Atlas / Organisations / Solidarność
Solidarność
Solidarity · 1980–1989 · Poland · Democratic Opposition · Movement · coding confidence medium
Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →
Core principles
An independent self-governing trade union demanding civil liberties against a communist state.
Economic model
Worker self-management and social ownership initially; the movement split over markets after 1989.
Organisation of powers
Free unions, free press, free elections, the rule of law, a self-governing republic.
Reading note
A workers' movement against a workers' state, Catholic and socialist at once — unreadable on a single axis.
Check a claim about Solidarność. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.
Open in the atlasThe evidence for every score
All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.
EC · Economic organisation · scored −03
Coded −3: worker self-management and social ownership before the 1989 split over markets.
- Programme textThe 1981 programme demanded a self-governing republic with worker-managed enterprises.
CU · Social and cultural order · scored +04
Coded +4: Catholic and socially conservative, with a labour base.
- Documented act or statuteThe movement's masses and the papal visits of 1979 and 1983 were constitutive of it.
AU · Organisation of power · scored −08
Coded −8: free unions, free press and free elections against a party state.
- Documented act or statuteThe Gdańsk agreement of August 1980 legalised an independent union for the first time in the bloc.
SC · Scale of decision · scored −04
Coded −4: self-governing enterprises and regions.
- Programme textThe programme's title was 'Self-Governing Republic'.
ID · Rule of membership · scored +03
Coded +3: a Polish Catholic national frame.
- ScholarshipNational and religious symbolism was central to the movement's public identity.
CH · Method and tempo · scored +02
Coded +2: strikes and negotiation, under martial law from 1981.
- Documented act or statuteMartial law interned around 10,000 activists in December 1981; the Round Table talks followed in 1989.
Where it came from, and what came after
- gave doctrine toLaw and Justice
Both major post-communist Polish traditions emerged from the same union movement.
- was succeeded byHong Kong Democracy Movement
Independent movements demanding free unions and free elections against a party state.
Nearest organisations by measured distance
Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.
- Bloc Québécois9.2
- US People's Party9.3
- Athenian Democracy9.6
- Mutualism9.7
- Distributism9.8
- Gandhian Nationalism9.8
Countries
Cite this page
Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.
Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.