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Communism's Negotiated Collapse: The Polish Round Table, Ten Years Later
PANEL EIGHT:
Adam Michnik
The Round Table initiated a new phase of dismantling dictatorships through negotiations. This was perhaps the most important invention of the twentieth century, the century of totalitarian dictatorships, the century of Auschwitz and the Holocaust, the century of Stalinism, Katyń, and the gulag...An amnesty, yes, amnesia, no. We should know how to reconcile and live together, but we must not forget what had been. We have to keep penetrating it, be inquisitive about it, at least for one reason, that it never happens again... I remember times when even before one entered a courtroom, one was already tried and punished. And I was one of them. I was sentenced to years of imprisonment according to those procedures, in an atmosphere of hysteria where judges were too scared to pronounce a just sentence. So I promised to myself that never ever in my life in free Poland would I imitate those people who at a certain square in Jerusalem would scream, "Put him on the cross, put him on the cross."
Lech Kaczyński
To make one thing clear, however, these changes, although at this point the new structures could not simply have been created completely from scratch, since that was really unrealistic, were still too shallow, I believe. In other words, the old state, involved in a lot of different interests, still remained the basic tool of carrying out social and national tasks. What was the impact of this factor on social restructuring? I deeply believe that the impact was this: struggling for a new place in our society after 1989, people involved in the old system got a head start in the race...And if the independence of Poland and its democracy is good, then the Round Table was a crucial step towards that goal. That goes without saying. And there are no doubts that this is Solidarity's contribution, but also a contribution of these representatives of the other side of the table, whose active participation in negotiations I witnessed myself. But the Round Table became something that could be defined as a certain prefiguration of phenomena that later ended up bringing negative results. So, as everything in this world, the Round Table has some unanimously positive sides but it has negative consequences, as well.
Grażyna Staniszewska
The Round Table, for us, Solidarity activists of that time, was an enormous risk. While sitting down at the Round Table, we were aware that if the thing failed, we might have lost the only good that we had, our own good name, that is, and that was the only capital that we had at the time, the only asset. And we sat down without any awareness that we were about to dismantle the system. We treated those sessions, those deliberations, as just another stage in our struggle for a little bit of freedom. That's what we thought at that time...I will be honest here and say that I sincerely regret that this atmosphere, when we felt that we were creating a new Poland, where every person had a right to a fresh start, lasted such a short time...
Aleksander Kwaśniewski
President of Poland since 1995, Aleksander Kwaśniewski (b. 1954) helped to initiate the Round Table negotiations. Along with Tadeusz Mazowiecki, he co-chaired the union pluralism sub-table. Kwaśniewski studied international business at the University of Gdańsk. A member of the Polish United Workers' Party from 1977 to 1990, he was active in youth movements, serving as a leader of the Union of Polish Socialist Students and editor of the student weekly Itd and daily Sztandar Młodych. He was Minister for Youth Affairs from 1985 to 1987 and Chair of the Committee for Youth and Physical Fitness from 1987 to 1990. Kwaśniewski was a Deputy to the Sejm for the Democratic Left Alliance and leader of Social Democracy of the Polish Republic until his election as President in 1995.The Round Table was indeed a paradoxical event in a certain sense. On the one hand, it was caused by weakness. The party was weak, the government was weak, and Solidarity was weak. And the Soviet Union was weak, too. Everybody was weak. On the other hand, it resulted from the strength of the people who thought that a breakthrough was possible and that it could be done. Adam Michnik mentioned Mr. Wałęsa and Wojciech Jaruzelski. And I think that we owe our respect to these two people, since at that particular moment, when there were so many unknown factors and unclear spots, they undertook the effort whose results neither they themselves nor any of us who participated in the Round Table could foresee... (Photo Credits: David Smith)
Negotiating Radical Change Understanding and Extending the Lessons of the Polish Round Table Talks U-M Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies 1080 South University Avenue, Suite 4668 Ann Arbor MI 48109-1106 Telephone 734/764-0351; Fax 734/763-4765 E-mail crees@umich.edu Copyright © 2000 The Regents of the University of Michigan
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