Failing economy and labor unrest By 1980, the authorities had no choice but to make another attempt to raise consumer prices to realistic levels, but they knew that doing so would likely spark another worker rebellion. Western
financial companies and institutions providing loans to the regime at a meeting at the
Bank Handlowy in Warsaw on 24 April 1980 The bankers made it clear that the state could no longer subsidize artificially low prices of consumer goods. The government gave in after two months and, on 1 July, announced a system of gradual but continuous price rises, particularly for meat. A wave of strikes and
factory occupations began at once, with the biggest ones
taking place in Lublin in July. The strikes reached the politically sensitive
Baltic Sea coast, with a sit-down strike at the
Lenin Shipyard in
Gdańsk beginning on 14 August. Among the leaders of the strike were
Anna Walentynowicz and
Lech Wałęsa, a long-fired shipyard electrician who headed the strike committee. A list of
21 demands was formulated by the
Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee on 17 August. The strike wave spread along the coast, closing the ports and bringing the economy to a halt. With the assistance of activists from the
KOR and support of many other intellectuals (an Expert Commission was established to aid with the negotiations), the workers occupying the various factories, mines and shipyards across Poland organized as a united front. They were not limiting their efforts to seeking economic improvements, but made and stuck to the crucial demand, an establishment of
trade unions independent of government control. Among other issues raised were rights for the Church, the freeing of political prisoners and an improved health service. The party leadership was faced with a choice between repressions on a massive scale and an amicable agreement that would give the workers what they wanted and thus quieten the aroused population. They chose the latter. On 31 August Wałęsa signed the
Gdańsk Agreement with
Mieczysław Jagielski, a member of the party
Politburo. The agreement acknowledged the right of employees to associate in free trade unions, obliged the government to take steps to eliminate censorship, abolished weekend work, increased the
minimum wage, improved and extended welfare and pensions and increased autonomy of industrial enterprises, where a meaningful role was to be played by
workers' self-management councils. The rule of the party was significantly weakened (to a "leading role in the state", not society) but nonetheless explicitly recognized, together with Poland's international alliances. It was seen by the more moderate forces, including leading intelligentsia advisers and the Catholic hierarchy, as necessary to prevent a Soviet intervention. The opposition negotiators did not concern themselves with the issue of affordability of the economic concessions they obtained and a wave of national euphoria swept the country. In addition to the Gdańsk Agreement, similar documents were signed at other centers of strike activity: in Szczecin (the
Szczecin Agreement),
Jastrzębie-Zdrój, and at
Katowice Steelworks.
Solidarity , summer 2005 in
Gdańsk The Gdańsk Agreement, an aftermath of the August 1980 strike, was an important milestone. It led to a national gathering of independent union representatives (Interfactory Organizing Committees, MKZ) on 17 September in Gdańsk and the formation of the trade union "
Solidarity" (Polish
Solidarność), founded on that day and led by Lech Wałęsa. The ideas of the independent union movement spread rapidly throughout Poland; Solidarity structures were formed in most places of employment and in all regions. Having been able to overcome the regime's efforts to thwart or derail its activities and status, Solidarity was finally registered in court as a national labor union in November. Early in 1981, a network of union organizations at the enterprise-level was established; it included the country's main industrial complexes, such as the
Lenin Steelworks in Kraków and the
Silesian mines. Initially, in the KOR's tradition, Solidarity was an ostensibly non-political movement aiming at reconstruction of
civil society. Suddenly thrust into legal existence and prominence in 1980, Solidarity and the Polish opposition in general lacked a constructive program or consensus regarding further developments. In 1981, Solidarity accepted the necessity of assuming a political role and helped form a broad anti-
ruling system social movement, dominated by the working class and with members ranging from
people associated with the Catholic Church to non-communist leftists. The union was backed by intellectual dissidents, including the KOR, and adhered to a policy of
nonviolent resistance. According to Karol Modzelewski, the Solidarity of 1980–81 was permeated by the idea of brotherhood between intelligentsia and workers. In the areas of ideology and politics, Solidarity followed the lead of its associated opposition intellectuals. The activity of Solidarity, although concerned with trade union matters (such as replacing the
nomenklatura-run system with worker self-management in enterprise-level decision making), was widely regarded as the first step towards dismantling the regime's dominance over social institutions, professional organizations and community associations. Because of conditions specific to
state socialist society, Solidarity soon lost its labor focus and became a
universalist movement that emphasized
civic rights and
open society. Removing the ruling formation or breaking the dependence on the Soviet Union was not on the agenda. Using strikes and other tactics, the union sought to block government policies. The aims of the original, so-called First Solidarity (1980–81), were to reform socialism, not to introduce industrial private ownership or promote
capitalism in general. Solidarity was an egalitarian and collectivist movement. It did not postulate any re-privatization of property taken over by the state after World WarII or of rural possessions generated by the
land reform, as such concepts were beyond the
axiological horizon of Polish society. Solidarity was socialist and
social justice was its goal. The First Solidarity upheaval could be viewed also as working people revolting against the emerging capitalist features of the economic order that diminished their role in Gierek-led society, combined with the "anti-politics" approach (building civil society "without reference to both state and market") embraced at that time by their allied intellectual leaders. People of decidedly anticommunist or anti-PZPR orientations constituted a relatively small minority within the First Solidarity organization, which accommodated one million communist party members among its ranks. Apart from workers, both individual farmers and students created their own independent organizations:
Rural Solidarity and
Independent Students' Union. They were formally recognized by the authorities only after strike actions conducted by activists of both movements in January 1981. In September 1980, in the aftermath of the labor agreements, First Secretary Gierek was removed from office and replaced as party leader by
Stanisław Kania. Like his predecessors, Kania made promises that the regime could not fulfill because the authorities were still trapped by the contradiction: if they followed economic necessity, they would generate political instability. The
gross national income fell in 1979 by 2%, in 1980 by 8%, and in 1981 by 15–20%. At the communist summit in December 1980 in
Moscow, Kania argued with
Leonid Brezhnev and other
Warsaw Pact leaders, who pressed for an immediate military intervention in Poland. Kania and Minister of Defense
Wojciech Jaruzelski declared their determination to fight the "counterrevolution" in Poland on their own. In regard to Solidarity, as they saw it, there was still a chance for its healthy, working class current to prevail, not the KOR-instigated anti-socialist, troublemaking elements. President
Jimmy Carter and President-elect
Ronald Reagan made urgent phone calls to Brezhnev and the intervention was postponed. In the meantime Solidarity, not quite aware of the looming danger, did its
revolutionary work, practicing democracy in the union movement and pushing for sovereign society in a number of ways. The autonomous labor unions, united under the Solidarity banner, strove to "recapture public life from the monopoly control of the party". On 16 December 1980, the
Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 was officially unveiled in Gdańsk in a ceremony that marked the high point in the ascent of Solidarity. Among the mass protests that occurred at that time were the winter
1981 general strike in Bielsko-Biała, the
nationwide warning strike in the spring of that year and
hunger demonstrations in summer. The warning strike took place in the aftermath of the
Bydgoszcz events (March 1981), during which the authorities resorted to violence to suppress Solidarity activists. The planned general strike was called off after Solidarity's questionable deal with the government, but the negotiators worked under a threat of Soviet intervention. Wałęsa's compromise prevented a confrontation with the regime or its foreign allies, but at the price of the protest movement's loss of some of its dynamics. During the months that followed Solidarity kept getting weaker and its popular support was no longer capable of mass determined action. Minister Jaruzelski became also prime minister in February 1981. In June, the Soviet Central Committee pressured the Polish party for a leadership change, but Jaruzelski received strong support from the military members of the Polish Central Committee. The extraordinary IX Congress of the PZPR took place in July. Kania was reelected the party's first secretary, while the organization's internal reformers suffered a defeat. As the economic situation kept deteriorating and the regime avoided implementation of the agreed reforms, the government and Solidarity representatives met in early August to discuss the outstanding issues. The talks ended in disagreement. During a conference of Solidarity's National Commission (a central representative policy making body) that followed, Modzelewski, Kuroń and others proposed a democratic transformation and practical arrangements by which the Union would take upon itself a major political role, participating in governing the country, accepting responsibility for the outcome and keeping social peace, thus relieving the ruling party of some of its burdens. Such a deal was seen as the only constructive way forward, but it would require government partners interested in a negotiated solution. The existence of Solidarity and the political liberties that the movement brought paralyzed the authoritarian state and the state-controlled economy. Everyday life was becoming increasingly unbearable and the public displayed sentiments of extreme volatility. The hostility of the
nomenklatura toward Solidarity was rapidly increasing. At the State Defense Committee meeting on 13 September (the time of the Soviet
Exercise Zapad-81 maneuvers and of renewed pressure on the Polish leadership), Kania was warned by the uniformed cadres that the progressing counterrevolution must be terminated by an imposition of
martial law. The PZPR regional secretaries soon issued the same demands. Under the circumstances, in October First Secretary Kania stepped down and Prime Minister Jaruzelski became also the party chief. In September and October, the
First Congress of Solidarity deliberated in Gdańsk. Wałęsa faced activist opposition and was barely elected chairman of the organization. The delegates passed a radical reform program in which the word "social" or "socialized" was repeated 150 times. The congress issued a provocative call for workers in other East European countries, urging them to follow in Solidarity's footsteps. Locally authorized, increasingly "political" strikes continued. They were characterized as "
wildcats" by Wałęsa, who desperately tried to impose discipline from the center. He attempted to reach an accord with the state, meeting General Jaruzelski and Catholic Primate
Józef Glemp on 4 November. At the time of the regime's re-energized efforts to reduce Solidarity's role, the union had nearly ten million members — almost four times as many as the ruling party. Militant mood was displayed and unrealistic demands made at the meeting of the partially represented National Commission on 3 December, but the proceedings were wiretapped by the authorities, who then broadcast the (previously manipulated to their advantage) recordings. The government, not consulting Solidarity, adopted a plan of economic measures that could be implemented only by force and asked parliament for extraordinary authority. In early December, Jaruzelski was pressured by his generals and colonels for an immediate forceful action and their demands were repeated at the Politburo meeting on 10 December. On 11 and 12 December Solidarity's National Commission declared 17 December the day of countrywide protest. Neither the exhausted but radicalized Solidarity nor the ruling establishment was willing or able to back down and, in the era of Brezhnev, there could be no peaceful resolution to the situation that developed. The Soviets now expressed a preference for the conflict to be resolved by the Polish authorities, but Poland, according to Karol Modzelewski, was lucky to avoid a carnage of foreign intervention. Others, including the historian Antoni Dudek, feel that there was no sufficient justification for the imposition of martial law that followed.
Imposition of martial law led the
People's Republic during its final decade and became one of the key players in the systemic transition of 1989–90 On 13 December 1981, claiming that the country was on the verge of economic and civil breakdown and
alleging a danger of Soviet intervention, General
Wojciech Jaruzelski began a crack-down on Solidarity.
Martial law was declared, the free labor union was suspended and most of its leaders detained. Several thousand citizens were interned or imprisoned and much larger numbers were subjected to various forms of harassment. Polish state militia (
Milicja Obywatelska, the police) and paramilitary riot police
ZOMO suppressed the strike action and demonstrations. Military forces entered industrial enterprises to clamp down on the independent union movement. A series of violent attacks included the
pacification of Wujek Coal Mine during which 9 people were killed. The martial law offensive was directed primarily against workers and their union; the workers, rather than intelligentsia activists, were the object of the most brutal treatment. The authorities ultimately succeeded in imposing on members of Solidarity an individual and collective trauma, from which the broken mass movement would not be able to recover. The Catholic Church strove to exert a moderating influence on Solidarity before and after the martial law. Initially, the regime leadership intended to remold Solidarity into a compliant union, stripped of its intelligentsia advisers and compatible with the state socialist system. The failure to incite most ranking Solidarity leaders to collaborate, especially Wałęsa's refusal to extend any such cooperation, resulted in the government adopting the goal of total liquidation of the union movement. Strikes and protests followed, but were not nearly as widespread as those of August 1980. The
last mass street demonstrations that Solidarity was able to muster occurred on 31 August 1982, the second anniversary of the Gdańsk agreements. The "
Military Council of National Salvation" banned Solidarity officially on 8 October. Martial law was formally lifted in July 1983, though many heightened controls on civil liberties and political life, as well as food rationing, remained in place throughout the mid-to-late 1980s. With all the restrictions, however, "the official cultural realm remained far more open than it was prior to 1980" and "cultural policy continued to be the most open in all of Eastern Europe". Among the concessions in the
civil and political rights area granted by the troubled regime were the establishment of the
Constitutional Tribunal in 1982 and of the
Polish Ombudsman office in 1987. In the mid-1980s and even as late as 1987, Solidarity was seen by many, including most of its activists, as likely a thing of the past. It persisted solely as a rather small underground organization, supported by various international institutions, from the Catholic Church to the
Central Intelligence Agency. When most senior Solidarity figures were interned or otherwise neutralized by the authorities,
Zbigniew Bujak, head of the union's Warsaw branch, remained in hiding and was the leader of the clandestine organization until his arrest in 1986. But the post-martial law general public showed signs of tiredness and disappointment, as it had become apparent that Solidarity was not a united front.
"Market socialism" and systemic implosion During the chaotic years of Solidarity and martial law, Poland entered a decade of economic crisis more pronounced than in Gierek's years. Work on the major unfinished projects that had begun in the 1970s drained the available investment outlays, little money was left for replacing obsolete production equipment and the manufactured goods were not competitive on the world market. Managerial ineffectiveness, bad organization of production and shortages of inputs and raw materials were among the factors that contributed to further deterioration of workers' morale. 640,000 people of productive age left the country between 1981 and 1988. Throughout their existence, the governments functioning under General Jaruzelski's leadership (1981–1989) engaged in
market economy reforms aimed at improving economic performance by eliminating central planning, reducing central bureaucracy, introducing self-management and self-financing of state enterprises and allowing self-government by employee councils. The reform's effects were positive but limited (the process vastly increased general economic literacy and some of its accomplishments were later claimed by Solidarity governments as their own), because enterprises' self-rule had to compete with the traditional party interference, the authorities shied from subjecting the population to hardships, and Western governments and institutions showed no interest in supporting what was perceived as reform of a communist regime. The government allowed more small-scale private enterprises to function, departing further from the 'socialist' model of economy. Ideological considerations were abandoned and priority was given to pragmatic issues and moves. Searching for ways to improve the economy and conscious of its alienation from the industrial working class, the regime turned toward
market reforms with an increasingly significant from the mid-1980s elite-oriented
liberal component.
Marketization, formalized by a 1988 statute on economic activity, was a process that would continue past the mid-1990s.
Neoliberal processes may have been initiated by Deputy Prime Minister Zdzisław Sadowski and the government of
Zbigniew Messner, then developed further under Minister
Mieczysław Wilczek (author of the statute) and the government of
Mieczysław Rakowski. "
Market socialism" was introduced as the regime leaders lost their faith in the socialist system and even
nomenklatura managers were threatened by the declining economy. The enterprises were to be made independent, self-financing and self-managed, which included workers' councils that were resistant to restructuring. Owners of private businesses did well in the final years of the People's Republic and the number of such entities increased. Foreign investment was also encouraged, but limited marketization failed to deliver an economic turnaround. The practice of centralized economic decision making had not been overcome, while the newly autonomous enterprises moved toward a rather spontaneous and chaotic partial
privatization of dubious legality; it included elements of
kleptocracy and had a significant middle-level
nomenklatura component. On a more basic level, countless ordinary Poles took advantage of the changing attitudes and became involved in a great variety of income-producing activities. The deepening economic crisis caused a marked deterioration in quality of life of ordinary citizens and resulted in increasing political instability. Rationing and queuing became a way of life, with
ration cards (
kartki) necessary to buy consumer staples. The ration cards were utilized by the government in order to avoid allowing market regulation of income and prices and thus risking social unrest. As Western institutions were no longer willing to extend credit to the
de facto bankrupt Polish government, access to goods that the Poles needed became even more restricted. Most of the scarce resources of Western currency available had to be used to pay the crushing rates on Poland's foreign debt, which reached US$27 billion by 1980 and US$45 billion in 1989. The government, which controlled all official foreign trade, responded by maintaining a highly artificial exchange rate with Western currencies. The exchange rate worsened distortions in the economy at all levels, resulting in a growing
black market and the development of
shortage economy. The omnipresent and destructive underground economy was characterized by such phenomena as bribery, waiting lists, speculation, direct exchanges between enterprises and large percentages of personal incomes deriving from secondary activities. Societal degradation was accompanied by unprecedented deterioration of biological environment and physical and mental health; mortality rates kept increasing. In the late 1980s, the PZPR feared another social explosion because of high inflation, depressed living standards and deepening public anger and frustration. The authorities themselves, facing an increasingly disorderly and unmanageable system, felt perplexed and powerless.
Last years of the People's Republic and the transition period Toward Round Table and semi-free elections In September 1986, the government declared a general amnesty and began work on a number of meaningful reforms. Given the liberalized political environment, Wałęsa was urged to reconvene the National Commission from the time of the First Solidarity, but he refused, preferring to deal with the circle of Solidarity's Expert Commission advisers. A National Executive Commission, led by Wałęsa, was openly established in October 1987. Other opposition structures such as the
Fighting Solidarity, the
Federation of Fighting Youth, the Freedom and Peace Movement (
Ruch Wolność i Pokój) and the
Orange Alternative "dwarf" movement founded by
Major Waldemar Fydrych began organizing street protests in form of colorful happenings that assembled thousands of participants. The liberal periodical
Res Publica negotiated with the authorities its officially published release. In the
1987 Polish political and economic reforms referendum, 67% of the eligible voters participated and most of them approved the government-proposed reforms, but a technical vote threshold was formally missed because of the unrealistically stringent passage requirements self-imposed by the regime. The referendum debacle dealt a blow to the process of market-oriented economic reforms, which had been sought by Polish governments since the early 1980s. The ruling communist/military establishment slowly and gradually came to realize that a deal of some sort with the opposition would eventually be necessary and would have to include the leading Solidarity figures. Solidarity as such, a labor union representing workers' interests, was unable to reassert itself after the martial law and later in the 1980s was practically destroyed, but preserved in the national consciousness as a myth that facilitated social acceptance of systemic changes previously deemed unthinkable. The Solidarity organization as a mass movement, and with it its dominant
social democratic element (supporters of
democratic socialism), had been defeated. Solidarity's name had continuously been used, but the opposition movement split to form rival groups of different political orientations. According to a new intellectual consensus, "democracy was grounded not in an active citizenry, as had been argued from the mid-1970s through 1981, but in private property and a free market". The current view no longer entailed broad political participation, emphasizing instead elite leadership and a capitalist economy. Solidarity became a symbolic entity, its activists openly assumed ideological "anti-communist" positions and its leadership moved to the
right. The historic mass movement was now represented by a small number of individuals, of whom
Lech Wałęsa,
Tadeusz Mazowiecki and
Leszek Balcerowicz were about to assume particularly decisive roles. They were proponents of unfettered
free market, strongly influenced by the American and West European financial and other interests. Jaruzelski's Poland depended on low-cost deliveries of industrial staple commodities from the Soviet Union and meaningful Polish reforms, economic or political, were not feasible during the rule of the last three conservative Soviet
general secretaries. The
perestroika and
glasnost policies of the Soviet Union's new leader,
Mikhail Gorbachev, were therefore a crucial factor in stimulating reform in Poland. Gorbachev essentially repudiated the
Brezhnev Doctrine, which had stipulated that attempts by its Eastern European
satellite states to abandon the communist bloc would be countered by the Soviet Union with force. The developments in the Soviet Union altered the international situation and provided a historic opportunity for independent reforms in Poland. The hardline stance of US President
Ronald Reagan was also helpful. David Ost stressed the constructive influence of Gorbachev. With his support for Polish and Hungarian membership in the
World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund and for the Eastern European pluralistic evolution in general, the Soviet leader effectively pushed the region toward the West.
Nationwide strikes broke out in the spring and summer of 1988. They were much weaker than the strikes of 1980 and were discontinued after the intervention by Wałęsa, who secured the regime's commitment to begin negotiations with the opposition. The strikes were the last act of active political involvement of the working class in the history of People's Poland and were led by young workers, not connected to Solidarity veterans and opposed to socially harmful consequences of the economic restructuring that was in progress at that time. According to the researcher Maciej Gdula, the political activity that followed was conducted exclusively by the elites. It was neither inspired by nor consulted with any mass social organization or movement, as the opposition leading circles freed themselves from their strong in the past commitment to the welfare of working people. No longer secure as undisputed leaders, Polish dissidents of the KOR-Solidarity generations were eager to bargain with the weakened regime whose economic goals they now shared. Both sides having been prompted by the new international situation and the recent strike wave in Poland, in September 1988 preliminary talks between government representatives and Solidarity leaders ensued in
Magdalenka. Numerous meetings took place involving Wałęsa and the minister of internal affairs, General
Czesław Kiszczak among others, at that time and in the following year, behind the scenes of the official negotiations conducted then. In November, Wałęsa debated on national TV
Alfred Miodowicz, chief of the
official trade unions. The encounter enhanced Wałęsa's image. residences built in People's Poland loom over the urban landscape of the entire country. In the past administratively distributed for permanent use, after 1989 most were sold to residents at discounted prices. During the PZPR's plenary session of 16–18 January 1989, General Jaruzelski and his ruling formation overcame the Central Committee's resistance by threatening to resign and the party decided to allow re-legalization of Solidarity and to approach its leaders for formal talks. From 6 February to 4 April, 94 sessions of negotiations between 13 working groups, which became known as the "
Round Table Talks" (Polish:
Rozmowy Okrągłego Stołu), resulted in political and economic compromise reforms. Jaruzelski, Prime Minister
Mieczysław Rakowski and Wałęsa did not directly participate in the negotiations. The government side was represented by Czesław Kiszczak,
Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Janusz Reykowski, Stanisław Ciosek, Romuald Sosnowski, Władysław Baka, Andrzej Gdula and
Ireneusz Sekuła; the Solidarity opposition by
Adam Michnik, Tadeusz Mazowiecki,
Bronisław Geremek,
Jacek Kuroń,
Zbigniew Bujak,
Władysław Frasyniuk,
Jarosław Kaczyński and Witold Trzeciakowski, among others. The talks resulted in the
Round Table Agreement, by which political power was to be vested in a newly created
bicameral legislature and in a
president, who would be the chief executive. By 4 April 1989, numerous reforms and freedoms for the opposition were agreed. Solidarity, now in existence as the
Solidarity Citizens' Committee, was to be legalized again as a trade union and allowed to participate in
semi-free elections. This election had restrictions imposed, designed to keep the PZPR in power, since only 35% of the seats in the
Sejm, the key lower chamber of parliament, would be open to Solidarity candidates. The remaining 65% were to be reserved for candidates from the PZPR and its allies (the
United People's Party, the
Alliance of Democrats and the
PAX Association). Since the Round Table Agreement mandated only reform (not replacement) of "
real socialism" in Poland, the party thought of the election as a way of neutralizing political conflict and staying in power, while gaining some legitimacy to carry out economic reforms. However, the negotiated social policies, arrived at by economists and trade unionists during the Round Table talks, were quickly tossed out by both the party and the opposition. A systemic transformation happening sooner rather than later was made possible by the
Polish legislative elections of 4 June 1989, which coincided with the bloody crackdown on the
Tiananmen Square protests in
China. When the results of the voting were released, a political earthquake followed. The victory of Solidarity (caused in part by the
electoral system that favored the opposition as far as the contested seats were concerned, but was permitted by the government nevertheless) surpassed all predictions. Solidarity candidates captured all the seats they were allowed to compete for in the
Sejm, while in the newly established
Senate they captured 99 out of the 100 available seats. At the same time, many prominent PZPR candidates failed to gain even the minimum number of votes required to capture the seats that were reserved for them. The PZPR-led coalition suffered a catastrophic blow to its legitimacy.
Political transformation The next few months were spent on political maneuvering. The increasingly insecure communists, who still had military and administrative control over the country, were appeased by a compromise in which Solidarity allowed General Jaruzelski to remain head of state. On 19 July 1989 Jaruzelski barely won the vote in the
National Assembly presidential election, even though his name was the only one on the ballot. He won through an informally arranged abstention by a sufficient number of Solidarity MPs and his position was not strong. Jaruzelski resigned as first secretary of the PZPR on 29 July. , an influential leader in the transformation of Poland The Round Table deal basically allowed the PZPR to remain in power regardless of the election results, and the party's reshuffled leadership continued to rule. On 1 August, prices were freed because of the ongoing market reforms and
hyperinflation resulted. The instantly increased economic hardship caused a new wave of strikes. The strikes were spontaneous, but the Solidarity leaders, no longer in agreement with the strikers' economic demands, were able to emphasize the secondary political aspect of the strikes (anger at the party's obstinacy) and use them to pressure the regime for an expedited transfer of power. The new prime minister, General Kiszczak, who was appointed on 2 August 1989, failed to gain enough support in the
Sejm to form a government and resigned on 19 August. He was the last communist head of government in Poland. Although Jaruzelski tried to persuade Solidarity to join the PZPR in a "grand coalition", Wałęsa refused. The two formerly subservient parties allied with the PZPR, prompted by the current strike pressure, were moving toward adopting independent courses and their added votes would give the opposition control of parliament. Under the circumstances, Jaruzelski had to come to terms with the prospect of the new government being formed by political opposition. Solidarity elected representative Tadeusz Mazowiecki was appointed
prime minister and confirmed by the assembly on 24 August 1989. The new government led by a non-communist, the first of its kind in the Soviet Bloc, was sworn into office on 13 September. The PZPR did not immediately relinquish all power, remaining in the coalition and retaining control of the ministries of foreign trade, defense, interior and transport. Mazowiecki's government, forced to deal quickly with galloping hyperinflation, soon adopted
radical economic policies, proposed by Leszek Balcerowicz, which transformed Poland into a functioning
market economy under an accelerated schedule. Many Polish
state-owned enterprises, undergoing
privatization, turned out to be woefully unprepared for capitalist competition and the pace of their accommodation (or attrition) was rapid. The economic reform, a
shock therapy accompanied by comprehensive
neoliberal restructuring, was, in reality, an extension of the previous incremental "communist" policies of the 1970s and 1980s, which were now followed by a leap to greatly expanded integration with the
global economy with little protection. Among the reform's negative immediate effects were the economic
recession and near-paralysis of foreign trade. On longer-term bases, the country experienced quickly rising unemployment and social inequities, as enterprises were liquidated and income was redistributed away from workers and farmers, in favor of the establishment and the entrepreneurial class. A
collapse of Polish industry was among the detrimental consequences of fundamental and lasting importance. Labor unions underwent further marginalization; Solidarity activity as a labor union, prioritized in the past, was now suppressed. On the positive side, the market price-income reform balanced the economy and brought inflation under control, the currency stabilized, shortages were eliminated and significant foreign investment began. The shock therapy solutions were often dictated by Western consultants, of whom
Jeffrey Sachs was best known but also most criticized. The striking electoral victory of Solidarity candidates in the limited elections, and the subsequent formation of the first non-communist government in the region in decades, encouraged many similar peaceful transitions from communist party rule in
Central and
Eastern Europe in the second half of 1989. In December 1989, changes to the
Polish constitution were made, officially eliminating the "socialist" order: Marxist references were removed and the name of the country was changed back to the Polish Republic. Wałęsa, president of the Solidarity trade union, demanded early presidential elections. He was acting against the advice of his traditional Solidarity allies, intellectuals who were now running the government. Under pressure from the continuing worker unrest, Wałęsa declared himself a supporter of workers' interests, allegedly threatened by those whom he identified as communists (such as President Jaruzelski), or elitist political liberals (such as Prime Minister Mazowiecki). Wałęsa presented himself as a person of good conservative, Christian and nationalist credentials. In 1990, Jaruzelski resigned as Poland's president and was succeeded by Wałęsa, who won the
1990 presidential election. Lech Wałęsa's inauguration as president took place on 22 December 1990. He distanced himself from Wojciech Jaruzelski by accepting the
prewar presidential insignia from President-in-Exile
Ryszard Kaczorowski, who was stepping down. Wałęsa defeated Mazowiecki and in the second round
Stanisław Tymiński, but under his presidency economic policy remained unchanged. The historically communist
Polish United Workers' Party dissolved itself in 1990 and transformed into the
Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland. The
German–Polish Border Treaty, signed in November 1990, resolved the sensitive for Prime Minister Mazowiecki and his government issue of recognition of Poland's western border by
Germany, after the country's
unification. The
Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved on 1 July 1991; the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991 and the last
post-Soviet troops left Poland in September 1993. On 27 October 1991, the first (since the 1920s) entirely free
Polish parliamentary election took place. This completed Poland's transition from a communist party rule to a Western-style
liberal democratic political system. == See also ==