Poland and Nicaragua: The Potentials and Limits of Transnational Solidarity, Alliance and Opposition during the 1980s

Despite the manifold and contradictory parallels drawn between Poland and Nicaragua during the 1980s, strikingly little is known about the origins of these connections, the actors involved, and the wider concrete flows and exchanges that were at work between these two countries who each played a pivotal role during the sunset years of the Cold War. This article analyses the imagined common struggles, networks and ideas that brought Poland and Nicaragua together, while also highlighting the tangible contacts between them. By giving attention to both the role of Solidarność and the official relationship and resulting policies between the Polish Peoples’ Republic and Sandinista Nicaragua, and especially working from a Polish perspective, the article also aims to decentre mainstream narratives which have mostly been written from a Western angle. It shows how connections with Eastern Europe played, in various ways, an essential role in the transnational campaigns developed on behalf of Sandinista Nicaragua, and how, inversely, the events in Nicaragua had an impact on Eastern European dissidents and the human rights and solidarity campaigns conducted on their behalf. However, by exploring the outpouring of transnational solidarity for both countries, the true limits of their relationships are revealed, culminating in an analysis of the extent to which Western supporters influenced the development of these ‘imagined connections,’ and whether they served as a reliable reflection of reality.