Round table (Poland)

Original of the round table in the Presidential Palace in Warsaw

Round Table in Poland referred to the discussions at the round table , in the transition from communist regime to a democratic Republic between February 6 and April 5, 1989 in Warsaw took place. Participants were representatives of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PVAP), the opposition union Solidarność , the Catholic Church and other social groups. The first round table meeting took place on February 6, 1989.

prehistory

The growing strike movement in the People's Republic of Poland in 1988 was viewed with concern by the PVAP. Jaruzelski's previous policy , which was based on the principles of consultation and co-optation , had failed. The regime was aware that without Solidarność it would not be possible to carry out any reform work that needed a broad social base. On August 31, 1988, with the mediation of leading intellectuals and the Catholic Church, the first meeting between Interior Minister Czesław Kiszczak and Lech Wałęsa “among equals” took place. The negotiations initially went on the spot, especially when the new Prime Minister Mieczysław Rakowski wanted to concentrate on pure economic reforms. Only after a television discussion between Wałęsa and the head of the official trade union OPZZ , Alfred Miodowicz , who, in the opinion of the majority of viewers, clearly won the former, did the party leadership realize that new reforms in the population could not be implemented without the participation of "Solidarność" would.

The discussions

From February 6 to April 5, 1989, representatives of the Communist Party and the social opposition gathered in Warsaw for round table discussions.

The work was carried out in three equal working groups (called "main tables"):

• Political Reform Working Group,
• Working group for economic and social policy,
• Working group on union and political pluralism.

Each negotiating group set up sub-groups and working committees - a total of over 400 experts worked on agreements: reforming territorial self-government, the judiciary, the media and other areas.

The round table negotiations were one of the clear signs of changes in the political landscape in Poland . Representatives of the Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza ( PZPR ), the opposition trade union Solidarność , the Catholic Church and other social groups sat opposite one another. The round table was preceded by negotiations between Czesław Kiszczak and Lech Wałęsa and their delegations in Magdalenka near Warsaw .

agreement

The round table discussions led to profound changes in all areas of public life. In the political field, a gradual introduction of full popular sovereignty with the associated pluralism was agreed . As an immediate measure, "Solidarność" was allowed again on April 17th. The recognition of a multi-party system , the principle of free elections and independent courts were other important stages in this process. What is special about the “ Polish turnaround ” is that both sides managed to find a compromise between reform and revolution, despite seemingly irreconcilable interests. The British historian Timothy Garton Ash called this phenomenon a "refolution".

Main agreements:

• free elections to a newly created second chamber, the Senate,
• Allocation of seats in the Sejm according to the key 65:35%,
• Re-admission of the Solidarność union,
• Creation of a semi-presidential system of government,
• Opposition access to mass media.

Further development

On June 4 and 18, 1989, for the first time after the Second World War, partially free parliamentary elections took place in Poland, which accelerated the system change.

The seats in the Sejm were allocated according to the key 65 percent for the PVAP and its bloc parties, 35 percent (161 of 460 seats) for free elections, while the elections to the Senate were unlimited. All of the 161 freely chosen seats in the Sejm were won by the Solidarność Citizens' Committee , the political organization of the Solidarność trade union, which also won 99 of the 100 possible seats in the re-established Senate. Of the total of 261 candidates of the “Solidarność Citizens' Committee” (only one candidate per freely assigned mandate), only one Senate candidate was not elected, while the PVAP only got its candidates through with the help of a short-term amendment to the electoral law.

On July 19, 1989, General Jaruzelski was elected to the post of President, which was re-established by the Sejm on April 7, 1989, with a narrow majority . A cabinet led by the PVAP under General Kiszczak no longer received the required majority. Instead, Solidarność, in cooperation with two previous bloc parties , succeeded in forming a government on September 13 under the Catholic publicist Tadeusz Mazowiecki .

In October 1989, Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz presented the so-called “ Balcerowicz Plan ”, which envisaged the rapid transformation of the economic system into a functioning market economy.

On December 29, 1989, the constitution was amended. The provisions on the alliance with the Soviet Union and the socialist states and the leadership role of the Communist Party were deleted and the former state name Rzeczpospolita Polska (German Republic of Poland ) with the old coat of arms reintroduced.

These events not only ushered in the evolutionary system change from real socialism to pluralistic democracy in Poland, but also served as a role model and contributed significantly to the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany and the fall of communism in the states of Central and Eastern Europe.

The actual round table can be seen today in the presidential palace . It has a diameter of nine meters and seats 57 people.

Participants in the main discussions

The following people took part in the main discussions:

Representative of the government coalition

Tomasz Adamczuk Norbert Aleksiewicz Stanislaw Ciosek Aleksander Gieysztor Wiesław Gwiżdż Marek Hołdakowski Jan Janowski Janusz Jarliński Czesław Kiszczak Zenon Comender Jan Karol Kostrzewski Mikołaj Kozakiewicz Bogdan Królewski Aleksander Kwaśniewski Maciej Manicki

Harald Matuszewski Leszek Miller Alfred Miodowicz Kazimierz Morawski Jerzy Ozdowski Anna Przecławska Tadeusz Rączkiewicz Jan Rychlewski Władysław Siła-Nowicki Zbigniew Sobotka Romuald Sosnowski Stanisław Wiśniewski Jan Zaciura Edward Zgłobicki

Representatives of the social opposition

Stefan Bratkowski Zbigniew Bujak Władysław Findeisen Wladyslaw Frasyniuk Bronislaw Geremek Mieczysław Gil Aleksander Hall Jacek Kuroń Wladyslaw Liwak Tadeusz Mazowiecki Jacek Merkel Adam Michnik Alojzy Pietrzyk

Edward Radziewicz Henryk Samsonowicz Grażyna Staniszewska Andrzej Stelmachowski Stanislaw Stomma Klemens Szaniawski Jan Józef Szczepański Edward Szwajkiewicz Józef Ślisz Witold Trzeciakowski Jerzy Turowicz Lech Wałęsa Andrzej Wielowieyski

Church observers

• Bronislaw Dembowski
• Janusz Narzyński
• Alojzy Orszulik

Press officer

• Janusz Onyszkiewicz
• Jerzy Urban

literature

• András Bozóki: The roundtable talks of 1989. Central European University Press, 2002.
• Krzysztof Dubiński: Magdalenka. Transakcja epoki. Notatki z poufnych spotkań Kiszczak-Wałęsa. Wyd. Sylwa, Warsaw 1990, ISBN 83-85167-06-4 .
• Jon Elster : The round table talks and the breakdown of communism. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1996.
• Andrzej Garlicki: Rycerze Okrągłego Stołu. Wyd. Czytelnik, Warsaw 2004, ISBN 83-07-02970-8 .
• Philipp Goll: " The miraculous table ", in:  Kultur & Gespenster,  No. 16: Sos Fantômes (2015).
• Postanowienia Okrągłego Stołu. Wyd. NSZZ “Solidarność” Warmińsko-Mazurski Region, Olsztyn 1989.
• Konstanty Gebert: Mebel. Wyd. Aneks, Londyn 1990, ISBN 0-906601-73-8 .
• Minton F. Goldman: Revolution and change in Central and Eastern Europe. ME Sharpe, 1997.
• Peter Raina: Droga do "Okrągłego Stołu". Zakulisowe rozmowy przygotowawcze. Wyd. From Borowiecky, Warsaw 1999, ss. 371, ISBN 83-87689-09-2 .
• Robert Weiner: Change in Eastern Europe. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994.

Web links

Commons : Round Table (Poland)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Poland: "Round Table or Tiananmen". Handelsblatt, July 21, 2009
• Tadeusz Mazowiecki on the round table: We had an alarm signal in our head: Careful! (PDF; 684 kB) Poland Analyzes, No. 55, July 7, 2009
• The people from the round table. An attendance list. Polityka, October 15, 2009
• Round Table in Poland: The Beginning of the End of the Eastern Bloc. DiePresse.com, April 2, 2009

Footnotes

1. ↑ Year1989.pl . Institute for National Remembrance . Retrieved June 3, 2014.
2. ↑ The Propagated Revolution. Mirror online
3. ^ Andrzej Chwalba: Brief history of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, p. 18.
4. ^ Timothy Garton Ash: We the people. The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague. London 1999, p. 14.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Dieter Bingen : Pioneer of the upheaval in the Eastern bloc. From Solidarność to Martial Law (1980–1981) , Federal Agency for Civic Education , February 10, 2009.
6. ^ Andrzej Chwalba: Brief history of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, p. 20.
7. ^ ^{A b} Andrzej Chwalba: Brief History of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 21–23.
8. ^ Andrzej Chwalba: Brief history of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, p. 73.
9. ↑ The 'round table' always has fresh cloves. Polskie Radio, February 6, 2009 ( WebCite ( Memento of February 7, 2009 on WebCite ))
10. ↑ Andrzej Garlicki: Rycerze Okrągłego Stolu. Czytelnik, Warszawa 2004, ISBN 83-07-02970-8