This article originally appeared in The Detroit News October 28, 2025.
History’s most consequential heroes aren’t always the most powerful. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II played important parts in toppling communism. But it was a Polish electrician, climbing a shipyard fence in an act of defiance, who inspired a movement. On Sunday night, that electrician, Lech Walesa, spoke to a crowd of 500 in Detroit.
In his remarks, Walesa offered an optimistic vision. “Among all the generations, we’ve got the biggest opportunity for peace, for prosperity and for development,” he said.
Walesa, born in 1943, worked as an electrician at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland. Early on, he was active in the worker’s rights movement, organizing a rally in 1970 to protest food prices. Polish police and military reacted forcefully, killing more than 30 protesters. Over that decade, Walesa moved from job to job, often losing work due to his dissident activities. The secret police kept him under constant surveillance and arrested him several times.
Food prices triggered more strikes in 1980. Unemployed at the time, Walesa rushed to the Gdansk Shipyard and climbed over the fence to join the protesters. Walesa led the strike negotiations, personally signing the accord with the government.
Weeks later, Walesa and his allies formed Solidarity, an independent trade union. Eventually some 10 million Poles joined Solidarity, representing one quarter of the country’s population. Solidarity became a global symbol of the fight against communism.
“History has taught us that there can be no bread without freedom,” said a Solidarity program, published in 1981. “We also wanted justice, democracy, truth, freedom of opinion, a reconstructed republic — not just bread, butter and sausage.”
Walesa’s efforts were widely recognized: He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. Pope John Paul II, himself a son of Poland, met with Walesa and endorsed the Polish struggle for freedom.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, the people of Poland elected Walesa president in 1990, their first freely elected president in more than 50 years. After his presidency, Walesa founded a think tank to promote democracy.
Walesa is now 83, and his energy on Sunday night was impressive. Detroit was the 27th stop on his lecture tour. He offered prepared remarks and took questions from the crowd, outlasting even his interpreter, whose voice began to falter after 90 minutes.
Walesa contrasted capitalism and communism.
“Communism looks better in theory, and that’s why many people in the West support the communist economic system,” he said.
And yet, “Give me a single example of a single country where this communist economic system actually worked. You can’t give me such a country because there are no such countries.”
On four separate occasions, an audience member invited Walesa to criticize President Donald Trump. Walesa suggested Trump should hold more public meetings like this one, but after each such question, Walesa pivoted to the danger posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“You need to understand the times we live in,” he said.
Regarding the war in Ukraine, Putin “cannot win.” Walesa said.
“What he [Putin] is doing, it goes against the grain of civilization,” Walesa said. “So it’s all a matter of time and a matter of price. The sooner we take care of it, the less the cost will be.”
Responding to a question from a union member, Walesa said: “Unions were, are and will always be necessary.” But he hinted at the need to adapt. “Every problem can be solved in a new and honest way. Trade unions are to look and seek these honest solutions.”
Walesa repeatedly returned to his central themes of optimism and opportunity. The crowd gave him two lengthy standing ovations. Forty-five years after jumping the fence, Lech Walesa still inspires hope.
