A Statesman Diminished

In the Lone Star State, I recently had the opportunity to meet a critical figure from Poland's past. Unfortunately, the past is where he remains.

If you don’t know this already, I have long considered myself a blessed individual. Not only do I have the time and resources to pursue my passions through multiple avenues, but I have also been dealt a straight flush of opportunities to meet all kinds of distinguished individuals— even two Presidents of the United States. Even though these conversations are usually brief and somewhat awkward, they are thankfully, for the most part, cordial. Granted, I have not yet encountered Mariah Carey. If the worst of these encounters was a tense lecturing by a Swedish Minister, I would label my experience with eminent individuals a modest success. On September 20, I was given the opportunity, thanks to research by someone very close to me, to meet an individual not only famous, but a Nobel Laureate who truly transformed the path of his country forever. And that man was Lech Walesa.

So who is Lech Walesa, the man credited as one of the driving forces behind the end of the communist regime in Poland? In the most basic explanation, Walesa was the Solidarity trade union leader who in 1990 was elected as President of Poland in the Eastern European nation’s first legitimately free election since 1928. Born in 1943 in a village in Nazi-occupied Poland, Walesa began his career as a lowly electrician at the Vladimir Lenin Shipyard in the port city of Gdansk in 1967. By the 1970s, Walesa was becoming a full-fledged labor activist and was ultimately fired in 1976 by the shipyard’s management for his rabble-rousing. This event became a pattern over the next several years with repeated agitation, dismissal, and even state surveillance no matter where he worked. This electrician’s turning point came in 1980 when a nationwide strike began a process that would ensure Walesa’s place in the history books.

In 1980, Poland’s economic state was dire. As foreign currency, consumer goods, and food were growing increasingly scarce, a government increase regarding the price of basic necessities proved explosive. Strikes proliferated everywhere, with the Lenin Shipyard at their epicenter, and the country ground to a halt. Walesa’s charismatic personality cemented his status as both the symbolic and practical leader of the strike efforts. Support for the strikes was so widespread across society that the government had little choice but to negotiate, casting aside their previous instinct to respond with force. The main concessions? Political prisoners were released, and the right to strike was codified. Because the 1980 strike proliferated across all sectors of the economy and society, the union was named Solidarity, a powerful symbol of unity against Poland’s oppressive regime.

Walesa became an international celebrity overnight, traveling across the world and being welcomed as a guest of honor wherever he went, including by Polish Pope John Paul II (more on him later.) Upon his return to Poland, Walesa was imprisoned and Solidarity banned in 1981 as the government declared martial law, an era credited as one of the darkest episodes of Polish history. And if you know any Polish history, you know that’s not an understatement. Under international pressure, all of these crackdowns were reversed by 1983, and Walesa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His activism continued throughout the 1980s, culminating in the 1989 Round Table discussions and Walesa’s successful assent as Poland’s first truly democratically elected leader in 62 years. While that tumultuous period in Polish history ensured Lech Walesa’s place in the pantheon of 20^th-century global statesmen, his star has since dimmed.

By 1995, Poland’s painful transition to a market economy and Lech Walesa’s refusal to abandon his agitating, confrontational temperament even as his job description required otherwise set the course for the Solidarity leader’s defeat in that year’s re-election. By the 2000 election, Walesa barely attained one percent of the vote and has since been relegated to the irrelevant margins of the Polish political scene. Now discredited in his homeland, Walesa has spent the last three decades mostly engaged in international lecture series, still speaking through translators. Even worse for Walesa’s reputation, Walesa has been accused, ever since the 1990s, of working as an informant for the communist regime between 1970 and 1976. While millions of people in the Polish People’s Republic were forced to make this agonizing decision to literally survive, these revelations, with credible documents to prove them, have seriously undermined the image of Lech Walesa as the uncompromising freedom fighter.

The latest international tour featuring Lech Walesa is being hosted by History Explorer, a little-known organization based in Poland that, upon research, seems like little more than Walesa’s vehicle to remain relevant internationally. The website featured no other links to anything beyond his current North American tour encompassing 28 cities. Walesa’s history was known to me, and I realized that despite his controversies, the opportunity to meet someone so historical and show off my Polish language skills would be hard to pass by. Since the tour would not stop in Nashville, our family decided that we would fly to Dallas, Texas, where we have some extended family, on September 20 to hear his lecture at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center.

And this is where the real problems began.

During a closed-door Q&A session before the main event, a man asked the former Solidarity leader about the role of the Polish Pope John Paul II in the struggle against communism. Walesa didn’t answer the question, making no reference whatsoever to the Polish pontiff and his critical role in strengthening Polish resolve during those tough yet critical times. The two, while allies in the past, clearly must have suffered a falling out at some point. Walesa even went so far to attack the entire concept of organized religion, a clear departure from his legacy in the 1980s. By the time the microphone came around to yours truly, I inquired (in English, so the other guests could understand) about the state of the Polish-Ukrainian relationship in the context of recent bilateral tensions. While Walesa correctly hinted that countries have an obligation to work past historical traumas, he seemed quite dismissive overall of the specifics, blaming current problems entirely on so-called “populists” and “demagogues.”

And these attacks were a common theme.

Unfortunately, instead of a serious conversation about today’s pressing matters or an engaging reminiscence about his struggles in the 1970s and 1980s, Lech Walesa talked more like an 8 ball, with evasive stock answers to questions from the audience, than a serious global statesman of the 21^st century. These meandering answers were a far cry from the high-top circus-like introduction he received shortly before his main lecture, a sign of a man whose ego has clearly grown with age. As with the Pope, the former Solidarity leader also declined to give any credit to Ronald Reagan for assisting his movement, a clear black mark in our household. My mother even whispered that Walesa was a “crazy old man.”

Crazy? Maybe. Still, despite his 2025 ramblings, Walesa’s actions between 1976 and 1990 deserve nothing less than complete praise. I was also honored to pose for a picture with such a world-defining historical figure, after introducing myself in his native language. My Polish friends were all impressed, regardless of their opinions of his current activities. In turn, while Walesa himself could have been more engaging, I can now safely add this meeting with a former Polish president to my list of successful encounters with eminent, or at least once-eminent, individuals. At least this encounter in the Lone Star State was better than that Swedish minister in Warsaw.