Lech Walesa is one of the great heroes of the 20th century. That some in Poland - including the current government, it seems - see fit to label him a Communist collaborator is shattering.
I don't equate Gobachev with Walesa because Gorbachev ended up ushering in the revolutions that brought down Communism in the eastern bloc by accident. He only intended to loosen Communism's tight grip; he never meant for what happened. His plan wasn't much different than what has happened in China.
But Walesa? He believed in freedom and risked everything for it. He wasn't the only one in Eastern Europe or even in Poland, but he was the most prominent. He was the head of the defiant labor union Solidarity, the man whom the Polish people chose to make president in their first post-war free election. As Ivan Krastev put it in the NY Times "the miracle of Solidarity would have been impossible without leaders like Mr. Walesa."
Walesa is a hero to all freedom-loving people and should be remembered that way.
