A large part of society along with the solidarity elite did not have the joy after the communists suffered an election defeat on 4 June 1989 and – more importantly – openly admitted it. But joy didn't last long. Between July 1989 and December 1990, the accumulation of crucial political decisions coincided with a deep, multi-level economical crisis and accelerating, revolutionary social change.
In the political dimension, the key changes focused a small earlier — around the approval of the communist authorities to re-registration NSZZ “Solidarity” and organized on this basis between February and April 1989 of the circular Table. These decisions for the communist elite of power were part of the integration into the process of systemic transformation of the main, conciliative current of "Solidarity", and, by the way, they killed another avalanche of strikes and street protests.
System transformation with the vital interest of the party
The circular Table was not only a circumstantial laboratory of the fresh perestroika, but besides an operation of economical rescue of the regime, that is, obtaining redemptions and deferrals in the repayment of abroad debts of the Polish People's Republic, which could not win without the engagement of the opposition. Its consequence led to major changes in the Constitution of the Polish People's Republic, known in historiography as the April Novela and to any free parliamentary elections.
The consequence of June 4, 1989, which seldom reverberates publicly, was not an explicit but a maximized triumph for Solidarity. If votes were converted into tickets by any proportional method alternatively of majority, the communists would receive at least 30% of seats in the legislature (they did not actually introduce a single candidate with organization card!), and they could add a minimum of a twelve more to the guaranteed Sejm seat pool.
Despite political failure, PZPR dignitaries recognized the electoral verdict, hoping to control political contractors. The concessions in the second circular of elections and the declarations of opposition from ‘Solidarity’ indicated the loyalty of the opposition and the possible of establishing a fresh government based on the PZPR-ZSL-SD coalition. The fact that this did not happen was the consequence of a number of factors and interplays of various circumstances, including the disloyal attitude of the satellite parties and declarations from the Kremlin that the decision to cast the government was a "internal substance of Poland".
The transition continued temporarily
In the transformed Poland, whose tracks were marked by the June breakthrough and the subsequent Prime Ministerial nomination for Tadeusz Mazowiecki, almost everything was temporary. In addition to the already mentioned round-table contract, electoral ordination was intended for single use. erstwhile on July 19, 1989, with the participation of MEPs from the solidarity club, General Wojciech Jaruzelski was elected president of the Polish People's Republic of Poland, he was already speculating about his successor. Temporarily, problems with hyperinflation erupted all day, and the temporary strategy of the state, which contained a slanting combination of elements of the Stalinist strategy of unity of power and a demoleral strategy of value, was besides contained.
The chaos of the transformation continued at its best for the following years: twice in a radically different way the parliament passed electoral ordination, with the affluence manipulated customs, taxes, handling abroad debt. Almost all period political parties arose and dissolved.
What about the reforms that Leszek Balcerowicz owned? All of them were corrected and reduced. If individual claims that thanks to the systemic transformation Poland has become a free marketplace economy country, let him read even the Income taxation Act 1991.
An old baton in fresh hands?
The fresh elite of power focused on the eradication of social discontent and marginalization of anti-systemic opposition, headed by the Confederation of Independent Poland. On many rallies, manifestations and occupations of the buildings of the provincial structures of the PZPR, which lasted from October 1989 until the dissolution of the communist organization in the end of January 1990, ministers of solidarity responded with pacifications and surveillances, including the Kiszczak and Siwicki ministers.
The decommunisation and mirroring activities at that time were of a tiny and deviant nature. The removal of the ORMO, the creation of the Police in place of the Citizens' Militia and the State Protection Office in place of the safety Service — these pulls contained more elements of continuity than a break with the past. In addition to the controversial verification of the MMA's staff, symbolic decisions dominated — specified as the removal of the monument of Feliks Dzierżyński in Warsaw in November 1989, later reproduced in many another places against symbols of the worship of communist oppressors. Since 1988, however, the reverse operation — the mass demolition of the safety Service files, as well as a crucial part of the stenograms of the KC PZPR Political Office, to which the Gen. Kiszczak or straight president Jaruzelski.
It is apparent that describing events from 1989 only in black colours does not reflect the full scenery of dynamics of those events and the consequences that they caused. The average Pole could feel freer, having at his disposal a immense amount of previously unavailable press titles, seeing the crown on the head of an eagle from the Polish emblem, or having the freedom to talk about the Church, Poland, the world. But when, after 30 years, we turn on the tv and encounter the same slogan "hunt of the West", we sadly see that the pursuit is not only in the field of income per capita GDP, but besides in the sphere of the moral revolution, which spreads out like cancer Polish society.
Dr. Paul Momro
The article was created on the basis of fragments of the book “Polish Presidency in the First Years of III of Poland” by my author.
