On the eve of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States after a half-century standoff, I paid a visit to the Solidarność Museum in Gdansk. The museum’s permanent exhibition is an encyclopedic display of documents, videos, artifacts, and photographs detailing the rise of the independent trade union in the adjacent shipyard, the repressive response of the Soviet and Polish authorities, and the spread of popular resistance that, we are to understand, led to the...