What I learnt from the European Solidarity Centre:

• Keep the fight inside the factory: the unionists learnt that taking the fight “to the streets” would result in brutal violent crackdown by military, weakening their capacity. They therefore found it more effective to fight from the inside, via peaceful protest. “Control your emotions and defy provocations.” Violent struggle, although understandable given the horrible conditions, should be avoided.

• Democratically elected leaders must be empowered to compromise - again, a reformist view on things. I think this is applicable to politics today. E.g. some Green supporters would be intolerant to the idea of Greens ever compromising to work “across the aisle” even if it would achieve progress on common interests. “We won’t attack anyone personally, nor any party or government. We will concern ourselves with immediate demands. We have been accused of cowardice making compromises, but this is a bluff.” - Lech Wałęsa, strike leader and later the first democratically elected President of Poland.

• Have a realistic set of demands. Solidarity’s 21 demands (which became a bit of a slogan - I say fresh graffiti art around the old shipyard site saying “21 yes’s”) were not aggressively or politically worded, but matter of fact.

• Workers and intelligentsia must act together and demand concessions. I’m not sure we do this well - we rarely have true dialogue and equal collaboration between champagne socialists and the working poor.

• There was a group of elders, literally called “the Old Folk”, who supported the workers with their authority, advice, and skill in statements and letters. They were economists, lawyers, activists, historians, and chaplains, some of whom had been veterans in WW2 resistance including even the Warsaw uprising.

• There was a huge diverse range of supporters ensuring the operation of the movement. Journalists, speechmakers, policy negotiators, musicians, artists, graphic designers, economists, priests (who allowed underground union members to meet in their churches when it was illegal during military dictatorship), the literal Pope (John Paul II who was Polish and supported a free and self-determining Poland; he provided much-needed hope and spiritual bolstering during the decade-long fight) etc.