By Tom LoBianco
In September 2003, Dean Williams, adjunct lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and at the time leader of the Center for Public Leadership’s World Leaders Project, interviewed Lech Walesa, former president of Poland from 1990 to 1995 and the leader of Poland’s famed Solidarity movement.
In the interview, which was translated from Walesa’s native Polish, the labor leader reflected on the elements of leadership that helped him lead the Polish people out from communist rule.
Starting out his career as an electrician at the then-named Lenin Shipyard, Walesa started to become involved in the during the 1970s—an anti-authoritarian movement which relied on civil resistance to promote human rights and fight communist rule.
Walesa was invited in 1983 to speak at Harvard’s commencement, but fearing Poland’s communist government would not let him return if he traveled to Cambridge, Walesa had his speech smuggled to the graduates of Harvard via the State Department, .
Taking such measures was not without reason for Walesa. In 1981, after the imposition of martial law by the Soviets, Walesa and many of his fellow Solidarity activists were arrested and incarcerated. Walesa would end up in a prison cell for eleven months under the Soviets. And in 1982, the Solidarity movement was outlawed altogether. Yet, despite risk for his life, Walesa continued underground efforts for Solidarity. Eventually, through his initially illegal resistance to the communists, years of coalition-building, and the support of leaders such as , Walesa helped introduce the first free elections in Poland in over 40 years. In 1990, Walesa was elected president of Poland–the first non-communist government in the Soviet Bloc.
Fast forward to 2003, a a time of declining global authoritarianism and rising Western democracies, Walesa shared his reflections with CPL about the significance of this sea change in Poland. Speaking with Williams, Walesa remarked that he believed even Joseph Stalin understood communism did not fit the Polish people.
“This system was fitting Poles like a horse saddle put on a pig,” Walesa laughed. “And this is why we wanted to overturn this system.”
In the 1940s and 1950s, Walesa said the Polish resistance fought with guns and weapons, but with no luck. In the 1960s and 1970s, they relied on massive demonstrations, but “all those efforts ended with a bloody crash.”
“Learning from our previous mistakes, we started in 1980 with a different strategy and we won,” Walesa said.
Walesa recounted that it was hard to shake Poles out of their complacency during the era of Soviet rule, to push them past yelling slogans and in turn mobilize them toward meaningful protest.
“Then something improbable happened,” Walesa said. “My countryman became the pope.”
In 1978, a polish priest by the name of Karol Józef Wojtyła from the town of Wadowice, became the 264th pope, taking the title John Paul II. In advent of John Paul II’s ascendancy, Walesa said he then went from organizing 10 Poles to 10 million.
“So, in my opinion, the most significant moment was the appointment of the pope,” he said. “The Polish nation started to believe and they woke up. They started walking with (their) heads up.”
Williams, citing Walesa’s own writings, asked why Poles initially wanted a “lion”, a charismatic leader, instead of a “fox” steeped in strategy and tactics.
Walesa said he learned from the single-faceted mistakes of decades past.
“I combined not only courage but also tactics. I learned to predict future movements, to drive conclusions, it allowed me to make right decisions,” he said. “After a few such good moves, my opponents got quiet.”