Uniwersytet im.

Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

Essay
Contemporary history
On topic:The Polish political change in 1989

Written by:Yevhenii Asaveliuk

2023
The wave of strikes in the summer of 1980 and its consequence, the birth of
NSZZ Solidarność, initiated the deepest phase of the crisis of the communist
state in Poland. The economic crisis that had been growing since 1976 led to the
destabilization of the political system based on the hegemonic position of the
Polish United Workers' Party in 1980. The establishment of NSZZ "Solidarity"
and the period of its legal operation significantly changed social awareness,
which could not be reversed by the so-called normalization policy, initiated after
the imposition of martial law in Poland in December 1981. On August 31, 1982,
when demonstrations by supporters of the union took place in 66 cities, he did
not stop the economic, social and political changes that put the People's
Republic of Poland in a state of chronic crisis, and after the change of
authorities, the international situation led to its collapse. Below I will try to
enumerate the most important factors which, in my opinion, caused the
deepening of the crisis and, consequently, the collapse of the system in 1989.

Changes in the USSR. This factor appeared last, only after Mikhail Gorbachev
announced the perestroika policy in 1986, but it should be mentioned first, as it
played a key role in persuading the team of General Wojciech Jaruzelski to start
systemic changes, which ultimately led to its complete collapse. In July 1986, at
a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Gorbachev
said that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe “can no longer bear the
burden on their shoulders. The main reason - the economy. What, in the opinion
of the Kremlin, was to prevail required a change in the model of cooperation
within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, which was based on
transferable rubles. The supplies of crude oil and natural gas – the main export
products of the USSR – to Comecon countries at fixed prices ceased to be
profitable for the Soviet economy. It is also no coincidence that one of
Moscow's most important postulates after the formation of Tadeusz
Mazowiecki's government was the transition to the dollar as a currency in
mutual trade.

Although knowledge of the plans of the Soviet leadership in the second half of
the 1980s is limited, Andrzej Paczkowski was probably right when he said that
"Gorbachev performed a kind of amputation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which
lost its ideological sense and became more of a geopolitical rule. Moscow's
former pressure on Warsaw did not subside until 1987-1988 and was replaced
by a broad consensus of intentions and actions. At that time, General Wojciech
Jaruzelski's team had their hands tied when it came to political reforms, but this
did not prevent them from using Soviet deterrence in contacts with the West, the
opposition and the Church until the end of the regime. French researcher
Jacques Levesque even claims that Jaruzelski for a long time did not use the
freedom that Gorbachev gave him.

The state of the economy.

Although 1983 saw economic growth for the first time in five years, it was not
the result of real political change, but the return of the economy to the old ruts
from which it had first been pulled by the Gierek government. team mistakes,
then the strikes of 1980-81, and finally the militarization of many companies
and the economic sanctions of Western countries against Poland. Already in
1985, economic growth slowed down because, according to one of the party's
analyzes, "a material and resource barrier became visible as a result of
inadequate national reserves and low import capacity.

Repeated after the imposition of martial law by the team, Jaruzel's statement
about the need to continue economic reforms, officially launched in 1981,
quickly turned out to be a propaganda fiction. As General Jaruzelski rightly
noted in 1982: "The reform is accompanied by a paradoxical phenomenon: on
the one hand, the liberalization of the rules for managing the economy, on the
other, the tightening of martial law. " However, the severity of martial law was
not the main reason for the failure of real reform of the inefficient economic
system of the Polish People's Republic. In fact, the system could not be
reformed, as evidenced by the implacable resistance of the people who
controlled the economy. The situation is well illustrated by the liquidation of
106 associations of state enterprises in 1982 as part of the reform, which
replaced them with 103 associations that differ only in name. “In principle, there
is no institutionalized force that would comprehensively introduce reform into
economic practice, there is no approach to reform as a political and economic
complex,” stated in a detailed analysis of the socio-political situation conducted
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and commissioned by General Cheslav
Kiszczak in May 1984

According to the Government Commissioner for Reforms, Vladislav Bak, at the

meetings of the Council of Ministers in July 1983 and June 1984, plans were
pushed forward aimed at openly "disrupting the reforms. " One of their main
supporters was supposedly Deputy Prime Minister Zbigniew Messner, who
argued that "the completed model of socio-economic reform, outlined by
Minister Władysław Baka, actually means a change in the socio-political
system", that is, the collapse of socialism. According to Bak, Jaruzelski
defended continuing the reform, but changed his mind a year later at the
National Council in Poznań and supported Messner's limited version instead. A
few months later, in November 1985, the latter became prime minister, and the
position of government commissioner for reforms was removed. Real reforms
only began in 1988-89, when Mieczysław Rakowski's government introduced
provisions guaranteeing freedom of economic activity and liberalizing foreign
sales rules. If not for the political system, Rakovsky's reforms could lead to the
implementation of the so-called. the Chinese model of transformation, that is,
the introduction of a market economy while maintaining an authoritarian
political system.

Cases of state privatization. Compared to the general economic decline of the

1980s, the growth of the private sector in the economy was a peculiar
phenomenon. In the years 1981-1985, it increased its production level by nearly
14%, while the production of the domestic sector decreased by 0. However,
private entrepreneurship was still very limited, and many key members of the
Polish United Workers' Party criticized cases of "unjustified enrichment of
certain groups". Gradually, however, especially in the medium-sized state
apparatus, the conviction that without the development of the private sector the
deficit in the consumer goods market could not be met was strengthened.
A special position in the private sector was occupied by the so-called Polish
companies. Foreigners of Polish descent took part in their creation on the basis
of the Act of July 1982. “Polonia companies steal highly qualified staff from the
domestic sector. Some employees leave foreign trade offices, they have
information constituting business and state secrets.Cases of informal contacts
with employees of departments managing Polish-American companies are also
frequent,” sounded the alarm of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1984.

Polish community companies became a kind of testing ground for the

authorities, and especially for the special services (both the Security Service and
the military). The behavior of entities operating under market mechanisms has
been tested and used in operating activities. Part of the ruling elite gradually
became familiar with the idea of a radical break with the economic system based
on national ownership initiated in the 1940s. In this way, the climate appropriate
for the reforms of the Rakowski government began to be created, the side effect
of which was the process of the so-called enfranchisement of the nomenclature.

Deregulation of the political system. Its main revelation was the position of the
Polish United Workers' Party, which played a hegemonic role in the political
system of the People's Republic of Poland. The crisis of 1980-1981 and the
martial law announced that the PZPR lost about 1 million. By the middle of the
decade, some had stopped shrinking, and membership had stabilized at 2. 1
million. However, the process of building the party was not slowed down, and
the growth of people under 29 fell from 15% in 1981 to only 6. 9% in 1986, and
the average age of the PZPR was limited to 46 years. A similar process began to
work also in the ranks of the party apparatus of over 12,000. A personnel review
of the PZPR Central Committee members from 1984, that in 1985-1986 as many
as 23% of its employees will live to the retirement age. only 6% of the more
than six hundred European employees of the Central Committee were under the
age of 35.
The Communist Party is aging and losing influence, becoming part of the core
of the political system and, apart from various special pressure groups, within
the power apparatus. The most important of these groups was part of the officer
corps of the Armed Forces. In the first year of martial law, 32 functionaries were
delegated to the party apparatus at a high level, and 88 to the state
administration. Among them were 11 ministers and deputy ministers, 13
voivodes and deputy voivodes, and 9 secretaries of the PZPR Executive
Committee. In addition, 108 "lawyers in uniform" were delegated to work in the
prosecutor's office and the civil judiciary.

The role of senior SB officers and other persons in the economic apparatus is
also subject to separate private ones in the 1980s. All of them, of course,
represent the PZPR, but in reality they often oppose many decisions and
dissolution of the PZPR apparatus by functionaries. The leaders of the National
Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ) are also representatives of the communist
party. The Alliance had solidarity in the social consciousness. For this to
happen, the management of the Polish United Workers' Party decided that OPZZ
support must be subject to a broader autonomy than all other socio-political
organizations, including the allied United People's Party and the Democratic
Party. “We need to include various opposition elements with the party itself
controlling us with political positions, devices stabbing us in the ass” – said
about the OPZZ General Force, which was created exactly at the end of the
1980s to determine the level of control of the PZPR over the state apparatus,
especially over the source of economic power.

Evolution of social moods. After the imposition of martial law, the social mood
stabilized. In 1983, nearly 40% of those polled thought the economic situation
would improve, 8% thought it would get worse, and the rest, over 50%, thought
it would stay the same or had no opinion. This state of waiting began to change
in the middle of the decade in a very unfavorable direction for the authorities.
While in December 1985 46% of respondents described the economic situation
as bad, in the following months this number grew quite consistently: in April
55%, in December 1986 58. 5%, and in April 1987 as much as 69. it was getting
worse, which significantly affected the awareness of the power elite. A team of
three general advisers red line, which means crossing the critical point of the
explosion. There is no explosion because tendencies in society are suppressed by
various stabilizers (historical experiences, mainly from December 13, 1981, the
role of the Church, less influence of the opposition, apathy). It was assessed that
such a state had a bad influence on the authorities and part of the apparatus “as
usual in decadent times, begins to question the leadership, plot intrigues, plan
future personnel configurations. It will start to fall into place over time.
Therefore, a "drastic turn in which there will be few words and many deeds" was
proposed. Finally, such a turn of events, in the form of the Round Table talks,
took place a year later.

According to Mirosława Maroda, "three types of experiences with the widest

social reach" worsened the mood. The first was rising inflation devaluing the
"life achievements of individuals and their families". The second was "a sense of
disproportion between the effort put into achieving and maintaining a decent
standard of living and its effects. " Its main source was the persistent problems
with supplies (especially in industrial goods), which contrasted not only with the
situation in Western countries, but also with the often visited countries of the
Soviet bloc. The third experience generating social frustration, according to
Marody, was "the belief that the methods of action offered to individuals by the
system lead nowhere. " This concerned mainly young people and the broadly
understood intelligentsia, which was most affected by the growing apathy in the
1980s.

The activities of the Church and the political opposition. In the 1980s, under the
eyes of the authorities of the Polish People's Republic, the Catholic Church was
transformed from the main opponent into an important factor stabilizing social
moods. Therefore, without giving up various behind-the-scenes actions against
the clergy, symbolized by the kidnapping and killing of Father Jerzy
Popieluszko by the Security Service officers, the leadership of the Polish United
Workers' Party accepted in practice the unprecedented growth in the importance
of the Church's potential, which took place in the 1980s. new priests and temples
were built (according to government data, over three thousand churches were
built in 1986), as well as the rapid development of the Catholic press and
publishing houses. By the middle of the decade, there were 89 Catholic
periodicals with a circulation of 1. 5 million. The government's policy of
establishing new churches and Catholic Intelligentsia Clubs was also liberalised.
In addition, church structures played a dominant role in the distribution of
Western charitable aid, and the considerable amount of it constantly troubled the
authorities.

The authorities expected that the liberal course would bring about a gradual
increase in the acceptance of the system by the clergy. But the duplicity of the
church hierarchy, aimed at parallel dialogue with the authorities and discreet
support of the moderate part of the opposition, confused Jaruzelski's team. They
knew that the Church's support would be needed to implement the political
reform plans that had been maturing since the middle of the decade, but they
could not determine to what extent the bishops would be willing to support
them, or to what extent they identified with the goals of the opposition.

Moreover, the memory of the electoral victory of 1989 can be interpreted along
the lines of yet another Polish generic narrative that can be described as “a story
about national miracles taking place in Polish history as a divine reward for the
Polish peoples’ tribulations and fidelity to God and the Virgin Mary”. It is
epitomized in the popular motto of Polish Catholics: “Polonia semper fidelis”.
This narrative template is built on a popular Polish, Catholic myth, originating
as early as in the 17th century in Poland, about the miraculous interventions by
Virgin Mary from Częstochowa (called the Black Madonna) in Polish history.
As I have demonstrated in my previous research on Polish national myths and
their use by the Solidarity movement, a number of unexpected, positive turning
points in Polish history have been inscribed in this mythological narrative
template, including the emergence of Solidarity in 1980. In connection with the
30th anniversary of the June 1989 elections, Gazeta Wyborcza published two
articles that referred explicitly to that narrative. In the first, historian Tomasz
Nałęcz compared the results of the June elections with one of the events,
interpreted in popular memory as a national miracle, the so-called “Vistula
Miracle” — the victorious battle near Warsaw of the Polish army against the
Red Army in 1920. In the second, Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief of Gazeta
Wyborcza, returned to this idea. In an effort to include the Roundtable in the
same narrative template he called the whole year 1989 “the year of miracles”.
Michnik and many others within the opposition knew that the Roundtable, as a
non-revolutionary moment, fitted less well than the June elections with the
established patterns of meaning-making of the past in Polish culture. Therefore,
in order to protect the positive memory of the Roundtable they framed it
together with the June elections in one big celebration of “national miracles” and
referred to it as “annus mirabilis 1989”.
Meanwhile, the opposition, despite the weakness visible in the middle of the
decade, became a constant factor generating resistance to the system. At the end
of 1985, the Ministry of the Interior estimated that there were over 350 different
opposition structures operating in Poland, more than half of which operated in
only 5 out of 49 existing voivodeships at that time: Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdańsk,
Kraków and Łódź. According to the Security Service, its core consisted of 1. 5
thousand. people and more than 10,000 worked as newspaper distributors,
messengers and printers. The number of "active supporters" was estimated at
22,000. people, which would give a total of "about 34 thousand. persons directly
involved to a greater or lesser extent in illegal activities. This opposition was
divided into various groups opposing each other, but generally fell into one of
two categories, differing in their attitude to the authorities of the People's
Republic of Poland. While the radical category, in which Fighting Solidarity,
founded in 1982 by Kornel Morawiecki, had the greatest potential, wanted to
organize a general strike and overthrow the regime through revolution, the
moderate category, centered around Lech Wałęsa and the Provisional
Coordinating that the deteriorating economic situation and pressure from the
West will eventually force Jaruzelski's team to start talks with the opposition.
From the point of view of the authorities, it was important that the moderate
grouping was stronger than the radical one, and when in 1988 the leadership of
the Polish United Workers' Party finally decided to hold talks with Wałęsa and
his associates, the opposition radicals turned out to be too weak to stop the
Round Table talks and then boycott the contractual elections parliamentary
elections in June 1989.
PZPR-hegemonic communist party created on December 15, 1948, by merging
the Polish Workers' Party and the Polish Socialist Party, after carrying out
purges in their ranks.

NSZZ- a nationwide trade union established in 1980 to defend workers' rights,

until 1989 also one of the main centers of opposition against the government of
the Polish People's Republic and communism.

CPSU- Communist Party of the Soviet Union