Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-374) and index |
Contents |
INTRODUCTION: Why Poland? Why workers? Why 1980? -- PART I: REVOLUTION: Inside the Lenin shipyard: workers, August 1980 -- A new social contract? -- Inside the Rzeszow Commune: The peasants revolt -- The Ides of March -- Democratic Communism? -- What partnership? -- Noble democracy -- Confrontation -- War -- PART II: REFLECTIONS: What revolution? -- Under Western eyes |
Summary |
In August 1980, workers occupied the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk and won from their Communist rules the right to form independent trade unions -- a concession unprecedented in the history of the Soviet bloc. For the next sixteenth months, Solidarity led a peaceful revolution in the shadow of Soviet tanks, while the Western world watched on its television screens. Then, on December 13, 1981, General Jaruzelski'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 takeover? Did Solidarity "go too far"? Timothy Gorton Ash, who was with the strikers inside the Lenin Shipyard, sets out to answer these and many other questions about Solidarity. His narrative history makes sense of an often bewildering sequence of events. "The Polish Revolution" is a moving and authoritative account of a crisis that concerns us all. -- From publisher's description |
Subjects (Organizations) |
NSZZ "Solidarność" (Labor organization)
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Subjects (Places) |
Poland -- Politics and government -- 1980-1989
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Subjects (Organizations) |
Solidarity (Polish labor organization)
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Bib utility control no. |
10207243 |
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