Lech Wałęsa
President of Poland from 1990 to 1995 (born 1943)
Lech Wałęsa: from the shipyard to the presidency
A worker and organiser
Wałęsa trained for a trade and became an electrician at the Gdańsk shipyard in 1967. Labour activism cost him that job in 1976, but he continued organising independent unions while facing surveillance and detention. His later prominence grew from this sustained work among shipyard workers, not from a conventional party career.
The Solidarity breakthrough
In August 1980 he led a shipyard strike and negotiated with the Polish authorities. The resulting Gdańsk Agreement recognised workers’ rights to strike and form an independent union. Wałęsa then became chairman of Solidarity. When martial law was imposed in December 1981, the union was suspended and he was interned.
Prize and public office
After his release, Wałęsa kept contact with the underground movement. The Nobel Peace Prize recognised his nonviolent struggle for free trade unions in 1983. Negotiations later opened a path to the 1989 parliamentary elections. He won Poland’s presidential election in 1990 and served until his defeat in 1995.