Lech Walesa

Labor activist , the seventh president of Poland and the second president of the third Republic of Poland , founded the Independent Autonomous Labor Union 'Solidarity' (Solidarity Union), and the wealth of the Polish third Republic . However, for the president, he was regarded as a failed president who failed to respond properly in the system transition period, and eventually suffered a disgrace to be replaced by a single regime change by the descendants of the Communist Party.

September 29, 1943 Poland[1] Born in the central rural Popopo, the fourth of the eight brothers and sisters of poor carpenters, graduated from elementary school and technical school.[2] Northern Poland[3] While working as a shipbuilder at the Lenin Shipyard , in 1980 the Polish government fired a group of workers in factories. Barewen resisted this, leading to the general strike in the Grandsk-Sopot-Grandinia region as a real worker representative. In this process, autonomous trade unions were formed that the communist system did not allow. This union is the Polish solidarity union ( Solirnoshi )[4] Barewensa also gained international reputation. The solidarity union was so powerful that even the government recognized Walesa as a negotiating representative. The reason for this was that in 1956, the regime was once overwhelmed by the Pozanan Uprising .[5] In 1970, I had an overturning experience, and the influence of the Catholic Church was significant.[6] It was because there was a lot of concern that the regime would be overturned again by beating the free union. The previous precedent had already existed, so it was difficult to beat it, which was why they were notorious in the Polish government at the time, and they tried to finish the free union and transfer them into the system.

However, Edbart Gi Erek, who made concessions to the free union due to the intervention of the Soviet Union who was concerned about the backlash of the party and the surrounding Eastern European countries, was subsequent, followed by Secretary of Defense Huazelski , and declared martial law on December 12, 1981, and arrested labor activists such as Walesa. Regarding the oppression of the free union, Yaruzelski, if the forces of the free union are strengthened, the Soviet troops are directly like Hungary and Czechoslovakia. He was threatened by the Soviet Union to go out and recalled that it was carried out to prevent the Soviet army from intervention.[7] Since then, Whawen has been a year -long pension, and in the process, there was a conflict between Pope John Paul II , a Polish who supports solidarity unions. Secretary of State Leonith Bredznev of the Soviet Union publicly dismissed the pope.

France immediately after house arrest He secretly sent his autobiography to Paris and published <Un Chemin d'Espoir>, which was evaluated as showing the problems of workers in socialist systems such as the Soviet Union and capitalist societies, including the United States . He also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 , which was received on his behalf by his wife Danuta, who was unable to leave Poland at the time. Considered one of Poland's social activists, he ignited the revolution in Eastern Europe in 1989, contributing to the fall of Poland's socialist regime and at the same time marking the beginning of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc .

Afterwards, after a round table meeting between the Communist Party and the Free Trade Union, the constitution was revised, free general elections were held for some seats, and the office of president was created, with Wojciech Jaruzelski elected as the first president. However, Jaruzelski's attempt to appoint a member of the Communist Party (Unification Labor Party) as Prime Minister was withdrawn due to opposition from the Free Trade Union, and the appointment of a member of the Free Trade Union as Prime Minister completely changed his political position, causing him to rapidly lose influence. Power had already completely passed to the reformists, and the reformists, who were dissatisfied with the delay in reform and the retention of old communist forces, put pressure on Jaruzelski to resign early. In the 1989 general election, 161 of the 161 seats in the House of Representatives that free labor unions could freely elect.[8] , starting with taking 99 out of 100 seats in the Senate.[9] In the completely free local elections held in 1990, the Free Trade Union won in most regions, and the positions of Minister of Defense and Minister of Home Affairs, which had previously been held by the Unified Labor Party, were transferred to the Free Trade Union. In October, Jaruzelski eventually resigned from office as president by agreeing to a constitutional amendment to reset the presidential term, unable to withstand pressure from free trade unions. As a result, a constitutional amendment was made to establish a direct presidential system for a five-year term. Lech Walesa was inaugurated as the second president through presidential elections held in November under a revised constitution. In the first round of the election, Walesa was the independent candidate Stanisław Tymiński (1948-).[10] ahead by nearly 17% points.[11] In the second round, they led by a whopping 50%p gap.[12] became president.[13][14]

Walesa, who became president with such an overwhelming vote, served as president of Poland until 1995 , but his policies at the time were not well received. Not only did it fail to properly solve Poland's economic problems at the time , but above all, it was completely different from the economic policy that voters had hoped Walesa would implement, so voters fell into a sense of loss, despair, and betrayal, saying, 'If you're going to implement this kind of policy after taking power, why did we engage in free trade union activities like Walesa?'[15] Although the superficial economic growth rate was high, the perceived economic growth was the exact opposite.[16] It is necessary to take into account that this is a growing pain experienced in the early stages of system transition in a typical post-socialist country in Europe. The former Yugoslavia, the member countries of the Soviet Union, Romania, which experienced revolution, as well as Central European countries, including Poland, where the post-socialist process was relatively smooth, all experienced economic recessions in the early 1990s, at the beginning of the transition.[17] Poland's economic problems in the 1990s can be seen to have originated from the structural problems of being a post-socialist country. It is also true that Walesa has not been able to overcome these limitations, but it is not appropriate to place full responsibility for structural problems on Walesa.[18] In addition, internal conflict and division within the solidarity camp,[19] Walesa's political style has been called authoritarian.[20][21] , excessive closeness to the Catholic Church and moral conservatism.[22] etc. also contributed to the decline in Walesa's support.

Because of this, Walesa as president is so unpopular that his approval rating is as high as 3%.[23] There was even a record of[24][25] In the end, starting with a crushing defeat in the 1993 general election, he was defeated by a narrow margin in the 1995 presidential election by Alexander Kvasniewski, the candidate of the Democratic Left Union, a successor party to the old Communist Party.[26] He lost by exactly 2 percentage points in the first round of voting and by a margin of 3.44 percentage points in the second round of voting. Compared to Walesa's approval rating, it was an unexpectedly close race.[27] At the time of the election, Kwaśniewski emphasized the changed appearance of the Communist Party and used the campaign slogan 'Let's choose the future', while Walesa emphasized his domestic and international reputation as a past democracy activist and raised the campaign slogan 'There are many candidates, but only one Lech Walesa'. Despite his image as a democracy activist, Walesa was defeated by the Communist Party candidate, and Kwaśniewski, who was elected in this way, was re-elected, so from Walesa's point of view, It became an even more painful defeat.[28][29][30] In other words, in terms of pure political ability , the beginning of democratization was extremely destructive to the point where even 100 people had nothing to say, even considering the limitations of the times.[31] The only consolation is that Kwaśniewski was only a descendant of the Communist Party, but his inclinations were a centrist social democrat, and unlike Walesar, he was good at taking matters into his own hands .[32]

As such, the evaluation of Walesa's policies while he was president in Poland is not very good.[33][34] Reference Material The fact that he canceled foreign debt, which had been a burden on the Polish economy, is highly regarded, and many Polish people and historians acknowledge his efforts to democratize Poland, regardless of his political incompetence and policy preferences while in office . This can be said to be a representative example showing that revolution and state administration are completely separate positions.[35] Although he did not leave without applause until the end, he deserves high praise simply for the fact that he retired cleanly without degenerating into a dictator .[36]

In any case, Walwensa tried to return to the shipbuilding ship of Grandsk's shipyard who worked after his retirement ( # ), but he changed his mind and founded the Lech Baren Research Institute and went abroad to give a democratic lecture.In 1997, he founded a political party in the third Polish Republic of the Republic of Korea. He was running again for the election, but was defeated with seventh among 12 candidates with a 1.01% vote. Apart from his reputation as a democratization activist, the Polish perception of his work as a president was very bad. And Whawen is said to see talk show MCs because it is economically difficult because of his abandonment of all Presidentes.

In January 2022, the Corona 19 was confirmed. It is said that it was confirmed even though the corona 19 vaccine was inoculated three times. #

On February 6, 2024, he participated in an event commemorating the 113th anniversary of the birth of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who publicly supported the free union movement , and delivered a keynote speech. #[37]

On March 4, 2025, he criticized the summit between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky as being like a court or people's trial during the communist era . # However, in May 2026, while the Polish political world was unanimously criticizing Zelensky for heroizing his unit by naming the Ukrainian Rebel Army (UPA) # he posted a message on his X account saying he was withdrawing his support for Zelensky. #

On March 11, 2026, he became one of the first recipients of the European Order of Merit from the European Parliament.