Hello you're very welcome to Longreeds, a Jacobin podcast where we look in depth of political topics and thinkers.

My name's Daniel Finn and the features editor here at Jacobin and I'll be presenting the show.

It's now four decades since Poland's solidarity movement

captured the attention of the world.

Solidarity was the first independent trade union

in an East European communist state. After it emerged in the

shipyards of Kedansk, the movement quickly spread throughout the country to

organize the majority of Polish workers. It contained different tendencies,

socialists, liberal and conservative. Some on the Western left saw it as a

potential vehicle for an anti-bureaucratic workers revolution. Conservative politicians like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher welcomed a challenge

the Soviet power in Moscow's backyard.

The events in Poland inspired a song by You 2 called New Year's Day.

The growth of solidarity provoked a crisis in relations between Poland and the Soviet Union. After a tumultuous year, a military

coup drove the movement underground. During the underground phase, Solidarity lost its character

as a mass movement.

Its leaders re-emerged in 1989 to take part in the negotiations that ended communist

rule in Poland.

The new Polish state followed the line of free market capitalism and Solidarity Union officials mostly accepted the program of shock therapy, alienating many of their supporters.

A political party based on Solidarity briefly formed a government in the late 90s, but soon disintegrated.

Our guest today is David Ost, who witnessed the birth of solidarity at first hand and later wrote a book about it the defeat of

solidarity. I began by asking him why Poland had been an especially troublesome

country for the Soviet leadership during the Cold War. Well I think it goes of

...