The contrast was stupefying. In December 1981, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa was arrested along with more than 6,000 fellow union members in a martial-law crackdown that seemed to shatter their movement and, with it, all hope of freedom and reform in Communist Poland. Last week Walesa found himself at the center of a very different situation. His forces had just whipped the Communist Party in the country's first truly democratic elections since 1947, causing a constitutional logjam that for the moment left unclear exactly how and by whom Poland would be governed. Walesa, 46, his trademark mustache now gray and his...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
