is a Polish politician who served as the Marshal of the Polish Senate from 20 October 2005 to 11 November 2015. Borusewicz was a democratic opposition activist under the Communist regime, a member of the Polish parliament (Sejm) for three terms and first Senate Marshal to serve two terms in this office. He served as the Acting President of Poland for a few hours in 2010.
Bogdan Jerzy Lis worked in Port of Gdańsk and Elmor company. Between 1971 and 1972 he was imprisoned for his participation in the anti-governmental coastal cities protests. Although in 1975 he joined the Polish United Workers Party, in 1978 he was one of the founders of the anti-government Free Trade Unions of the Coast.
Władysław Frasyniuk is a Polish politician, former activist of Solidarity trade union, and former chairman of the Partia Demokratyczna – demokraci.pl political party. He served as a member of the Sejm from 1991 to 2001.
Anna Walentynowicz was a Polish trade unionist and co-founder of Solidarity, the first recognised independent trade union in the Eastern Bloc. Her firing from her job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980 was the event that ignited the strike at the shipyard, set off a wave of strikes across Poland, and quickly paralyzed the Baltic coast. The Interfactory Strike Committee (MKS) based in the Gdańsk shipyard eventually transformed itself into Solidarity; by September, more than one million workers were on strike in support of the 21 demands of MKS, making it the largest strike ever.
Solidarity, a Polish non-governmental trade union, was founded on August 14, 1980, at the Lenin Shipyards by Lech Wałęsa and others. In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Eastern 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 Revolutions of 1989.
Andrzej Bohdan Celiński is a Polish politician. Until 1989 activist of the democratic opposition in Poland. Former Member of Senate and Sejm. Minister of Culture in the government of Prime Minister Leszek Miller (2001-2002).
Ryszard Reiff was a Polish politician, lawyer, publicist and resistance fighter. He was a deputy to the Polish parliament (Sejm) during the 1968 Polish political crisis and again during the Martial law in Poland.
In the early spring of 1981 in Poland, during the Bydgoszcz events, several members of the Solidarity movement, including Jan Rulewski, Mariusz Łabentowicz, and Roman Bartoszcze, were brutally beaten by the security services, such as Milicja Obywatelska and ZOMO. The Bydgoszcz events soon became widely known across Poland, and on 24 March 1981 Solidarity decided to go on a nationwide strike in protest against the violence. The strike was planned for Tuesday, 31 March 1981. On 25 March, Lech Wałęsa met Deputy Prime Minister Mieczysław Rakowski of the Polish United Workers' Party, but no agreement came from their talks. Two days later, a four-hour national warning strike took place. It was the biggest strike in the history of both Poland and the Warsaw Pact. According to several sources, between 12 million and 14 million Poles took part.
The 1982 demonstrations in Poland refers to anti-government street demonstrations organized by underground Solidarity to commemorate the second anniversary of the Gdańsk Agreement. The bloodiest protest occurred in southwestern Poland, in the town of Lubin, on 31 August 1982. The Lubin demonstration resulted in three protesters killed by Communist services, and an unknown number of wounded. On the same day, rallies and demonstrations took place in several cities across the country. According to Solidarity sources, there were four more victims—in Wrocław, Gdańsk, Nowa Huta, and Toruń. According to official government sources, there were demonstrations in 66 cities.
The 1981 strike at the Piast Coal Mine in Bieruń was the longest underground protest in the postwar history of Polish mining, and the longest strike of the martial law in Poland. It began on December 14, 1981, one day after introduction of the martial law, and ended on December 28, when approximately 1,000 protesting miners emerged from the mine. They spent two weeks underground, including Christmas, and ended the protest after the government guaranteed their safety.
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