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.