– 13 June: The Hungarian opposition starts round table negotiations with the government. – 5 April: The Polish Round Table reaches an agreement on the legalisation of the Solidarity trade union, the holding of partially free elections, the abolition of censorship and, in general, the end of four decades of authoritarian rule. – March 22: An “opposition roundtable” is formed in Hungary to urge the government to reform. After two months of negotiations, Interior Minister General Czeslaw Kiszczak and Mr. Lech Walesa, the head of Solidarność, put the pen on paper amid the glare of television lights at the massive round table in a 17th-century Warsaw palace where Radziwill aristocrats once lived. To date, the importance and value of the Round Table has been hotly debated among Poles. The words “treason” and “manipulation” can be heard in almost every discussion of the events of April 1989. Some complain that the Round Table agreements did not punish the Communists for their crimes. Others are annoyed that many officials of the old regime have gained wealth and authority in the new state. Still others are angry because the new Poland is more of a liberal democracy than a state based on Catholic values.
Among the many letters of protest we received was a poem by a certain Miroslaw M. Krupinski, in which he complained about the “traitors” who “ten years later fat and arrogant/well-fed with profits and victorious/without arguments, all disagreements/toast again — in Michigan.” [1] After the factory strikes in the early 1980s and the subsequent formation of the Solidarność movement (then still underground) under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa, the political situation in Poland began to calm down somewhat. Despite an attempt by the government to suppress the trade union movement, the movement had grown too much and it was becoming impossible to stop the change. In addition, there were fears of a social explosion due to the economic malaise and runaway inflation that had depressed Polish living standards and compounded public anger and frustration. In 1988, the authorities began serious talks with the opposition. The talks were not easy and not once did they result in an impasse, which was later resolved in special negotiations in Magdalena. During the talks, however, representatives of the opposition and the government reached some degree of agreement. Krzysztof Dubiński, private secretary to Interior Minister Czesław Kiszczak, said: “The authorities finally saw that the people facing them were not enemies or foreign agents, but ordinary people who thought in the national interest. Jacek Kuroń, one of the opposition leaders, wrote in one of the reports of the round tables: Yesterday we were still standing in the trenches of two opposing armies, shooting at each other and destroying everything in their way.
Today, a completely new social, political and psychological situation has emerged. Late at night, the fine print of the agreements remained unavailable, but communist sources suggested that Solidarity had received concessions by restricting the president`s powers and including a two-thirds majority of the Diet to override the Senate`s objections to the legislation. The round tables began on 6 February 1989 and lasted two months until 5 April 1989. Nearly 600 people participated. There were three main thematic groups, also known as small tables (Stoliki). These included a negotiating table on political reform, a negotiating table on the relegalization of the Solidarność trade union and a table on economic and social issues. In addition, negotiations took place at ten sub-tables (podstoliki). The leaders of the opposition and the Communist Party took part in these talks. Representatives of state and state institutions as well as organizations such as farmers` associations, teachers, students, scouts and academics were also involved. There were also opposition groups representing illegal associations of students, peasants and scouts. During these two months, participants discussed many fundamental issues of Polish politics and economy, but also more specific topics, such as the need for better ways of delivering medicines and medicines to rural areas, improving health and safety conditions for miners and the safe transport of toxic waste through Poland.
Significantly, security and foreign policy were not discussed at all. Antoni Macierewicz considers the negotiations and the agreement to be a “classic Soviet conspiracy of the secret services”. According to him, Kiszczak and Jaruzelski “were controlled at every stage by their Soviet supervisors (…) and their autonomy was minimal. As Macierewicz put it in February 2009, the Round Table was a “tactical success of the elite sections, but from the point of view of Poland`s national interests, it was a failure.” [4] Talks will continue to resolve the remaining disagreements. But Solidarność can rightly claim a famous victory for himself, although he is careful not to rub too hard the point for fear of triggering a reaction. The agreements also provide for changes to parliament and elections in which the opposition will initially be in limited competition with the Communist Party. Musiał says General Czesław Kiszczak himself decided which opposition activists were “politically available” – the condition was that the candidates had to support the “evolution” of the system, not its “radical rejection”. Therefore, most of the opposition activists who participated in the negotiations were those who were close to “Marxist doctrine” or belonged to the Communist Party at various times in their lives. In addition, all participants were carefully examined by the intelligence services. As a result, Poland was “the first eastern European country to start talks, but the last to hold completely free elections in the autumn of 1991.” Janusz Korwin-Mikke claims that one of the results of the round table agreement was that both sides promised that “right-wing parties should never govern”[7], and Jan Olszewski said that “the fundamental issues were resolved before [the talks] and the round table negotiations were about secondary issues.” [8] Preparations for negotiations between the communist government and the opposition began much earlier. On 27 August 1988, General Czesław Kiszczak, Minister of the Interior, declared: “I have been authorised (…) to meet with representatives of various social groups and trade unions.
These meetings can take the form of a “round table”. A number of preparatory meetings were held in late 1988 and early 1989. Opposition leader Lech Wałęsa said ahead of the talks: “I would be willing to talk to the devil himself if it did Poland something good. The final date and agenda of the round tables were set on 27 January 1989 in Magdalenka in the villa of the Ministry of the Interior. Although Baka was encouraged by the positive reactions in the West to Wednesday`s roundtable agreement, he called for action to back up the lyrics. “Now we expect rain to fall from these friendly clouds.” Under the agreement, Solidarność will be legalized again, having been banned seven years ago after martial law was imposed. “We came from prison under the batons of Zomo riot police to the roundtable,” Walesa said in a speech broadcast live on television. Today, the Round Table is still an important topic of discussion, which has become more intense than ever in recent years. Many of the panel`s participants are still active in Polish politics, including former presidents and prime ministers. Most of them highlight the positive aspects of the negotiations. Their general way of thinking is well expressed in the words of the late Bronisław Geremek, who said: “We had a vision of a national tragedy.
We knew that the disintegration of the economy was progressing very quickly and that if we did not quickly find some kind of agreement, alliance or agreement, we could wake up in the ruins of Poland. Of course, if we had treated Poland as a livestock farm, it would have been better to wait until the managers finally proved their inefficiency to lead it to complete ruin, and then we could take all the power. But we weren`t thinking about a cattle farm, we were thinking about our country. 7. February 1989The spirit of jawnosc timidly erupted in Poland, where yesterday the round table talks between the government and the opposition Solidarność finally began. This is more than a lame translation of glasnost. While the rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine was a precondition for Eastern European reforms, Poland`s relaxation is the product of Polish efforts to free itself from its own stranglehold. .