
































Microsoft Word - APE-V3N4-p19


Advances in Politics and Economic 
ISSN 2576-1382 (Print) ISSN 2576-1390 (Online) 

Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 
www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape 

19 
 

Original Paper 

The Beginning of Agoral Gatherings in Poland and Their 

Macro-Systemic Political and Economic Consequences: Events 

of Lublin July 1980 

Adam Biela1* 

1 Institute of Psychology, the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University at Lublin, Poland 
* Adam Biela, Institute of Psychology, the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University at Lublin, Poland 

 

Received: August 28, 2020   Accepted: September 16, 2020  Online Published: September 23, 2020 

doi:10.22158/ape.v3n4p19         URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/ape.v3n4p19 

 

Abstract 

The aim of this study is a psychological-historical analysis of the sequence of events in recent Polish 

history, in which Lublin July 1980 played a key role as a mental bridge between the first 

visit-pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II to Poland 2-9 June 1979, and the strikes of “Solidarity”, which 

began in August 1980 and culminated in the signing of strike agreements with the authorities of the 

People’s Republic of Poland in Gdańsk, Szczecin and Jastrzębie Zdrój. We have shown that the 

behaviour of the participants of the strikes in state enterprises in the Lublin region allows for their 

qualification as agoral gatherings, with their moral and cultural patterns rooted in the phenomena of 

psychosocial meetings between Poles and Pope John Paul II. We have shown that the events in Lublin 

have become a field for the psychosocial exploration of democratic behaviours in striking factories—in 

the face of the power of the totalitarian system in the People’s Republic of Poland. In this way, Lublin 

July 1980 became a link for social learning based on moral, patriotic and religious values—which led 

to “Solidarity” strikes all over Poland. These strikes were another link in the process of realization of 

self-determination of the Polish people as a sovereign state. The power of agoral processes created by 

the “Solidarity” movement in August 1980 did not manage to stifle any repressive tactics and strategies 

of the authorities of the totalitarian system, including the horrors of martial law in Poland. The 

movement applied the principle of non-violence to overcome totalitarian violence, which collapsed like 

a proverbial “house of cards,” first in Poland, and then throughout Central and Eastern Europe. It led 

to peaceful change in the psychosocial, political and macroeconomic situation of countries such as 

Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, the GDR, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia 

and Albania.  



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

20 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

Keywords 

agoral gatherings, the Lublin July 1980 strikes, John Paul II’s first pilgrimage to Poland in 1979, 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid in the events of Lublin July 1980, non-violent intentions of the 

participants of Lublin strikes, peaceful collapse of the totalitarian communist system 

 

1. Introduction 

The aim of this study is a psychological-historical analysis of the sequence of events in recent Polish 

history in which Lublin July 1980 played a key role as a mental bridge between the First 

Visit-Pilgrimage of Pope John Paul II to Poland 2-9 June 1979 and the “Solidarity” strikes which 

started in August 1980 in the Baltic cities of Gdańsk and Szczecin and in Upper Silesia, and were 

crowned by the signing of strike agreements with the authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland in 

Gdańsk, Szczecin and Jastrzębie Zdrój. We indicate the psychological significance of strikes in the 

Lublin region for the development of events in Poland, especially in August 1980. To this end, we 

present the term agoral assembly, introduced for the analysis of the psychosocial phenomenon of mass 

meetings with Pope John Paul II, and then we prove that the events of Lublin July 1980 also had the 

character of agoral assemblies, which evaluated in the direction of the strikes of “Solidarity” in August 

1980 (Biela, 1989). We will try to prove that the events of Lublin became a field of psychosocial 

exploration of the democratic behaviours of employees in their plants where they were employed—in 

the face of the power of the totalitarian system in the Polish People’s Republic in the Lublin region.  

 

2. The Concept of Agoral Gathering 

The agoral gathering was proposed as an ideal concept type explaining the psychosocial phenomena 

accompanying the mass peaceful assemblies that took place during papal visits, followed by 

“Solidarity” strikes and similar events that took place in the 1980s and 1990s in such European 

countries belonging to the bloc of the so-called socialist states as: Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, 

Bulgaria, the GDR, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and Albania (Note 2). As Biela pointed 

out (2007, 2012, 2013), agora gatherings differ significantly from other phenomena known in social 

literature in the field of collective behaviour described by such terms as crowd, mass, public behaviour. 

The term agoral gathering is derived from the word agora, meaning a voluntary, mass, public 

gathering, inspired by some higher moral or social values, e.g., human dignity, truth, freedom, justice. 

Biela (2013) points to seven conceptually expressed constitutive features for agoral gatherings: (1) the 

participants’ orientation towards higher values; (2) intentions of non-violence on the part of the 

participants themselves; (3) voluntary participation; (4) openness of the gathering; (5) mass scale of 

participation; (6) the participants’ experience of unity while being aware of the social importance of the 

gathering and the elimination of collective fears; (7) positive consequences of the gathering both on an 

individual and social scale. 

The literature on the subject mentions, among others, the following examples of agoral gatherings: the 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

21 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

foreign visits of Pope John Paul II (Biela i Tobacyk, 1987), non-violent marches of Mahatma Ghandi, 

peaceful marches of Martin Luther King, marches in defense of life, peaceful strikes of Solidarity 

(Biela, 2012), and more recently the people demand for social justice in Israel that are interpreted as an 

agoral gathering (Zysberg, 2018) or the peaceful street demonstrations of August and September 2020 

in Minsk and other Belarusian cities.  

 

3. The Experience of Anagoral Gathering Community and Liberation from Fear 

Participation in agoral gatherings abounds in experiences, not just personal experiences, but also those 

of great social importance imbued with universal human, patriotic and national values, experienced as 

participation in changing the course of recent history. Finding themselves in a situation of 

unprecedented mass scale, participants discovered its unique importance by becoming aware of the 

moral ideals of life, expectations and universal values that motivated so many people to come together. 

This allowed the participants to free themselves from fear and feel safe, to discover community and the 

unity of their desires. This was expressed, among others, in the statement: “I see here how many people 

think as I do.” It was a kind of collective catharsis. 

Many of the participants coming to the assembly did not yet have clear articulations of their motives 

for participation. They only had an intuitive conviction of their values and ideals as their main motives. 

The agoral gathering created conditions where their intuitive feelings became clearer, more obvious, 

more authentic and more stable. The process leading to the articulation of social and moral ideals 

during an assembly is defined as an agoral clarification and verification of the value system. This could 

be recognized by the spontaneous reactions of the participants of the gathering at significant moments 

when they heard the semantic articulation of their expected values (e.g., the words “freedom,” 

“truth”—mentioned by John Paul II during his first visit to Poland in 1979). 

 

4. Positive Consequences of Agoral Gatherings 

The positive experiences of the participants of the agoral assembly not only had very valuable 

consequences for the individuals participating in this meeting, but were closely related to positive 

changes on a social scale. On the basis of psychological analysis of agoral experiences, the following 

features of the agoral processes themselves can be listed (Biela, 2012): 

1) the harmonious unity of emotional-motivational and cognitive processes during agora gatherings; 

2) the communal nature of the agoral experience reaching a social depth, rooted in universal human 

needs; 

3) the cumulative strength of collective processes and behaviours indicating the direction of positive 

changes and commonly accepted social aspirations; 

4) deep roots of the agoral experiences and experiences in the individual and collective memory of the 

participants of these gatherings; 

5) strong radiation of agoral processes to people who were not participants of the gathering. 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

22 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

A significant effect of post-agoral processes is the extension of the range of experiences to people who, 

for various reasons, did not participate in an agoral gathering but are within the psychological range of 

its impact. This creates a plane that accelerates the pace and scale of social integration. As an example 

we can give the scope and pace of post-agoral processes after the first visit of John Paul II to Poland, 

which took place from June 2 to 10, 1979. During the days of these agoral gatherings, which were 

attended directly by about 50% of the Polish population, the participants became aware of the unity of 

their thoughts, feelings and beliefs on a national scale. The mass meeting with the Pope and the general 

interest in his visit caused an increase in Poles’ sense of internal freedom, sense of security and social 

integration between people from different professions, as well as an increase in the need for authentic 

thinking and acting. This undoubtedly contributed to the process of deepening the social and 

professional solidarity of Polish workers, farmers and intelligentsia. This process resulted in the 

creation of the “Solidarity” movement in July and August 1980. Thanks to this movement, a bloodless 

revolution took place, as a wave of agoral gatherings first changed the political face of Poland and then 

spread to other countries of the so-called Soviet bloc, leading to the collapse of the totalitarian system 

in a peaceful manner in Hungary and Bulgaria (Parchewa, 1992; Dimitrova, 1996). Examples of the 

impact of this wave of agoral gatherings were also the events of the “Velvet Revolution” in the Czech 

Republic and Slovakia (Hislope, 2004; Ferjenčík, 2013; Naništová, 2013). Another example of agoral 

behaviour was the peaceful dismantling of the Berlin Wall, which led to the unification of two German 

states. Similar agoral phenomena resulted in the formal collapse of the USSR and the creation of 

independent states from the former Soviet Union republics. These are further examples of post-agoral 

phenomena and the positive social consequences associated with them, like in the Baltic republics of 

the former USSR (Gaidys & Tureikyte, 1996), and in Albania (Rama, 2020). 

 

5. The Wave of Agoral Gatherings that Changed the Face of Poland 

The wave of agoral gatherings which changed the totalitarian face of Poland and later the whole of 

Central and Eastern Europe into a free and democratic region began on June 2, 1978 during Pope John 

Paul’s visit to Victory Square in Warsaw, where over half a million participants gathered. Agoral 

gatherings took place at the cites of the Pope’s pilgrimage, where a specific climate of the gatherings 

was created in Gniezno (associated with the cradle of the Polish nation), Częstochowa (a sacred 

place—the religious capital of Poland), Wa do wice (the Pope’s hometown), Oświęcim (a place of 

seriousness and remembrance—as the only place on the route of the visit, where no cheers were raised 

for the Pope, in respect of the murdered), Nowy Targ (where the mountain landscape created an 

atmosphere of apotheosis of the beauty of the land and native nature); and finally, the Cracovian agoral 

meetings, which culminated in the difficult to count 2–3 million agora at Krakowskie Błonia. 

The process of radiation of the experiences of the participants of these agoral gatherings led to the 

spread of the personal and territorial range of the effects of the agoral phenomena, which had several 

psychosocial effects: 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

23 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

1) extraordinary acceleration of the process of social integration on the scale of the whole of Poland 

involving people of different professions, social status, education levels and ages; 

2) breaking down the barrier of fear in the individual and social dimension on which the foundations of 

the totalitarian system were based; 

3) the social conviction on a more and more massive scale that since Poles can gather together to 

articulate their common expectations and values, they will probably be able to achieve these 

expectations and values if they wish. 

 

6. The Events of Lublin July 1980 as the Case of Agoral Gatherings 

The first strikes which started in Lublin July 1980 began in the State Aviation Company in Świdnik at 

the Faculty of Mechanical Processing on 8 July 1980, exactly 13 months after the departure of Pope 

John Paul II from Poland after the end of his first visit-pilgrimage, which mentally changed Polish 

society.  

6.1 A Series of Strikes from 8–25 July 1980 

The direct cause of this strike was the increase in food prices, the inability to satisfy basic biological 

and physiological needs, i.e., those needs at the very basis of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid 

(1987) including food, water, warmth and rest. Workers were dissatisfied with their safety level at work, 

and safety also belongs to the basic needs in Maslow’s pyramid. In addition, workers complained about 

the working conditions in their factory, pointing to the existence of privileged groups of citizens (Note 

3).The strike demands also included the elimination of privileges for these groups. Their strike lasted 

until July 11, when a “stationary committee” (Note 4) of employee crews signed an agreement with the 

director of the plant, as a representative of the state authority authorized to do so. This was probably the 

first written agreement concluded between the Communist authorities and the strikers (Note 5). It was 

also the first time in the history of the People’s Republic of Poland that the authorities began talks with 

the workers and did not use force against the protesters. Under this agreement, all groups of workers 

received a pay rise and were paid an average salary for the period of protest. The Lublin Voivode also 

declared a better supply of food for the city. This was the first effective agreement between the 

authorities and striking workers in the Polish People’s Republic. This agreement was a significant 

signal that there was a possibility of dialogue with the state authorities. After 81 hours of a rotary strike, 

WSK Świdnik employees returned to work. This strike actually initiated the Solidarity era in Poland. 

During the strike, strike activity spread to other factories in the Lublin region, such as the one in the 

city of Świdnik: 

1) Communication Equipment Factory in Świdnik, 

2) Polmozbyt in Lublin, 

3) Agricultural Machinery Factory “Agromet” in Lublin, 

4) Lubelskie Zakłady Naprawy Samochodów in Lublin, 

5) Repair and Production Plant of Agricultural Mechanization in Lublin, 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

24 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

6) Truck Factory in Lublin, 

7) Puławy Nitrogen Works in Puławy, 

8) “Bogdanka” Coal Mine in Łęczna, 

9) Ball Bearings Factory in Kraśnik, 

10) Polish State Railways Lublin Junction, 

11) Municipal Transport Company in Lublin. 

It should be clearly emphasized that the Lublin daily press did not inform the public about the Lublin 

region strikes at all, despite the fact that since 9 July, Radio Free Europe had been broadcasting 

information about them, and the wave of strikes reached its climax on 18 July 1980. Seventy-nine 

factories in Lublin and Lublin Voivodship protested. During the whole strike period, i.e., until 25 July, 

91 factories went on strike in Lublin alone. The protests thus became part of the experience of a large 

part of the city’s inhabitants. The strike of Polish State Railways in Lublin employees was particularly 

painful for the authorities, and the city felt the impact of the strike of Municipal Transport Company in 

Lublin from 18 July. An exemplary list of strike demands from plants in the Lublin region is presented 

in Table 1. It contains the demands formulated by railway men from the Polish State Railways Lublin 

Junction. 

 

Table 1. List of Strike Demands by Rail Way Men of the Lublin Junction (PKP) 

Strike demands in the order they were formulated 

1 increase in basic salary by 1,300 PLN per month for all employees 

2 introduction of non-working Saturdays 

3 equalization of family allowances with the militia and the army 

4 introduce a high-cost supplement 

5 improve the supply of groceries in shops to the level of Silesia 

6 introduce disclosure of awards and promotions 

7 elect a new trade union council representing the interests and defending working people 

8 ensure that all staff organize and attend the workers’ assembly 

9 persons acting on behalf of the crew must be specially protected 

10 improve social and living conditions in general 

11 the militia (MO) and security service officers are not allowed access to the locomotive depot 

12 the crew representatives guarantee order, and discipline 

13 early retirement at age 55 in traction teams 

14 until the above mentioned postulates are not fulfilled, no one will take up work 

 

The strikes in the Lublin region lasted from 8 to 25 July 1980 and included about 40-50 thousand 

workers from over 150 workplaces (Kaczor, 2000; Gach, 2005). Before the protests in August 1980, 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

25 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

they constituted the largest strike action since the events of December 1970. In fact, by 20 July, the 

government signed agreements with the individual striking companies promising to increase wages.  

One success of the workers on strike in the Locomotive Depot of Lublin was the chance to of hold 

democratic elections to the works council. Also due to the strikes, the celebration of 22 July 

anniversary of the announcement of the PKWN Manifesto did not take place in the Lublin region. After 

these events, the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL) created a new symbol of Lublin July ‘80: the 

strike of Lublin railway men together with their legendary locomotive welded to the tracks.  

Lublin July was a real expression of opposition to the deepening economic crisis. The strike demands 

were mainly of an economic and social nature and concerned the principles of workplace operation. 

The strikers demanded higher wages, improved working conditions, and better supply, but also, among 

other things, holding those guilty of waste and abuse accountable, reduction of bureaucracy, new 

elections of trade union authorities and a free press. Through these strikes, the workers won wage 

increases and promises to improve working conditions in their plants. 

Despite the significant scale of these events of July 1980, there was not a single word about it in either 

the local or central press. Instead, in July 1980, the city authorities of Lublin hung posters all over the 

city with the words: “An appeal to the citizens of Lublin to remain prudent and calm and take up 

work.” This kind of behavior clearly showed that the authorities were losing control over the society. 

The events in Lublin gave people faith in their own strength, and showed a deep alienation of society 

from the authorities. The degree of this alienation depended on the level of the party hierarchy of this 

power. Provincial and local authorities were more concerned about the situation of striking workers 

than the central authorities (Note 6). It was not until July 18, 1980, i.e., 10 days later, under the pressure 

of a radical intensification of strikes, that the central government at a meeting of the Politburo of the 

Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party (KC PZPR) in Warsaw decided to set up a 

special governmental commission headed by Deputy Prime Minister M. Jagielski to consider the 

demands of workplaces in the Lublin region. However, when this commission arrived in Lublin on 25 

July, the strikes were actually over. Walking around Lublin at that time, one could feel an atmosphere 

of anxiety, but also sympathy for the strikers. In such an atomized society, new ties were formed 

between people (Chudy, 1981; Jadczak, 1981, p. 66).  

The protests in the Lublin region were different from the strikes of 1970 and 1976 in Poland, which had 

taken place on the streets. The experience of the prior years led the strikers not to take to the streets, 

where they could be quickly pacified, but to “hunker down” in their workplaces. This form of protest 

was more effective. The workers did not leave the workplace until the end of their shift, leading a 

rotating protest. They adopted an attitude of readiness for dialogue with the authorities: negotiation, not 

confrontation. Leadership teams were elected because, for the workers themselves as well as for the 

authorities—the word “strike” was a kind of taboo, these teams were called “stopover” or “worker 

committees” (Note 7). 

 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

26 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

6.2 The Strikes of Lublin July 1980 as Agoral Gatherings 

In this part of the analysis, we will undertake a psychological interpretation of agoral gatherings. This 

interpretation will be based on the answer to the question: Do these strikes meet the particular 

constitutive features of the definition of an agoral gathering, which are indicated in the first part of this 

study in a conjunctive manner?  

6.2.1. Guidance of Higher Values by Strikers 

The first constitutive feature of an agoral gathering concerns the motivation of its participants’ higher 

motives. How does this issue relate to the participants of the Lublin strikes in July 1980? The direct 

incentive to participate in the Lublin strikes was the threat to satisfying basic physiological needs in the 

form of a rather radical increase in food products in the factory canteen (in WSK Świdnik, the flagship 

incentive was the increase in retail prices at chops available to employees). Table 1 shows that as many 

as 4 out of 14 employee demands of the striking crew: the introduction of an increase in earnings for all, 

a price premium, improvement in shop supply and a general improvement in social and living 

conditions. An analysis of the remaining demands from this table shows, however, that there is a kind 

of sublimation of needs that motivate workers’ participation in the July 1980 strikes. The results of this 

analysis are presented in Table 2. 

 

Table 2. Motivational Relationship between the Demands of Railway Men on Strike at the Lublin 

Locomotive Depot and the Needs at Individual Levels of the Maslow’s Needs Pyramid 

Successive tiers of the Maslow’s Needs Pyramid Strike demands by number 

1. Physiological needs: food,  

housing, clothing, procreation  

1. Increase in basic salary by 1,300 PLN per 

month for all employees 

4. Introduce a high-cost supplement 

5. Improve the supply of groceries in shops 

to the level of Silesia 

10. Improve social and living conditions in 

general 

2. Security needs:  

protection from sickness, unemployment, 

and senile incapacity 

8. Ensure that all employees who organize 

and participate in the workers’ assembly are 

not penalized 

11. The militia and secret security officers 

are not allowed access to the locomotive 

depot 

13. Early retirement at age 55 in traction 

teams 

3. The needs of belonging: 2. Introduction of all free Saturdays 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

27 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

acceptance, love, friendship, camaraderie, solidarity, 

belonging to a group  

 

4. The need for recognition: success, respect, 

prestige, importance 

3. Equalization of family allowances with the 

militia and the army 

 

5. The need for self-fulfillment: 

the need to develop oneself, one’s abilities, talents, 

interests, spiritual and religious development, to 

confirm one’s value 

7. Elect a new trade union council 

representing the interests and defending 

working people 

12. The crew representatives guarantee order 

and discipline 

14. Until the above mentioned postulates are 

not fulfilled, no one will take up work 

 

The data from Table 2 indicate that the motivation for the participation of employees in Lublin’s 

workplaces is actually represented by all five levels of needs. However, the saturation of motivation 

based on higher needs (level 5 of the Needs Pyramid) is significant, as it is articulated by as many as 

three very important demands—concerning self-discipline, discipline of employees at the workplace, 

solidarity and consistency, and having a trade union council elected from among themselves (Note 8). 

The motives that prompted workers to strike in Lublin in 1980 were also higher needs based on 

patriotic and religious values, which also manifested itself in their singing of patriotic and religious 

songs together in workplaces.  

6.2.2 Non-Violent Intentions of Participants in the Lublin Strikes 

The second constitutive feature of agoral gathering is the principle of non-violence held by their 

participants. During the strikes in July 1980 in Lublin, participants observed this principle in solidarity 

and exemplary behaviour. Thus, from the very start, i.e., beginning with the strike in WSK Świdnik, 

they intentionally started the strike with the decision not to start their shift work without any aggression 

(even verbal) towards the manager of their shift and the chief executive of their workplace. They 

informed him of their motives when they started the strike. They were not aggressive toward the 

authorities of their state-owned enterprise. They calmly formulated the strike demands collectively in 

each striking company and handed them over with dignity to the company director.  

Employees behaved in a similar way without using any aggression in striking factories throughout the 

Lublin region. They came to work on a rotating basis, but did not take up work on their 

positions—expecting the authorities to respond to their collective strike demands. In fact, by July 20, 

an agreement between the strike committee and the authorities of a given workplace was signed in 

every striking company in the Lublin region. 

 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

28 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

6.2.3 Voluntary and Open Participation in the Lublin July 1980 Strikes 

Another constitutive feature of agoral gatherings is the voluntary participation in these meetings. In the 

case of the strikes of Lublin July 1980, participation in them was entirely voluntary, in the sense that 

each employee made an individual decision whether or not to take part in the strike at their plant. It was 

therefore his or her personal choice to take part in the protest of his or her plant’s employees to improve 

the situation in that plant through dialogue with the authorities, without any behavioral aggression or 

violence.  

The openness of agoral gatherings is exemplified by the fact that every potential participant feels 

invited to take part in them. In the situation of the “outbreak” of strikes in the Lublin region in July 

1980, every employee of a state-owned enterprise was able to feel invited to an open community of 

striking employees in their workplace. It was their strike for themselves, their family, their co-workers, 

the whole company. This was a realization of the paradigm of unity among the workers in each of the 

striking state enterprises. 

6.2.4 Mass Scale of Agoral Gatherings  

The mass scale of agoral gatherings as their constitutive feature is related to their local and situational 

conditions. In the case of strikes in factories, the type and profile of a given enterprise should be taken 

into account, as well as the number of employees employed in it. In determining the scale of mass 

strikes, it is necessary to take into account not only the number of strikers in a given workplace, but 

also the very number of striking enterprises and the global number of striking employees in the 

analyzed region. In the case of strikes in the Lublin region lasting from 8 to 25 July 1980, in over 150 

workplaces about 40–50 thousand workers were involved in the strike action. This means a serious 

scale of mass gatherings organized in a planned manner, which achieved their goals expressed in the 

strike postulates they formulated in a peaceful way.  

6.2.5 The Participants Experience of Unity While Realizing the Social Importance of Agoral Gathering 

and the Elimination of Collective Fears 

An important dimension of agoral gatherings is that their participants create a climate of unity while 

realizing the social importance of the gathering. The participants of Lublin July 1980 created a climate 

in which they experienced employee solidarity, which has a very strong awareness rooted in the whole 

region. The content of this solidarity and unity was also preserved in the collective memory of the 

Lublin region’s inhabitants, which was not overshadowed by the June 1979 echoes of the agoral 

gatherings accompanying Pope John Paul II’s first pilgrimage to Poland, together with his patriotic, 

religious and moral messages.  

In July, the striking state enterprises of the Lublin region became the continuators of the great agora 

with the Polish Pope—who instilled in the hearts of the participants of this agora the need to experience 

a climate of unity in solving problems important for their work and the wider social environment. Their 

experience of the agora within their workplace not only freed them from collective fear, but also 

allowed them to formulate their demands concerning social and labour problems in a civilized way and 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

29 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

to submit them to their authorities for consideration. The important issue was that in every strike in the 

Lublin region it was possible to reach an agreement and sign the provisions of the social agreement 

concluded in this way at the level of state enterprises.  

6.2.6 Positive Consequences of Agoral Gatherings both on an Individual and Social Scale 

The last anticipated consequence of the agoral gathering is its positive consequences both on an 

individual and social scale. In the case of agoral gatherings coinciding with Pope John Paul II’s visit to 

Poland, its positive consequence was the collective catharsis of individual participants of these 

gatherings. On the social scale, however, their positive consequence was precisely the strikes of Lublin 

July 1980, which showed that through the solidarity of employees of state-owned enterprises, a climate 

of non-violence and patient but concrete dialogue, measurable benefits can be obtained, both individual 

and social, concerning the improvement of working conditions and its safety, organization of work 

activities, basic salary, family allowances, free time, consumer needs of employees and their families, 

trade unions—and thus measurable benefits for individual employees. It was a kind of regional 

manifestation of the paradigm of social and mental unity of the Lublin state-owned employees who 

decided to build their own democracy and solidarity at the regional level (Biela, 2020). 

6.2.7 Do the Strikes of Lublin July 1980 Meet all the Constitutive Features of Agoral Gatherings in a 

Conjunctive Manner? 

Summarizing the psychological analyses of the strikes of Lublin July 1980, we can state with all 

certainty that these strikes, understood as gatherings of people, fulfil all seven features that constitute 

their definition as “agoral gathering,” without exception. From this we can conclude that they were 

agoral gatherings. The psychological consequence of these gatherings in Poland was the further 

development of civic self-determination of citizens and workers in large industrial districts in Poland in 

August 1980 both on the coasts of Gdansk and Szczecin, as in Upper Silesia. The movement covered 

the whole of Poland, integrating more than 10 million Polish citizens into the “Solidarity” strikes. The 

“Solidarity” strikes have also been interpreted in the psychological literature as agoral gatherings, 

thanks to which Poland liberated herself from Communist totalitarianism (Biela, 2013). The position of 

the strikes of Lublin July within the milieu of processes of Poles’ self-liberation is illustrated in Figure 

1. 

 

          Stage 1                         Stage 2                        Stage 3 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1. The Sequence of Agoral Gatherings which Led to Poland’s Self-Liberation from the 

Totalitarian System 

“Solidarity” 

Strikes 

in Polish Territory  

(August 1980) 

Papal Agoral  

Gatherings 

(2-9 June 1979) 

Lublin Strikes 

July 1980 

(8-25 July 1979) 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

30 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

From Figure 1 we can see that the strike events of Lublin July 1980 were agoral gatherings (Stage 2) 

which fulfilled the expectations that arose during the agoral gatherings with John Paul II less than a 

year earlier: that Poles can take their workers’ matters into their own hands without fear and present 

them in a civilized way in a form agreed upon between them as strike demands in their workplaces. 

Local companies and regional authorities took their employees seriously and signed appropriate strike 

agreements with each of them separately. In this way they experienced employee solidarity at the level 

of their own company and strikes took place concerning their own company matters. They also 

experienced solidarity with their colleagues from all over the Lublin region for the first time, in more 

than 150 state-owned enterprises, where strike action took place—modelled on the climate of agoral 

gatherings (see Stage 1). During the agoral labour strikes in the Lublin region in July 1980, prototypes 

of labour solidarity were created based on regional ties.  

Patterns of agoral-solidarity behaviour acquired in this way in the days of Lublin July became one of 

the important factors determining the behaviour of strike crews in September 1980 on the Gdansk 

Coast, the Szczecin Coast and Upper Silesia, and then encompassing state enterprises throughout 

Poland in the civic social movement of “Solidarity.” This really fulfilled the paradigm of unity at a 

mental, social, political and economic level—in a nonviolent, solidaristic and democratic way (Biela, 

2020).  

 

6. Final Conclusions 

Our psychological analyses of the behaviour of the participants of these gatherings, strikes in state 

enterprises in the Lublin region involving employees of workplaces from three Polish provinces, has 

allowed us to qualify them as agoral gatherings (Biela, 2013). Their moral and cultural characteristics 

developed during the phenomena of meetings of Poles with Pope John Paul II during his first 

pilgrimage to his homeland. In this way, Lublin July 1980 became a link in social learning based on 

moral, patriotic and religious values—which led to “Solidarity” strikes all over Poland. These strikes 

were the third link in the process of realization of self-determination of the Polish people as a sovereign 

state. The powers of the agoral processes created by the “Solidarity” movement in August 1980 did not 

manage to stifle any of the repressive tactics or strategies of the authorities of the totalitarian system, 

not excluding the horrors of martial law. This movement, applying the principle of non-violence, led to 

the defeat of totalitarian power, which collapsed like a proverbial “house of cards,” first in Poland and 

then throughout Central and Eastern Europe. This is the strength of agora gatherings. It is a pity that at 

the same time in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, instead of organizing agoral gatherings 

according to the paradigm of unity (Biela 2020), civil war crowds took their bloody toll (Bilali & 

Vollhardt, 2019). 

After the death of the leader and builder of the Yugoslavian state—J. Tito—politicians and journalists 

developed real or artificially created confrontations which took advantage of ethnic differences in the 

nations forming the ethnic mosaic of former Yugoslavia. These confrontations were widely publicized 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

31 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

by the central, regional and local media. The confrontation culminated in an intense ethnic war, with all 

its environmental damage (Jha, 2014), real human horrors (Hislope, 2004; Fink, 2010) and even acts of 

genocide (Demolli, 2013). Thus, it has to be underlined here that there is no alternative strategy to 

agoral gatherings for the peaceful prevention of crowd-based war conflicts, which builds mental unity 

based on higher values shared by the participants of these gatherings (Biela, 2013, 2020).  

 

References 

Biela, A. (1989). Agoral Gathering: A New Conception of Collective Behavior. Journal for the Theory 

of Social Behaviour, 19(3), 311-336. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.1989.tb00152.x 

Biela, A. (2007). Psychosocial conditioning of macro structural changes: The concept of an agora 

gathering. Czasopismo Psychologiczne [Psychological Journal], 13(2), 75-96.  

Biela, A. (2012). Agoral Gatherings as Macro dynamic Communities Breaking the Totalitarian System 

in Central and Eastern Europe. Studia Teologiczne i Humanistyczne, 2(2), 105-121. 

Biela, A. (2013). Agoral Gatherings which have changed the Political Face of Central and Eastern 

Europe. In A. Biela (Ed.), Beyond Crowd Psychology. The Power of Agoral Gatherings (pp. 

19-63). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag. 

Biela, A. (2020). The Paradigm of Unity (PU) as the Basis for a “Copernican Revolution” (CR) in the 

Social Sciences. Advances in Politics and Economic, 3(3). https://doi.org/10.22158/ape.v3n3p1 

Biela, A., & Tobacyk, J. (1987). Self-Transcendence in the agoral gathering a case study of Pope John 

Paul II’s 1979 visit to Poland. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 27(4), 390-405. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167887274002 

Bilali, R., & Vollhardt, J. R. (2019). Victim and Perpetrator Groups’ Divergent Perspectives on 

Collective Violence: Implications for Intergroup Relations. Advances in Political Psychology, 

40(1), 75-107. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12570 

Chudy, W. (1981). Relacje—Dokumenty. Miesiace. Przegląd Związkowy, 1, 13-43.  

Dąbrowski, M. (2006). Lubelski lipiec 1980. Lublin: Zarząd Regionu Środkowowschodniego NSZZ, 

olidarność”. 

Demolli, H. (2013). Criminal judicial qualification and prosecution in the Racak case according to 

national and international legislation. In Aertsen, Ivo; Arsovska, Jana; Rohne, Holger-C; Valiñas, 

Marta @ Vanspauwen, Kris (eds.). Restoring Justice after Large-scale Violent Conflicts. New 

York: Routledge. 

Dimitrova, S. (1995). Time as a cultural value in Bulagaria and the strategies to conduct at a time of 

dymnamic social changes. Journal for Mental Changes, 1(2), 129-133. 

Ferjenčík, J. (2013). Psychosocial analysis of the agoral gatherings that took place during the Velvet 

Revolution in Czechoslovakia. In A. Biela (Ed.), Beyond crowd psychology: The power of agoral 

gatherings (pp. 65-80). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 

Fink, G. (2010). Stress of war, conflict and disaster. Melbourne: Academic Press. 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

32 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

Gach, P. (2005). [Editor] It was July in the beginning. Materials from the scientific-historical 

Symposium Catholic University of Lublin, 7 June 2005. Lublin: The Central and Eastern Region 

Board of the “Solidarity”. 

Gaidys, V., & Tureikyte, D. (1996). Agoral gatherings in Lithuania: An example of the “Baltic Way”. 

Journal for Mental Changes, 2, 113-119. 

Hislope, R. (2004) Can Evolutionary Theory Explain Nationalist Violence? Czecho Slovak and 

Bosnian Illustrations. Nations and Nationalism, 4(4), 463-482. 

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1354-5078.1998.00463.x 

Jadczak, S. (1981). Diariusz lipcowych dni. Miesiace. Przegląd Związkowy, 1, 55-74.  

Jha, U. C. D. (2014). Armed Conflict and Environmental Damage. Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. 

Kaczor, J. (2000) [Editor]. Before August it was July 80. Materials from the symposium “History and 

present of Solidarity in the Lublin region. Lublin: The Regional Board of Central and Eastern 

“Solidarity” Trade Union. 

Maslow, A. (1987). Motivation and personality. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley Educational 

Publishers Inc.  

Naništová, E. (2013). Retrospective and current approaches to the Velvet Revolution in Slovakia. In A. 

Biela (Ed.), Power of Agoral Gatherings (pp. 81-123). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. 

Parchewa, I. (1992). Attitudes on rights and liberties in participants in an agoral meeting as. compared 

to the national representative sample. Abstract submitted for the second International Conference 

on Mental Changes and Social Integration Perspectives, Lublin, 17-20, November, 1992. The 

Archive of the Catholic University of Lublin. 

Rama, S. A. (Ed.). (2020). The End of Communist Rule in Albania: Political Change and The Role of 

The Student Movement (Conceptualizing Comparative Politics). New York: Routledge. 

https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429242991 

Zysberg, L. (2018). The People Demand Social Justice: The Social Protest in Israel as an Agoral 

Gathering. Journal for Perspectives of Economic Political and Social Integration, 24(2), 31-45. 

https://doi.org/10.2478/pepsi-2018-0007 

 

Note 

Note 2. These countries are listed in the chronological order of occurrence of agoral gatherings. 

Note 3. Date: 1980-07-08 10:00 

In Wytwórnia Sprzętu Komunikacyjnego (WSK) at Świdnik, the employees of hall No. 1 stopped 

working in response to a significant increase in food prices in company buffets. Talks with the 

non-working employees were started by the shift manager, and then by the director of the WSK. At 

12.30 p.m. the whole WSK crew joined the strike. See: Jadczak (1981), Diariusz lipcowych dni. p. 66. 

Note 4. This was the original name of the strike committee at the workplace (Dąbrowski, 2006). 

Note 5. After over 8 hours of negotiations, they were signed agreement by the plant director Jan 



www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/ape                 Advances in Politics and Economic                   Vol. 3, No. 4, 2020 

33 
Published by SCHOLINK INC. 

Czołgała and representatives of the crew headed by Zofia Bartkiewicz - a technologist and an active 

participant in the July 1980 strike in Świdnik.  

Note 6. In the State Archive in Lublin a telex of 8 July 1980 is preserved, addressed to the Central 

Committee of the PZPR in Warsaw by the First Secretary of the Voivodship Committee of the PZPR in 

Lublin, Władysław Kruk, who describes the situation concerned about the workers’ strikes in Świdnik 

and Lublin. This message, which in fact presented the beginning of the strike, without any political 

comments, ended with the alarming call “very urgent information - please pass it on immediately.” At 

that time the Central Committee of the PZPR communicated with the Central Committee of the Polish 

United Workers’ Party (PZPR) up to three times a day, informing about the strike events and social 

moods (See: Dąbrowski (2006)). 

Note 7. The historical study of data about Lublin July 1980 is based on the following materials: Chudy, 

1981; Jadczak, 1981; Kaczor, 2000; Gach, 2005; Dąbrowski, 2006.  

Note 8. The postulate of electing one’s own Trade Union Council developed during the September 

strikes on the Baltic Coast and in Silesia into the irresistible thought about the creation of NSZZ 

“Solidarity.”  

 


