Mieczysław Rakowski

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Mieczysław Rakowski

Mieczysław Franciszek Rakowski (born December 1, 1926 in Kowalewko near Nakło nad Notecią , Poland ; † November 8, 2008 in Warsaw ) was a Polish politician and journalist . From 1988 to 1989 he was the penultimate prime minister in what was then communist Poland .

Life

Rakowski worked in a railway repair shop in Poznan during the German occupation . After the war he studied history in Warsaw and received his doctorate in 1956. At the same time, he was an officer in the Polish People's Army from 1945 to 1949 and since 1946 a member of the communist party PPR (from 1948 PZPR ). In 1957 he was appointed deputy editor-in-chief of the newly founded weekly newspaper Polityka , and a year later he was appointed editor-in-chief (until 1982). As a representative of the party's reform wing, he was equally hated by the neo-Stalinist and national communist groups within the PZPR. Rakowski also held management positions in the Polish Association of Journalists. His actual party career began under party leader Edward Gierek , when he became a member of the Sejm in 1972 and a member of the Central Committee in 1975 . Under Wojciech Jaruzelski , he was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister in 1981. He justified martial law and became one of the most prominent opponents of the democratic opposition to the solidarity union . In 1985 he became Deputy Speaker of Parliament until he took office in September 1988. As prime minister he initiated economic reforms, some companies were privatized.

During his reign, the political " round table talks " began with the unified opposition Citizens Committee Solidarity around Lech Wałęsa . In the parliamentary elections on June 4, 1989 , Rakovsky received no more seats in parliament and then resigned from his post. One month later he succeeded Jaruzelski, who was elected president, in the chairmanship of the PZPR, which he held until the party's transformation into the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland in January 1990.

Then Rakowski returned to his job as a journalist. He played a major role in the fact that the German Social Democrats chose his party as a political partner in Poland after German reunification and supported its acceptance into the Socialist International , which amounted to an international rehabilitation of the Polish post-communists.

In 2003/2004 he tried briefly as a talk show host on Polish television. He passed away in November 2008 at the age of 81 after a long illness.

Private

Rakowski was initially married to the violinist Wanda Wiłkomirska , and later to the actress Elżbieta Kępińska . He always spent his holidays in a village in Masuria with many prominent actors, musicians and writers. In addition, he was often the interlocutor of Marion Countess Dönhoff .

Publications

  • SDP w okresie powojennym 1949–1954 (1960)
  • Przesilenie grudniowe (1981)
  • Partnerstwo (German: partnership , 1982)
  • Jak to się stało (1991) ( Eng .: It began in Poland: the beginning of the end of the Eastern Bloc , 1995)
  • Zanim stanę przed Trybunałem (German: standing before the court , 1992)
  • Do MF Rakowskiego pisali. Lata – listy – ludzie (German: Written to MFRakowski. Years-Letters-People , 1993)
  • Dzienniki polityczne (German: Political Diary ) Vol. 1–7 (1998–2004)

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Mieczysław Rakowski never żyje . TVN24 .pl, November 8, 2008.
  2. ↑ Agnieszka Osiecka : Szpetni czterdziestoletni. Iskry, Warsaw 1985, ISBN 83-207-0648-3 (“The Ugly Forties”).
    Agnieszka Osiecka: Rozmowy w tańcu. TenTen, Warsaw 1992, ISBN 83-85477-17-9 (“Conversations in Dance”).
personal data
SURNAME Rakowski, Mieczysław
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish politician, member of the Sejm and journalist, Prime Minister of Poland (1988–1989)
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Kowalewko near Nakło nad Notecią , Poland
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 2008
Place of death Warsaw