Entry 8:

Today's itinerary: Nowa Huta, Poland

In 1952, the Soviet authorities decided to build their fantasy just outside Krakow: a model town of the future next to an immense steelworks of the future. The steelworks would be named after Lenin and the town would be called Nowa Huta. At its peak, 27,000 people worked at the Lenin Steelworks. Today, it is an economic and ecological disaster area, still owned by the state, which seems unable to figure out how to dispose of it. Nine thousand people still work here, but there are plans to reduce the workforce to 4,000 later this year. The local unions oppose the plan and are threatening to strike. The most important of these unions is Solidarity.

Nowa Huta always was a troublesome place for the Communists. Their town of the future didn't have a church and—in 1960—the workers began a series of protests that forced the government to allow one to be built. Then, in 1988, the steelworkers—now represented by Solidarity—began a strike for higher pay and for recognition of their union. The strike spread to the local coal mines, and then it spread throughout the country. There were battles with the police; many of the workers were thrown in jail. But they won the strike and the right to be represented by Solidarity—a victory that led directly to the collapse of communism in Poland two years later.

There are two stolid, soot-colored buildings with crenellated roofs that stand at the gates of Nowa Huta. One houses the plant's administrative offices. The Solidarity office is located in the other, and I'm overcome by a sudden wave of nostalgia when I see the familiar red-and-white flag and logo. The local leader, Wladyslaw Kilian, greets me and my interpreter, Eve, in front of the building. He leads us up to the office, which has a large poster of the pope on the door. He introduces us to some workers, who have stayed around on this late Friday afternoon to talk to us.

I expect anger and frustration from them, but the overwhelming emotion seems a dignified sadness. "I expected that the West would help us more after the Berlin Wall came down," says Adam, who is 55 and has worked at Nowa Huta for 37 years. "But that illusion faded very quickly. You know that, after the second World War, the European Coal and Steel Community was formed to provide support for the mines and mills in the west. Now, we're in the same situation and the EU is telling our government that if it wants to join, it cannot support factories like this one. Why are the rules different for us?"

Kilian says that the early Solidarity governments were a disappointment to the workers, many of whom turned to the former Communists. ("I could never do that," he adds.) Now, disappointed by the former Communists, many of the workers are turning to Andrzej Lepper. In fact, their union has split into three different groups, one of which invited Lepper to speak at Nowa Huta.

"Lepper plays on nostalgia and anger," says Adam, "and the old days were more safe and secure. People had more things to be happy about. Sometimes you were able to buy 100 grams of coffee"—a mischievous twinkle here—"and the whole family would be happy. But who would ever want to go back to that?"

"My children found some of the old food coupons in a drawer," says Ryszard, 41, an electrician. "They didn't know what they were. I had to tell them about the old days. You know, I came to work here because my father worked here. My son is crazy about computers. I want him to go to school and become an expert, but you need money for that. Many people don't even have the money to buy schoolbooks for their children. I am just an ordinary worker, not a union leader like these guys. But I am disappointed in the ruling elites, especially those who came from here, from this union, and turned their backs on us."

One would think, given the broad expanse of its social democratic heart, that the EU—if not the Polish government itself—might find some way to provide schoolbooks for the children of the obsolete steelworkers, miners, and farmers whose courage brought freedom to Poland.