Gdansk, Poland ? Lech Walesa said Tuesday he has quit the Solidarity trade union that he founded and which helped bring down communism in Eastern Europe.

“I have given up my membership last year because Solidarity and I have gone separate ways,” he told The Associated Press.

The 62-year-old Nobel Peace laureate said he left after Solidarity members ignored his criticism of their support for the Law and Justice Party and its leaders, twin brothers Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, during last fall’s election campaign.

Lech Kaczynski won the presidency and Jaroslaw is now prime minister.

Walesa founded Solidarity in 1980 at the shipyards in Gdansk. It was a broad social movement made up of workers and intellectuals that opposed communism.

Despite being forced underground in the harsh martial law crackdown begun in 1981, it persevered and eventually succeeded in helping to bring down the communist regime in 1989.