NEWS ANALYSIS: Ten years later: how Poland led the way (09/26/99)

NEWS ANALYSIS

Ten years later: how Poland led the way

by Jan de Weydenthal

Ten years ago, Poland's Communists voluntarily stepped down from power, after losing the first partly free elections in a Soviet bloc country. The largest of the East European countries, Poland led the way in bringing about the demise of communism in the region. As Poland took step after step toward democracy without provoking a response from Moscow, other Communist-dominated countries were emboldened to follow suit.

It was in Poland that the Communists were first forced by popular protests to accept a major breach in their power.

In September 1980 the Solidarity labor union, was established as the first independent trade union in a Communist country. Solidarity was suppressed by military force 16 months later, but public opposition to communist rule neither disappeared nor weakened. Solidarity rebounded at the end of the 1980s.

It was also in Poland that the Communists were first forced by public pressure to accept free parliamentary elections. Such elections took place in June 1989, and the Communists were declared the losers.

And it was in Poland that the first democratic government in East Central Europe took office after decades of Communist rule. In fact, the Polish Communists themselves voted it into office on September 12, 1989.

In the process, Poland's Communists, who had long claimed for themselves the right to determine all aspects of society's development, were gradually forced into obscurity. They dissolved their party in 1990 and became "social democrats."

The Communists' downfall in Poland was a long time coming. Years of divisiveness, managerial inefficiency and political corruption had weakened their control.

Already in the 1970s the Communists had suffered severe political setbacks twice (in 1970 and 1976), when they were forced to change policies under pressure of workers' protests.

Their authority was further undermined when former Krakow Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was elected pope in October 1978. Less than a year later Pope John Paul II paid a visit to his native country, prompting an outburst of national pride. In the eyes of most Poles, it was the pope, rather than any communist leader, who had the right to guide the nation.

Ultimately, however, communism in Poland collapsed because its proponent did not secure effective support from the Soviet Union. Moscow declined to intervene to put down Solidarity, instead pressing its Polish allies to do so. The Soviet Union merely watched in early 1989 as the Communists in Poland negotiated away political control. And Soviet leaders eagerly opened a dialogue with the first democratic, non-Communist Polish government.

These developments were not lost on other countries in Central Europe. Dissidents in various countries had kept close contacts with their Polish colleagues. They all took note of Moscow's passive attitude toward Poland. And all were determined to put it to the test in their own countries. Kestutis Girnius, the coordinator of RFE/RL's Baltic services, noted that Soviet passivity toward Polish reform was encouraging to democrats in neighboring Lithuania. "Similar processes were taking place in Lithuania, which began to become more free in 1989," he said. "And the fact that Moscow did not resort to violence to stop change in Poland and prevent Solidarity from coming to power encouraged Lithuania to believe that Moscow would eventually let it go."

Some analysts say Moscow's paralysis was the result of a conscious policy guided by the widely proclaimed strategy of perestroika. Others say Moscow was unable to intervene because its economy was in decline and its army tied up in the Afghan war.

The legendary leader of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, said at the time that communism collapsed because it was simply outdated. In November 1989 he told a press conference in Washington that political changes in the region merely reflected the spirit of the times: "The reforms in Eastern Europe are not happening because [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev, or Walesa, or somebody else wants them. The irreversibility of reform is based on the fact that those reforms are part of the development of civilization. After satellites, computers and calculators, we are just following the steps of technology. So there is no question about reversibility or irreversibility of reforms. The question is not if, but how. The question is in what time span and what the price is going to be."

Pro-democracy activists in other communist countries supported those moves. Within months of the emergence of a democratic government in Poland, an unstoppable wave of change swept the entire region. And the system that dominated Central European politics, economics and societies for decades became history.

Jan de Weydenthal is an RFE/RL correspondent based in Prague.

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