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The Collapse of Communist Power in Poland Hayden-FM.qxd 18/11/05 2:47 PM Page i $ The Collapse of Communist Power in Poland The collapse of communist power in Poland in 1989 was unforeseen and unexpectedly sudden. Based on extensive original research, including interviews with key participants, this book examines the process whereby the Communist Party lost power. It sets out the sequence of events and examines the strategies of various Communist Party players both before and during the Round Table negotiations with Solidarity in the spring of 1989. This volume argues that the specific negotiating strategies and institutional arrangements agreed by the communist party representatives in the Round Table discussions before the partially free elections in June were key factors in communism’s collapse. In tracing the gap between what the PZPR (Communist Party) expected in each bargaining scenario and the actual outcome, Hayden assesses the evidence to determine whether the party members were far-sighted strategists attempting to control and shape the process of democratic transition in Poland, or whether they were caught up in a set of dynamic circumstances where + strategic mistakes produced unexpected political results. + This book shows that on many occasions, PZPR decision-makers ignored expert advice, and many Round Table bargains went against the party’s best interests. Using in-depth interviews with key party players, including General Jaruzelski, General Kiszczak and Mieczys„aw Rakowski, as well as Solidarity advisors such as Adam Michnik, The Collapse of Communist Power in Poland provides a unique source of first-hand accounts by key players in Poland’s revolutionary drama. Jacqueline Hayden is a lecturer in politics at the Department of Political Science, Trinity College, Dublin. She worked as a current affairs journalist and radio producer for 15 years before completing her PhD in 2002. Her previous books include Poles Apart: Solidarity and the New Poland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1994) and Lady G: A Biography of the Honourable Lady Valerie Goulding LLD (Dublin: Townhouse Press, 1994). $ Hayden-FM.qxd 18/11/05 6:12 PM Page ii $ BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies Series Editor: Richard Sakwa Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent Editorial Committee: George Blazyca Centre for Contemporary European Studies, University of Paisley Terry Cox Department of Government, University of Strathclyde Rosalind Marsh Department of European Studies and Modern Languages, University of Bath David Moon Department of History, University of Strathclyde Hilary Pilkington Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham Stephen White Department of Politics, University of Glasgow This series is published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies). The series comprises original, high-quality, research-level work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies in humanities and social + science subjects. + 1. Ukraine’s Foreign and Security 6. Dostoevsky and the Idea of Policy, 1991–2000 Russianness Roman Wolczuk Sarah Hudspith 2. Political Parties in the Russian 7. Performing Russia – Folk Regions Revival and Russian Identity Derek S. Hutcheson Laura J. Olson 8. Russian Transformations 3. Local Communities and Edited by Leo McCann Post-Communist Transformation Edited by Simon Smith 9. Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin 4. Repression and Resistance in The baton and sickle Communist Europe Edited by Neil Edmunds J. C. Sharman 10. State Building in Ukraine 5. Political Elites and the The Ukranian Parliament, New Russia 1990–2003 Anton Steen Sarah Whitmore $ Hayden-FM.qxd 18/11/05 2:47 PM Page iii $ 11. Defending Human Rights 19. Russia as a Great Power in Russia Dimensions of security Sergei Kovalyov, Dissident and under Putin Human Rights Commissioner, Edited by Jakob Hedenskog, 1969–2003 Vilhelm Konnander, Bertil Emma Gilligan Nygren, Ingmar Oldberg and Christer Pursiainen 12. Small-Town Russia Postcommunist livelihoods and 20. Katyn and the Soviet Massacre identities: a portrait of the of 1940 intelligentsia in Achit, Truth, justice and memory Bednodemyanovsk and Zubtsov, George Sanford 1999–2000 Anne White 21. Conscience, Dissent and 13. Russian Society and the Reform in Soviet Orthodox Church Russia Religion in Russia after Philip Boobbyer communism Zoe Knox 22. The Limits of Russian Democratisation 14. Russian Literary Culture in the Emergency powers and states of Camera Age emergency The word as image Alexander N. Domrin Stephen Hutchings 15. Between Stalin and Hitler 23. The Dilemmas of + Destalinisation + Class war and race war on the Dvina, 1940–46 A social and cultural Geoffrey Swain history of reform in the Khrushchev Era 16. Literature in Post-Communist Edited by Polly Jones Russia and Eastern Europe The Russian, Czech and Slovak 24. News Media and Power fiction of the changes 1988–98 in Russia Rajendra A. Chitnis Olessia Koltsova 17. Soviet Dissent and Russia’s 25. Post-Soviet Civil Society Transition to Democracy Democratization in Russia and Dissident legacies the Baltic States Robert Horvath Anders Uhlin 18. Russian and Soviet Film Adaptations of Literature, 26. The Collapse of Communist 1900–2001 Power in Poland Screening the word Strategic misperceptions and Edited by Stephen Hutchings and unanticipated outcomes Anat Vernitski Jacqueline Hayden $ Hayden-FM.qxd 18/11/05 2:47 PM Page iv $ + + $ Hayden-FM.qxd 18/11/05 2:47 PM Page v $ The Collapse of Communist Power in Poland Strategic misperceptions and unanticipated outcomes Jacqueline Hayden + + $ Hayden-FM.qxd 22/11/05 10:13 PM Page vi $ First published 2006 by Routledge Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2006 Jacqueline Hayden Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd, Chennai, India The Open Access version of this book, available at www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No + Derivatives 4.0 license. + British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 978-0-415-36805-6 (hbk) $ Hayden-FM.qxd 22/11/05 10:13 PM Page vii $ Contents Preface viii Acknowledgements xi List of abbreviations xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 Explaining change: the paucity of the agency– structure debate 13 3 Explaining the collapse of communism in Poland 34 + 4 PZPR strategic goals: expectation and outcome 47 + 5 Strategies and outcomes: part 1 – institutional choices of the PZPR 66 6 Strategies and outcomes: part 2 – the PZPR’s choice of electoral system and voting formulae 89 7 The election campaign 110 8 Discussion and conclusion 129 Appendix 1: the concept of the system of election to Sejm, based on the formula of non-confrontational but competitive elections, held on the basis of agreed principles 143 Appendix 2: Werblan’s letter 148 Notes 150 Bibliography 167 Index 174 $ Hayden-FM.qxd 18/11/05 2:47 PM Page viii $ Preface Why did the Polish communist party (PZPR) lose power over the summer of 1989? The starting point of this volume is the fact that, heretofore, there has been no satisfactory answer to this question. It is an important question which goes beyond the specific context of the collapse of communism in Poland to the underlying causes of regime change as a phenomenon. Understanding what caused the Polish communist party to collapse is not only challenging in the con- text of theories of stability and change but it is also challenging because of the effect of the Polish collapse on the process of change in the rest of Eastern and Central Europe in 1989. This volume is the product of a 25-year association with Poland which began when I was lucky enough to be sent to Poland in July 1980 by an Irish newspaper, The Irish Press, which wanted copy on the new Polish Pope and on the impact of his pontificate on his native country. On my arrival in Warsaw, I made my way to the homes of a list of dissident contacts and was lucky enough to be generously + welcomed by Jan Lity‘ski and Krystyna Lity‘ska. Jan was a prominent dissident, + editor of Robotnik (The Worker), an underground newspaper published by KOR (Workers’ Defence Committee). Over the course of the next month, I travelled all over Poland with Jan as strikes started in various factories, and was eventually invited to a planning meeting of the Free Trade Unions of the Coast in the company of Lech Wa„ˇsa and the rest of the committee on the eve of the start of the Gda‘sk shipyard strike that was to launch the Solidarity trade union, Solidarnof-. I stayed in touch with the Polish story and with my Polish friends throughout the 1980s. In 1989, by then working for Irish radio, I covered the semi-free elections in June and began gathering the in-depth interviews with key players from both the PZPR and the Solidarnof^-led opposition that would form the basis of this current volume. However, the primary source on which the analysis is based derives from a series of interviews conducted with key communist party actors. The interviews were mainly conducted in Poland during 1999 and 2000. Several key figures were interviewed on more than one occasion. The analysis is also based on an examination of Politburo records, contemporary documents as well as the research of other scholars. Given the fact that neither the PZPR nor the opposition Solidarity trade union, Solidarnof-, anticipated the fall of communism at the outset of the Round Table $ Hayden-FM.qxd 18/11/05 2:47 PM Page ix $ Preface ix process in February 1989, the big question is what explains the collapse of the party’s hegemony so shortly after its negotiators had concluded a deal with Solidarnof- that they thought would enable the communist government to continue business as usual and carry out its economic reform programme.
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