Abstract
The article describes the internal influences in Poland that allowed the country to emerge from Soviet influence with relative ease and prosperity. The author examines the strong public culture that led to the weakening of the grasp of the Communist Party on the nation, and the decisive political and economic reforms taken by Solidarity that allowed Poland in the 1990s to emerge quickly from the perils of misdevelopment that were due to Soviet influence. The author describes the useful role played by major political goals, such as the Copenhagen criteria, in helping to further develop the stature of the country into the beginning of this decade. The author asserts that the decisive transformations that took place in Poland over the last two decades provide principles to strategize economic recovery in present day.
The Second World War started in Poland on 1 September 1939 with the German attack on the military garrison on the Westerplatte peninsula, in Gdansk. At the war's end Poland found itself in the Soviet sphere of influence. Although it was not forcibly incorporated into the USSR as were the three Baltic states, Poland remained a non-democratic state for almost 50 years.
The experiences of the three partitions (1795-1918), when Poland did not formally exist, as well as the experience of the German–Soviet occupation during the Second World War (1939-1945) created a tradition of ‘internal immigration’ in which a large number of the intellectual elite did not actively participate in public life. The values of the country were kept alive within families, and among émigrés. The churches were also an important venue in which the traditions of the country were taught and where Poles could go to escape from their daily lives. These historic traditions created an underground society that existed separately from the public sphere, which was firmly controlled by the Communist Party.
Stalin once said that introducing Communism to Poland was ‘like saddling a cow’. Poland was never a Communist country; it was a Communist state. Throughout the decades of Communist rule, a strong opposition existed in Polish society which constantly confronted the regime—particularly in 1956, 1968, 1970 and 1976, and most dramatically in the summer of 1980, in the shipyards on the Baltic coast.
When the trade union Solidarność (Solidarity) was created it had ten million members—five times as many as the entire membership of the Polish United Workers Party. This created an ideological problem for the Communist Party, since the workers explicitly negotiated for a free trade union outside of Communist control. The December 1981 military coup by General Jaruzelski and the suppression of the trade unions eroded the last vestiges of legitimacy the government may have had.
The military regime was unable to solve the structural problems Poland was facing, and the 1980s saw a constant decline in living standards, with more than 60% of the population living in poverty. Inflation, measured by the black-market rate of the US dollar, was 1,500% in the period 1982-1987. Poland's debt in various foreign banks and governments reached US $42.3 billion (or 64.8% of GDP) by 1989. The state became bankrupt.
When in the spring and summer of 1988 new waves of strikes hit the country owing to a 110% increase in prices, the regime had run out of options and agreed to hold talks with the opposition. On 6 February 1989 the first round-table talks were held between the Communist regime and Solidarność.
The results included the legalisation of trade unions, the introduction of the office of a president who would be elected to a 5-year term (thereby annulling the power of the Communist Party General Secretary), and the creation of a Senate.
The breakthrough was the agreement to hold partially free elections, with 35% of the seats to the Polish National Assembly being openly contested while 65% were reserved for the Communist Party and its allies. In the newly established Senate 100% of the seats would be freely contested. On 4 June 1989, Poles voted for the first time in over 60 years and 100% of the open seats to the Assembly were filled by Solidarność-backed candidates, and all but one seat in the Senate went to Solidarność. The single non-Solidarność seat in the Senate went to an independent.
Although the regime was convinced that it could still maintain power, two Communist satellite parties split and voted with Solidarność in order to form the government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki. This was the first non-Communist government in that part of Europe; the Berlin Wall fell 6 weeks later.
A successful decade
A transformative period defined Poland in the 1990s and continued until 1 May 2004, when Poland entered the European Union. The withdrawal of the last Soviet/Russian forces in June 1992 and the subsequent entrance of Poland into NATO in March 1999 were important milestones, but the end result for which all Polish governments strived in the 1990s was a return to Europe.
Without a doubt, Poland's success in the 1990s was due to two forces—the political agreement that enabled a peaceful transfer of power between the Communist Party and the democratic opposition, and the economic reforms begun in 1990 by the then Minister of Finance, Leszek Balcerowicz.
In 1990 the inflation rate had reached 639.6% and was rising; Poland was suffering from hyperinflation. The ‘Balcerowicz plan’ of shock therapy immediately withdrew regulations, price controls and subsidies to state-owned industries. Although painful, it reduced inflation and reined in the budget deficit. It eliminated the centrally directed economy and allowed for an agreement with international lenders on Poland's debt.
The social costs were very high. Owing to bankruptcies and the closing down of many state-run companies, the unemployment rate rose to 16.4% in 1993. Many economists, however, argue that what Balcerowicz did was to show the real level of unemployment, which until now had existed but had remained hidden in inefficient state-run companies.
The Balcerowicz plan laid the foundation for the largest economic growth in all the countries in the region. It led to investment in the telecommunication and digital networks, which were either non-existent or seriously underfinanced. It also led to the improvement of environmental standards and greater energy efficiency. Poland was never an underdeveloped country; it was a misdeveloped country because of the Communist system.
Poland's economy started to stabilise and within 2 years, 600,000 private businesses were created in which 1.5 million people found employment. As of 2008, the Polish GNP was 77% higher than in 1989.
It is important to remember that except for the period between 1990-1993, Poland was always governed in cohabitation, with either a government or a president being a member of the post-Communists. The Left in Poland maintained many of the early reforms and proposed very liberal economic solutions; it was Minister Belka who proposed a flat tax for corporations.
While I was Prime Minister from October 1997 to October 2001, my government was able to introduce four important reforms in education, social security, local administration and the health service. The price we paid for these reforms was losing the elections in 2001.
The reforms of the early 1990s and the reforms carried out by my government have allowed Poland to be the European country that is dealing most successfully with the current economic crisis. Our banking system is sound, the level of personal debt is low and when the global crisis began we had a low deficit and single-digit unemployment. Last year (2009), Poland was the only EU country that showed economic growth.
Conclusions
Most Poles never believed that theirs was a Communist society; the regime was always seen as having been imposed from the outside on account of the result of the Second World War. Polish society continued to exist through underground publications, with the support of the churches and the émigré communities. There were also enough people who remembered an independent and capitalist Poland that their families kept certain values and concepts alive; this made the rejection of the system at the beginning of the transformation relatively easy.
In this respect, an important feature of the Polish transformation was its peaceful character. The experience of the Eastern European countries' transition also shows that political and economic transformations should take place in tandem, since they mutually reinforce each other. Another Polish ‘trademark’ is the idea of participatory ‘round table’ talks, a specific way of conducting negotiations between an authoritarian regime and the democratic opposition.
In the case of Poland, one lesson clearly emerges: strong political actors are indispensable to change. Democratisation is not just about elections; it is also about empowering internal political actors at all levels of society: community-based organisations, trade unions, economic associations, legitimate democratic institutions, as well as parliaments.
Although my trade union, Solidarność, was universally known for its decisive action against Poland's totalitarian regime, it was not the only actor. Without solid representative institutions that were empowered and capable of expressing the will of the people by legislating and overseeing government action, democracy would have remained incomplete and fragile. Institution-building remains an essential element in transforming the rhetoric of democracy and human rights into practical reality.
A second lesson that can be drawn is the need for strategic tools during transition. In Poland these included a negotiated road map agreed between the government and the opposition, a new Constitution negotiated among all political parties and a long-term political goal such as EU or NATO accession. The common element among these is that they constituted a set of generally accepted benchmarks against which progress in governance was measured.
Poland was also helped by the EU's three Copenhagen criteria, which steered our systemic transformation: political stability and the rule of law; a functioning market economy; and acceptance and implementation of the laws and treaties undergirding the European Community (the acquis communautaire). These criteria were simultaneously clear, simple and ambitious, and together were our compass when navigating the waters of transition.
Regardless of its desire for EU membership, Poland needed to transform both its economy and its political system after regaining its independence, but the goal of entering the European communities enabled successive governments from both the Left and the Right to consistently make hard decisions, knowing that the Polish public supported this strategic long-term goal.
Poland's transformative period thus ended after its formal accession to the EU on 1 May 2004. It was the culmination of a journey that had begun in 1980, when the Solidarność trade union forced a Communist government to recognise its right to exist, thus beginning the end of Communism in our part of Europe.