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Solidarność, Western Solidarity and Détente: A Transnational Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2008

Stefan Berger*
Affiliation:
School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK

Abstract

The reaction of Western trade unions towards Solidarność was extremely varied, ranging from enthusiastic support to the denunciation of Solidarność as ‘counter-revolutionary’ and in the pay of the CIA. These views depended on political, institutional, and cultural determinants and had much to do with the national circumstances of particular unions and their representatives.

Type
Focus: Solidarność
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2008

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References

References and Notes

1. The General Council’s Report to the 112th Annual Congress, Brighton 1980, pp. 493–499.Google Scholar
3. See, for example, the joint statement by the Welsh TUC and the Welsh Labour Party, published in Voice of Solidarity, 17, 12 April 1982, p. 4.Google Scholar
4. In the British case, motivations for entering into dialogue with Eastern European communism, specifically the variant practised and preached in the GDR, have been explored at length by S. Berger and N. LaPorte (2008) Friendly Enemies. Britain and the GDR, 1949–1990 (Oxford).Google Scholar
5. On the de-ideologisation of labour movements compare G. Moschonas (2002) In the Name of Social Democracy. The Great Transformation, 1945 to the Present (London); G. Eley (2002) Forging Democracy. The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000 (Oxford); S. Bartolini (2000) The Political Mobilisation of the European Left 1860–1980. The Class Cleavage (Cambridge); J. Callaghan (2000) The Retreat of Social Democracy (Manchester); D. Sassoon (1969) One Hundred Years of Socialism. The West European Left in the Twentieth Century (London).Google Scholar
6. G. Hart (1994) For Our Freedom and Yours. A History of the Polish Solidarity Campaign of Great Britain, 1980–1994 (London).Google Scholar
7. S. Berger (2003) Comparative history. In: S. Berger, H. Feldner, K. Passmore (eds) Writing History. Theory and Practice (London), pp. 161–182.Google Scholar