Polish revolutionaries

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 26. Chapters: Adam Gurowski, Adolf Warski, Albert Darasz, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Henryk Abicht, Jakub Szela, Józef Unszlicht, Julian Marchlewski, Karl Radek, Lech Wä¿sa, Leo Jogiches, Ludwik Wary¿ski, Marcin Kasprzak, Maria Bohuszewiczówna, Rosa Luxemburg, Sofia Dzerzhinskaya, Stanis¿aw Gabriel Worcell, Stanis¿aw Kunicki, Tadeusz Rechniewski, Wilfrid Michael Voynich, Yakov Ganetsky, Zenon ¿wi¿tos¿awski. Excerpt: Lech Wä¿sa (Polish: ( listen), English: or ; (better known in English as Lech Walesa), born 29 September 1943) is a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, and human-rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity (Solidarno¿¿), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland between 1990 and 1995. Wä¿sa was an electrician by trade. Soon after beginning work at the Gdäsk (then, "Lenin") Shipyards, he became a dissident trade-union activist. For this he was persecuted by the communist authorities, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times. In August 1980 he was instrumental in political negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdäsk Agreement between striking workers and the government. He became a co-founder of the Solidarity trade-union movement. Arrested again after martial law was imposed in Poland and Solidarity was outlawed, upon release he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the 1989 Round Table Agreement that led to semi-free parliamentary elections in June 1989 and to a Solidarity-led government. In 1990 he successfully ran for the 1989-newly re-established office of President of Poland. He presided over Poland's transformation from a communist to a post-communist state, but his popularity waned. After he narrowly lost the 1995 presidential election, his role in Polish politics was diminished. However, his international fame remains. Wä¿sa continues to speak and lecture in Poland and abroad on history and politics. Wä¿sa was born in Popowo, Poland, on 29 September 1943. His father Boles¿aw was a carpenter who was arrested by the Nazis before Lech was born and thrown into the concentration camp at Mlyniec. Boleslaw returned home after the war but lived only two months before succumbing to exhaustion and illness - he was not yet 34 years old. His mother Feliksa, born Kamienska, has been credited with shaping