From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is The Story, and I'm Luke Jones.

In 1980, the Solidarnoistra Solidarity Trade Movement formed in the old Lenin shipyard, in the Polish port of Diansk on the Baltic Sea.

Oliver Moody is Berlin correspondent for the Times, and recently he's been writing about Poland.

We're right to strike. And it's leader, this fantastically

and charismatic electrician, called Lechfluenza,

who was prone to quite fanciful flights of rhetoric,

stood up in front of the striking workers.

He said, one day, we are going to build a second Japan here in Poland.

And the crowd fell about laughing,

because in 1980, it was unthinkable

that this dysfunctional economy, racked with scarcities,

could rival the modernity of what was back then the rising economic power of the world, Japan. But it very much looks as though this year that is

exactly what the country is going to do. Poland's economy is booming. In the second quarter of this

year, Poland recorded the EU's fastest GDP growth.

Not comfortable with a trajectory that will soon see Britain overtaken by Poland.

Poland has transformed itself into a powerhouse with a thriving tech sector, one of the busiest ports in Europe,

and the kind of economic growth Rachel Reeves would give an arm for. In the past, Poles would leave for work.

To the UK, perhaps. Now, they're flooding back.

Fifteen years ago, Polish workers came here to find opportunity.

Now, Poland is growing twice as fast as we are.

So how did this happen?

How did Poland go from a post-Soviet basket case

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