Lech Walesa: Socialist Mostly just known by the fact that he was president, Lech Walesa was much more than that. Lech Walesa had a positive impact on social and political reform because he was the one who brought Poland back up from the hardships the Polish faced during the war. He helped form and lead communist Poland's first independent trade union, which was Solidarity. The charismatic leader of millions of Polish workers went on to become the president of Poland from 1990 to 1995. For his determined and nonviolent fight for human rights ,he received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1983 (Smith Michael 8). He then pursued to run for president again in 2000, but he did not receive enough votes to make the cut. He received only a tiny fraction of the vote which made him not be elected. Lech Walesa was born September 29, 1943 in Popowo, Poland. As a child, he lived a very isolated life away from everyone he loved. Walesa gew up in that environmemt and despised both Soviet and Polish Communists. He was raised in a large family and attended a vocational school in Lipno (ABC-CLIO 3). After graduating from a vocational school in Poland, he went on to work as a car mechanic . He was then sentenced by his family to serve in the army and did it for 2 years. In 1970, he joined a Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk,Poland as an electrical technician and made a decent living for those times (American Academy of 2). In 1969 Lech Walesa met Danuta Golos and immediately fell in love and got married. In 1970, when a clash broke between workers and the government,he would get arrested because he was one of the leaders of the Shipyard workers. Eventually, he lost his job in 1976 and earned his living by taking whatever jobs he could get his hands on. In the long run, it made his life hard for a while, but he shot right back up when no one expected him to (Nobel Foundation 1). Lech Walesa has an impressive list of accomplishments qualifying him as a worthy subject for historical recognition (Joe Frett 3). After December 1970, when he was recognized as a promising activist, he became the occupational safety supervisor on behalf of the trade unions in his department. He was fired for having delivered an unwelcomed speech in 1976. He then became an opposition activist. Because he frequently changed his jobs, he gained an immense amount of popularity as a social activist. In 1980, he led the strike in the Gdansk Shipyard. On the 31st of August, he signed an agreement between the Inter-Establishment Strike Committee and the Government Commission. He directed the outlawed union until it received legal recognition in 1988. For 16 months he was the head of the Independent Self-Governed "Solidarity" Trade Union. "I can't do it all. You must help. When Poland is in danger, it unites. It must unite behind me" (Robin Knight 2). He attempted to have permanent talks with the government in order to alleviate the rising social tension. This led to him being the co-founder of the "solidarity movement" (BBN 2). Walesa refused to form a coalition government with the communists, the Parliament was forced to accept a Solidarity-led government, though Wasa himself refused to serve as premier (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia). "All of Polands history can be summed up in the phrase 'struggle for freedom"' (Joe Frett). Poland was very weak at many times and the one person that made a significant change to it was Lech.