White Eagles for Solidarity pioneers at last

President Lech Kaczynski has decorated Anna Walentynowicz and Andrzej Gwiazda, two legendary pioneers of the Solidarity movement, with the highest Polish state distinction, the Order of The White Eagle.

They were the organizers of the workers protest in the Gdansk shipyard in 1980, which led to the official recognition by the communist authorities of Solidarity, the first free trade union in the then Eastern bloc.

As a result, they lost their jobs and had been arrested many times. During martial law both had been imprisoned. After the fall of communism in Poland and the Round Table talks which paved the way to democratic change, they acted in opposition to Lech Walesa criticizing the former Solidarity leader for entering into big politics with post-communists and betraying trade union ideals, as they had claimed.