Thirty years after the appointment of Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government, the event can be viewed differently. Not only due to the fact that we know more about the spheres of political negotiations and tenders, but besides due to the fact that within 3 decades of the 3rd Polish Republic, this cabinet had already grown into respective legends aspiring to the name of the axioms of the then Polish state and the fame of Mazowieckie himself covered his decisions, the effects of which we inactive feel today.
Situation after circular Table
The round-the-clock agreement of the elites of the alleged constructive stream of Solidarity and the Polish United Workers' Party, although it led to limited reforms democratizing the political strategy of the Polish People's Republic, did not actually address the problems of either party. In the light of the cameras there was no deficiency of smiles and optimism, but actually for the 2 mentioned parties this fresh beginning was better than the deficiency of any agreement.
The opposition in Magdalena gained much, but success in the contract elections of June 1989 paradoxically accelerated the erosion process within Solidarity. The society faced fresh and violent shocks of the economy, and the communist organization – despite the persistence of the leadership monolith symbolized by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski – felt weakening of Moscow's control (read: care), the outflow of part of the staff to the nomenklatur companies and slow decayed at the lowest levels. In the background of these processes there was a compromise of the PZPR elite in society – a gradual and irreversible process, but not as violent as any communicative writers of the 3rd Polish Republic would like. It is adequate to mention that in the June elections the communists gathered 28% for the Sejm, while 32% for the Senate. The fact that they did not cast anything but 3 parliamentary seats could have been due to the form of electoral ordination, according to which they agreed to hold elections.
Mieczysław Rakowski's government, despite respective ambitious economical reforms carried out by the Sejm, did not complain about the excessive public support. After all, Rakowski announced the bankruptcy of Gdańsk Shipyard in 1988. Not only that, with the pezetpeer liberal they did not want to seriously negociate many creditors of People's Poland, and the debt loop tightened over the socialist economy with all month. The institutionalisation of the opposition in the fresh parliamentary word (including the full legislature for Solidarity!) and the economical dead end in which the communists came at their own request, in mid-1989 put the issue of the fresh government and changes in the position of Prime Minister.
Your Jaruzelski, our...
At each university, the celebrated concept of Adam Michnik, “your president – our Prime Minister”, which was to be fulfilled by the mission of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, was not the way events and negotiations were going. present we know that the candidate of the chief “Gazeta Wyborcza” was individual else – Bronisław Geremek. Sławomir Siwek late quoted that the name Geremek had already been taken from Wałęsa as an opposition alternate to the thought of establishing one more time the communist government headed by Władysław Baka. At the same time, tactically, the Solidarity president expressed his support for Kiszczak's candidacy for the position of head of state in place of Jaruzelski – precisely so that the Head of the Ministry of the Interior did not take over the mission of creating the government. The editor-in-chief of “Gazeta Wyborcza” was to work on this candidacy as early as June, revealing to Kiszczak that Geremek would be the character that Michnik mentioned in the article “Your president – Our Prime Minister”.
What about the Communist side? Despite the signals that Michnik and Wałęsa sent, “we have the service, we have the army (it is nothing that they vote for Solidarność there), we have been with us for 45 years ZSL and SD, so we will form the majority government, giving a fewer of the oppositions, after which, thanks to her reputation, we will get in the London Club and the Paris Club the postponement of Poland’s bankruptcy”. However, they acted very slow in situations requiring fast decisions. Since 4 July, the Sejm has been waiting for the president to be elected, delaying the resignation of Rakowski's cabinet. 10 days after Jaruzelski took over the presidency, XIII Plenum KC PZPR was gathered and it seems that only then was the decision to entrust the government mission to General Czesław Kiszczak. Interestingly, the latter, after years, spoke out of wanting to take over the premiere, but things were already to go besides far. As part of these ‘cases’, Rakowski's visit to the Sejm, which threatened Members with the ghost of civilian war in the event of Kiszczak's defeat by voting. And it became, on 2 August 1989, Jaruzelski's nominee became Prime Minister – by a majority of 237 for 420 voters.
The OKP Club did not intend to co-create the government. Among the members of the ZSL and SD, there was a political confusion and aversion to communists, and their achievements in this field were achieved both by Wałęsa and Michnik. Even any of the MPs – elected from the second or 3rd series of organization hierarchy – did not want to vote for a duplicate of the PZPR-ZSL-SD, in which the opposition would not enter the government at all. Stanisław Ciosek confessed to Fr Alojze Orszulik on August 10.
And yet Mr. Tadeusz
The most conscious reaction to developments was the second faction from the Wałęsa area. Conversations between Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński with representatives of the satellite parties rapidly led to concrete – division of positions in the future government and acceptance for the Prime Minister outside the communist agreement They were besides helped by the church hierarchy, which looked more favourably at the editor-in-chief of the “Solidarity Weekly” towards the Chief of OKP probed by Michnik. On 17 August Lech Wałęsa met with Roman Malinowski and gave him 3 names of solidarity candidates for head of government: Geremek, Kuron, Mazowiecki. The president of the ZSL advocated Mazowiecki.
Why the courage of communist satellites to negociate with Wales? It came not so much from the political position of the latter, but alternatively from the full cognition and silent approval of russian Ambassador Vladimir Browicz about the negotiations. Jaruzelski was besides informed about subsequent meetings and their known purpose. Meanwhile, Malinowski was convinced that he was making history, that the creation of the government with Wałęsa was a well-deserved compensation for years of dull submission to the communists – to the degree that he convinced himself that individual was coming upon his life.
Jaruzelski's personality and political position did not let him to open the pacification of Malinowski, nor to rapidly surrender and photograph of Kiszczak. He did not have ready alternatives to specified a circumstance, in turn the complete defeat suffered Rakowski's calls to Moscow asking for Gorbachev's intervention. The russian leader on 22 August gave the First Secretary of KC PZPR to realize that he did not want to make an impression in the planet of non-acceptance of the russian Union for Polish transformations. Jerzy Urban, sent to the house, was dismissed.
The price of triumph – Mazowiecki agreed
As helpless as in August 1989, Polish communists were most likely never. They could not act quickly, unspeakably and above all – without support or manual control from Moscow. Consequently, after 40 days of various inept treatments, Jaruzelski agreed to the premiere of Mazowiecki – of course in exchange for a number of promises regarding the preservation of the alliance with the USSR and membership of the Warsaw Pact, or "the preservation of the socialist social order in Poland". About these details, i.e. the full consent of Mazowiecka to the circumstantial finlandization of Poland and the frost of processes purifying Polish public life from communist agentry – frequently 1 forgets. alternatively of them, the communicative perpetuates the parliamentary images of August 24 along with the fresh Prime Minister empathizing with the motion of Solidarity.
One of these shore conditions was Jaruzelski's actual participation as president of the Polish People's Republic in forming the composition of the government. At the OKP club gathering on 16 August 1989, Jarosław Kaczyński said that Jaruzelski had to stay the spheres of power defined at the circular Table, which means the power resorts. Mazowiecka has fulfilled this commitment highly carefully, accepting the PZPR's candidatures for Home Affairs and National Defence Ministers, as well as consulting the Jaruzelski cast of another ministries as well as the positions of Deputy Ministers. Although Francis Wirzedek, as Minister of Transport, Shipping and Communications, went to the government under the PZPR, it was Kiszczak, as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, who was to defend the personnel of the apparatus from future attempts to enforce their work for actions before 1989.
Despite these concessions, Mazowieckie temporarily felt the strength of 386 votes obtained in the Sejm and began to bargain with Jaruzelski. As a result, the communists lost the ministry of diplomacy, despite the divisions within the leadership of Solidarity regarding the candidates for this post. According to the documentation of British diplomacy, Geremek presented the optics of PZPR, speaking of the erstwhile abroad minister Tadeusz Olechowski as an experienced expert, who will surely keep his position in the Mazowieckie government. It happened differently and the ministry was surrounded by Krzysztof Skubiszewski. Jack Ambroziak's account besides confirms that Jaruzelski was the 1 who succumbed to the force of Mazowieckie – Skubiszewski's candidacy seemed unconfronted to him, and he only secured his approval with the behaviour of the communist secretary of state in the resort.
Mazowieckie honest as ever
On September 12, 1989, everything was clear. Tadeusz Mazowiecki gave as Prime Minister an exposure in the Sejm and his cabinet received a vote of assurance by 402 votes out of 415 MPs present in the Chamber. Finally, 11 ministers from the advice of the OPC, 4 ministers from the PZPR, 4 ministers from the ZSL and 3 representatives of SD entered the government. In the shadow of these events, changes were made to the position of the president of the National Bank of Poland, who, to the low satisfaction of Jaruzelski, took over Bak.
Mazowiecki's very seismic speech has besides gone back to history, and after 30 years it seems to sound like a sincere confession of an open Catholic before a task which is beyond his reach. Without peculiar mention to the function of Providence, he spoke of his own imagination of the heritage of Solidarity, in which 1 rejects reasoning "in terms of taking revenge for the past, equalising the bills of harm". Indeed, his government laid down the concept of justice on the altar of politics and did not even effort to enforce work for decades of enslavement of the nation and the state. He besides said that "the fresh government would act under pressure" in the context of the economical collapse – and specified pressure, together with the emphasis on the non-alternative implementation of macroeconomic recipes from the West throughout its lifetime, was strong.
In your own expose Mazowieckie did not avoid pathos either. He reached out to the phrase that "Poland can only be raised by a society of free citizens and a government policy with the assurance of a clear majority of Poles". But has specified a society always developed in the past 30 years? This is simply a very complex question, but erstwhile it is put up, it usually disappears from public space faster than support for the Mazowieckie government, which – let us remind – had already faced a powerful wave of strikes in the spring of 1990.
Looking from the position of 30 years, 1 sees more and this way 1 can “speak” about decisions better for Poland, for which no 1 at the time reached out. Those writing these words, however, do not intend to aspire to the function of an absolute justice of the first government of the 3rd Republic of Poland, but simply want to show that at the minute erstwhile the kind of window of past on the global phase opened for Polish cases, all major political forces were characterized by utmost caution and at the same time a belief of the tremendous strength of competitors. It is worth remembering, writing a communicative for those who erstwhile on September 12, 1989 will look like ancient times without smartphones and cars for minutes.
Dr. Paul Momro
