June 18, 2004
Solidarity's godfather
The free world lost another hero this week, someone less well-known in the U.S. than Lech Walesa but just as important. Remember the name of Jacek Kuron. He mattered.
The man who provided the intellectual inspiration for eastern Europe's first free trade union died yesterday, amid a welter of tributes from the heroes of the anti-Russian resistance movement.Posted by Alan at June 18, 2004 12:22 AMJacek Kuron, 70, the chain-smoking, denim-clad "Godfather" of Poland's Solidarity trade union, had been suffering from throat cancer.
The foremost intellectual of the anti-communist movement, Mr Kuron's influence over Lech Walesa was vital to the creation of the Solidarity movement and later to the 1989 "round table" talks between the union and the Communist Party, which ended the totalitarian era.
Mr Walesa, the former Solidarity leader, said yesterday that "without Jacek it would have been impossible.
"The unquestionable leader of anti-communist struggle in the 1970s and 1980s, there would have been no success or victory without him, without his intellect."
Mr Kuron served several jail sentences as well as two terms as Poland's labour minister after the collapse of communism.
It was to Jacek Kuron that Mr Walesa turned for guidance after climbing the fence of the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk on Aug 14 1980 to lead a strike that was to provide the catalyst to political revolution in eastern Europe.