Revolutions foster creativity, and Solidarity is no exception. Solidarity's most important invention is, of course, civil society, which was effectively suspended in the countries where communist parties came to power and implemented "real socialism." Since 1945, Poland has experienced a steady erosion in the spontaneous and independent evolution of its social fabric. Every decade, the compression put upon society by the policies and social engineering of the ruling elite has proven unbearable and strikes or student demonstrations have erupted, bringing about a political crisis and a change of personnel in the ruling clique. But the events of 1980 were different. From the very beginning, the social upheaval in the Gdansk shipyards that gave birth to Solidarity was no mere challenge to the regime or simple vote of nonconfidence in its politics. Rather, it was a "constitution of liberty" establishing a space where people could take charge of their destinies and everyday lives.
The strike
People who visited Gdansk during the strike unanimously reported an unusual and exhilarating experience: They felt they had stepped into a zone with a distinctly different atmosphere. While the rest of the country was unsettled the laced with fearful anticipation, Gdansk was serene, calm, confident. Unbelievably, as one approached the shipyards the atmosphere kept improving. And at the center of it all stood Lech Walesa. In the eye of the storm he was reassuring. His incomprehensible yet miraculously contagious composure and quiet optimism were recorded in a documentary filmed in the shipyards, Workers '80, and described in countless eyewitness accounts.
Striking in a just cause, peaceful revindication of the unduly denied, combined with a like mindedness asserted in public, produced a sense of dignity and civic responsibility never before encountered in Poland. It was a living thing. It spread. And it metabolized everything it encountered. In time, as the Independent Self-governing Labor Union Solidarity, established itself all over Poland, organizations as well as individuals were affected. Solidarity's main product was association, a coming together of people who had something in common--an idea, a grievance, an interest, or a cause. Suddenly Poles were talking to one another. This is, incidentally, the foremost characterization of a genuine revolution: people talking--not making speeches, certainly not reading prepared speeches, but addressing their fellow citizens and being addressed in return. Walesa's memoir is a collage of conversations; in fact it is full of transcripts of conversations as so many of them at the time had been held in public, broadcast to some interested audience, indeed registered on magnetic tape for rebroadcast to more audiences.
New literary forms
Among the many inventions of this period, one should note the appearance of a specific literary genre--a narrative made of deliberately created mosaic of personal testimonies. Of course, the diary, the memoir, and interview are common forms of expression: They have been practiced with sublime virtuosity in other times and other societies. But with the advent of Solidarity, a new life was breathed into these old forms of bearing testimony. The most important modification is that the narrative became a collective enterprise. This is already visible in the Polish technique of interviewing that often turns into a conversation (and hence a dialogue), and/or moves
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