IV 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 504 
Recognizing and congratulating the Republic of Poland on the 20th 
anniversary of the Polish parliamentary elections on June 4, 1989. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 4, 2009 
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. LIPINSKI, Mr. WOLF, Mr. KAN-
JORSKI, Mr. PITTS, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART 
of Florida, Ms. KAPTUR, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. DINGELL, Mr. COHEN, 
Mr. KIND, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Mr. QUIGLEY, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. 
MCMAHON, and Mr. COURTNEY) submitted the following resolution; 
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Recognizing and congratulating the Republic of Poland on 
the 20th anniversary of the Polish parliamentary elec-
tions on June 4, 1989. 
Whereas the Soviet Union and the Republic of Poland’s Com-
munist Party used the Polish elections of 1947, in which 
they brutally persecuted non-Communist candidates and 
grossly falsified voting returns, to impose a Communist 
government on Poland; 
Whereas after 1947, Poland’s Communist government did not 
permit genuine opposition candidates to campaign for 
election or to appear on election ballots; 
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•HRES 504 IH 
Whereas Poland’s Communist government was not an inde-
pendent national government but was subservient to the 
Soviet Union, to which it formally ceded approximately 
one-third of Poland’s territory; 
Whereas the Polish people never accepted the legitimacy of 
the Communist government, but repeatedly challenged its 
totalitarian rule, including in the revolutionary strike 
movements of 1956, 1970, and 1976; 
Whereas in 1956 and 1970, the Communist government re-
sponded to these challenges by firing on assembled strik-
ers, killing large numbers of workers, and by manipu-
lating social prejudices to set against each other indus-
trial workers, farmers, and intellectuals; 
Whereas the Soviet Union responded to powerful anti-Com-
munist movements in eastern Europe with armed force, 
most notably in the 1944–1945 crushing of the Polish 
Home Army, the 1956 invasion of Hungary, and the 
1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia; 
Whereas in 1979, Pope John Paul II visited his native Po-
land and inspired millions of Poles with the ideals of so-
cial solidarity and respect for human dignity, and urged 
them to, ‘‘Be not afraid’’; 
Whereas in 1980, shipyard workers in Gdansk responded to 
government-ordered price hikes with a strike calling for 
the legalization of independent labor unions, freedom of 
expression, and economic reforms; 
Whereas the Gdansk strike movement quickly spread 
throughout Poland, establishing itself as the Solidarity 
labor union, the first independent labor union in a Com-
munist country, with a membership of approximately 80 
percent of the Polish labor force; 
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•HRES 504 IH 
Whereas the Solidarity labor union became a broad social 
movement, uniting industrial workers, farmers, intellec-
tuals, and students, and demanding respect for human 
rights; 
Whereas from 1981 to 1983, Poland’s Communist govern-
ment imposed martial law and arrested thousands of Sol-
idarity leaders but failed to completely suppress Soli-
darity; 
Whereas in 1988, new waves of Solidarity-led strikes com-
pelled Poland’s Communist government to negotiate with 
Solidarity; 
Whereas from February to April 1989, Solidarity leaders and 
the Communist government negotiated an agreement for 
a free election in which Solidarity would run candidates 
for 100 percent of seats in the Polish Senate and 35 per-
cent of seats in the Polish Sejm; 
Whereas Poland’s Communist government controlled the 
major media, and observers and public opinion polls pre-
dicted that Poland’s Communist Party would decisively 
win the election; and 
Whereas the Polish parliamentary election of June 4, 1989, 
was a landslide victory for Solidarity, which won 160 of 
the 161 seats it competed for: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) congratulates the Republic of Poland on the 
20th anniversary of the Polish parliamentary elec-
tions, the first free and democratic election in a 
Communist-bloc country; 
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•HRES 504 IH 
(2) recognizes that the June 4, 1989, election 
enabled Solidarity to form the first non-Communist 
and democratic government in eastern Europe since 
1948; 
(3) recognizes that the June 4, 1989, election, 
by showing the strength of citizens united in soli-
darity against totalitarianism, inaugurated a series 
of democratic revolutions that within 6 months 
ended Communist rule in Hungary, East Germany, 
Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania, and after-
ward in Yugoslavia, Albania, and the Soviet Union; 
(4) commends the Solidarity labor union for re-
jecting the ideology of class struggle to make an 
original proposal of the solidarity of citizens from 
different social groups in a common struggle for 
freedom, human dignity, and justice against totali-
tarianism; and 
(5) commends the Polish people for the remark-
able courage and commitment to freedom, human 
dignity, and justice which it showed in freeing itself 
from Communism, which greatly contributed to 
other peoples doing the same, and recalls the his-
toric Polish motto, ‘‘for your freedom and ours’’. 
Æ 
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