Politically, he was also erratic. As Poland was struggling to be accepted into NATO, he suddenly proposed a "NATO bis," a shadowy "second NATO" for those in waiting. Not for the first time, his colleagues put their heads in their hands. His closest adviser was his former chauffeur, with whom he played long games of table tennis. He developed close links with the military and security services. His critics accused him of being authoritarian, a "President with an ax." In another historical irony, he was defeated by a former communist, Aleksander Kwasniewski. Walesa went back to Gdansk, to his villa, his wife Danuta and their eight children. But at 54 he is still young, and he recently announced the formation of his own political party. Like Gorbachev, he finds it very difficult to accept that he has become a historical figure rather than a politician with serious chances.

Walesa is a phenomenon. Still mustachioed but thickset now, he stands for many values that in the West might be thought conservative. Fierce patriotism ("nationalism," say his critics), strong Catholic views, the family. He's a fighter, of course. But he's also mercurial, unpredictable--and a consummate politician. He is an example of someone who was magnificent in the struggle for freedom but less so in more normal times, when freedom was won and the task was to consolidate a stable, law-abiding democracy. For all his presidential airs, he still retains something of the old Lech, the working-class wag and chancer that his friends remember from the early days. But no one can deny him his place in history.

Without Walesa, the occupation strike in the Lenin Shipyard might never have taken off. Without him, Solidarity might never have been born. Without him, it might not have survived martial law and come back triumphantly to negotiate the transition from communism to democracy. And without the Polish icebreaking, Eastern Europe might still be frozen in a Soviet sphere of influence, and the world would be a very different place. With all Walesa's personal faults, his legacy is a huge gain in freedom, not just for the Poles. His services were, as an old Polish slogan has it, "for our freedom — and yours."

Oxford historian and author Timothy Garton Ash wrote The Polish Revolution: Solidarity

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