[conanthe]

This is wrong. "Solidarnosc" was more socialist than the ruling party! This common misconception. If you read their manifesto, you can see they wanted even more socialism. That movement was only about taking over. In 1988 communists started capitalist reforms similar to China, but fall of the Soviet Union gave politicians coming from the Solidarnosc a chance. First thing they did was reversing the free market reforms and moving Poland to be a socialist utopia it is today and wasting huge potential.

[mamon]

Actually, it's more complicated than that. "Solidarność" was a big organization, with different factions. The some of the members, like Andrzej Gwiazda, Anna Walentynowicz, Kornel Morawiecki, were more right-leaning, patriotic, fighting for independence. And then there were people like Adam Michnik, Jacek Kuroń, Bronisław Geremek, who actually were communists by heart, in fact more dedicated to communist ideals than the ruling PZPR party.

[conanthe]

The truth is that they were infiltrated by the Germans and the US - they were not fighting for independence but to find new rulers.

As the "Right wing" you mean national socialists - who want socialism only for a given group of people.

True right (as in Libertarians) was ridiculed by the likes of Michnik.

[trhway]

>This is wrong. "Solidarnosc" was more socialist than the ruling party!

yes, i know, and you're right in the sense that it is a bit more complicated than i originally said. The fall of real socialism in 198x in USSR was also associated with the part of society having that naive/romantic longing of "back to good socialism as it was originally envisioned by the great wise fuzzy warm grandpa Lenin" (never mind that Lenin was presiding over and directing the class- and political based genocide on the national scale as a natural part of his socialism) as opposed to supposedly incorrectly implemented real socialism of the time. So the Lenin explicitly embracing "Solidarity" artifacts on that photo is exactly the symbol of the same "back to and more of the good original socialism" and a rejection of that "wrong" real socialism.

The catch of course is there is only one socialism, and it is not the "good one" as that just doesn't exist...

[conanthe]

Well put my friend

[mamon]

"Good socialism, just like Marx and Lenin intended" is currently being implemented by European Union :)