COMMUNISM'S NEGOTIATED COLLAPSE:
THE POLISH ROUND TABLE TALKS OF 1989,
TEN YEARS LATER
A Conference at the University of Michigan, April 7-10, 1999

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 1999

I         THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE POLISH ROUND TABLE
8:00 pm

Film Screening:
A video introduction to the conference prepared by Piotr Bikont and Lawrence Weschler

Panelists:
· Wieslaw Chrzanowski, Professor of Law at the Catholic University of Lublin, Solidarity activist, former Member of Parliament, President of the Christian-National Alliance (1989-94)
· Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, Solidarity activist, human rights activist, participant in the Round Table for the opposition
· Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski, Editor-in-Chief of Polityka (1958-82), member of the Central Committee (1975-90) and First Secretary (1989-90) of the Polish United Workers' Party, Prime Minister (1988-89)

Discussant and Moderator:
· Michael D. Kennedy, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan(Italicized text is translated from Polish)

(Italicized text is translated from Polish)

Moderator:
· Michael D. Kennedy, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan

"Communism's Negotiated Collapse: The Polish Round Table of 1989, Ten Years Later" is a scholarly conference. This conference is designed to clarify the significance and lessons of these negotiations in 1989 that brought fundamental but peaceful change to Poland and inspired similar developments throughout the region and across the world. I welcome you to the beginning of this four-day exploration. My name is Michael Kennedy and I am one of the organizers of this conference.

On behalf of the rest of the organizing committee from the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Michigan, I wish to thank publicly several people and units. President Lee Bollinger, Provost Nancy Canter and their offices provided the initial support to make this conference possible. We are very grateful to them and Provost Canter is right here, so thank you very much to you. Many other University units listed in your program also have contributed, making this truly a University-wide event. I also want to thank here our corporate sponsors, American Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, McKinley Associates/Ron and Eileen Weiser, Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone, P.L.C. and Video Studio Gdansk, the Earhart Foundation, and the Kosciuszko Foundation as well as Bob Donia and Monika and Victor Markowicz also helped to make this extraordinary event possible. So thank you very much, to all of you.

This is an unusual scholarly conference, because most of our speakers are not academics. All of our speakers are men and women who have been deeply engaged in politics, albeit from very different positions on the political spectrum. Academics are not the only interpreters of history, and most especially they're not the ones that make history. The people we invited to this conference have made history, and we have invited them here so that they can reconsider their own engagement with the reform and then collapse of communist rule in Poland, and more broadly in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

I am very sorry that our first speaker is unable to be with us this evening. Senator Carl Levin, the senior Senator from the State of Michigan, informed us on Monday that he could not come. He has, however, sent a letter, which I would like to be able to read to you. He wrote:

"I deeply regret that I am unable to attend the University of Michigan's conference, 'Communism's Negotiated Collapse.' I will be travelling with the Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen on a visit to NATO's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and Aviano air base in Aviano, Italy. Perhaps of all people, the attendees of this conference will understand that the challenge NATO faces in Kosovo is such that, as the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, I should accept Secretary Cohen's invitation to join him. Polish and non-Polish Americans alike for decades kept aloft the light of freedom for Poles and Eastern Europeans to see. After martial law was imposed in Poland and Solidarity was outlawed in the early 80s, the American government suspended Poland's civil aviation privileges in the United States, refused to renew the export-import line of credit to the Polish government, refused to support Poland's readmission to the International Monetary Fund, suspended Poland's Most Favored Nation's Status, among other actions. Only when Lech Walesa and reformers supported reengagement did we do so, and then in 1987, Congress directly appropriated money for Solidarity. In February 1988, I was privileged to meet with Polish leaders in Warsaw and Gdansk, including Mieczyslaw Rakowski, Lech Walesa, Jacek Kuron, and Adam Michnik. I was also deeply moved by my visit to the grave of Father Popieluszko. Now, miraculously Poland is free and independent and part of NATO. A few weeks ago, at the Truman Library in Independence, when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic deposited their instrument of NATO accession, Foreign Minister Geremek said the following: 'Today's ceremony confirms that the Alliance is a community of values. The success of NATO over the last fifty years has been built on the principles of democracy, civil rights and liberties, shared by all of its members. The nations who joined this community today were denied those values until 1989. On the streets of Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968, and Gdansk in 1970 and 1981, they paid a heavy price. They proved their democratic credentials that give them their right to be here today.' Please extend to the Polish attendees my congratulations on their accession to NATO membership, and my deep gratitude for Poland's unswerving support for NATO's actions relating to Kosovo. One of my primary considerations during the United States' Senate assessment of the question of NATO enlargement last year was whether Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic were in the position to further NATO's fundamental principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. My Senate colleagues and I determined by an overwhelming margin that they were in such a position. I am proud that the United States and Poland are today standing steadfast in the defense of the right of the Kosovo Albanians to the exercise of those principles. My very best wishes for a successful conference. You and your colleagues have taken the most imaginative step in analyzing historic events of just a few years ago, events which are historic and of transcendant importance to the freedom of the Polish people and people everywhere. Sincerely, Carl Levin."

These historic developments which frame Senator Levin's letter, NATO's expansion, on the one hand, and Southeastern Europe's disintegration, on the other, might probably be seen as the contemporary background for some of the questions we discuss in this conference. Certainly, our conference is premised on the idea that radical transformations can be accomplished not only through violence, but also peacefully. But I must emphasize that this is not a conference about contemporary politics in Poland or Yugoslavia. It is about the contingencies of 1989.

I use the word "contingency" to underscore one of the principles organizing this conference. Who could have imagined in 1979 that in 1989 communism would collapse in East Central Europe? Who could have imagined in 1989 that such violence as we have seen in Southeastern Europe would overwhelm the region over the next ten years? And what of the future? Contingency means that we cannot think of the future as a smooth extension of the present. Events can transform the most enduring of structures, and events can be made through strategic action. People's choices can shape events, and they, in turn, can redirect the course of history.

Negotiations of all sorts, and especially those that were conducted at the Polish Round Table of 1989 exemplify the significance of choice and strategy in producing consequential outcomes. The choice by communist authorities and Solidarity opposition to negotiate in 1988 was one of the most consequential decisions one could imagine for world's history. The contingency did not end there. Negotiations could have collapsed, and certainly few anticipated that the elections of June 1989 would have produced such an overwhelming victory for Solidarity, and defeat for the communist authorities. And during that summer of 1989, most people assumed that Poland would remain encircled by communist regimes. Instead, Poland proved to be the spark for the communism's negotiated collapse across the region.

This conference begins with the idea that people's choices can in certain circumstances, of course, prove consequential for the history of the world. We want to focus on those choices and those strategies that led to communism's negotiated collapse. But when and how did Poles, or at least some Poles, get the idea that they could negotiate the radical transformation of communism? The answer to that question is not simple at all.

Many of you already appreciate the complexity of the issues surrounding that apparently innocent question. Those of you who are less familiar with the Polish history and politics may not recognize how complex the answer and how complex the question's premises are. Any account of communism's negotiated collapse must be implicated in the larger narrative of history. There are many stories to be told and we clearly cannot manage to tell them all. We have, however, assembled two ways for you to appreciate those histories.

My colleague from the College of Architecture Craig Borum, a group of students, and members of the Organizing Committee have assembled an exhibit for you to view in the fourth floor of Rackham. That exhibit is entitled "Making a Space for History." That exhibit challenges you to recognize the various narratives, the various stories, through which the tale of the Round Table might be told. We invite you to view this exhibit and share with us your thoughts at one of the tables in that room. Please review the brochure for viewing hours. We have also provided a rather more convenient, maybe more singular and certainly more present historical introduction for you.

We are very pleased right now to be able to share with you a twenty-six minute film by Piotr Bikont and Lawrence Weschler on the historical roots to the historic negotiations. This is a very special film, for it has not been screened before in public. It was made entirely for this conference. And so I welcome you to view this film.

FILM SCREENING

Moderator:
Michael D. Kennedy, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan

I'd like to thank very much Piotr Bikont and Lawrence Weschler, and Video Studio Gdansk for making this film especially for our conference. I think one of the things that this film shows is that there are stories that clearly tell what the Round Table was about, how it was made but there are many different stories that can be told not only about how the Round Table was made but also what the significance of this negotiated resolution was. The speakers we have up here this evening will be presenting alternative interpretations of these Round Table negotiations, but before I turn to their proper introduction, let me just say a few more words and answer one of the questions that has, if I may say, dogged me ever since we began this project.

Why is the University of Michigan holding a conference on Poland's Round Table negotiations of 1989? That's the question typically posed to me by the Polish media, Polish citizens, and Polish-Americans, unfamiliar with the tradition of the University of Michigan. My colleagues and students of the University don't pose that question. They're accustomed to the centrality of Polish studies and programming here. Many of our departments, schools, and institutes have regular and substantial ties with Polish scholars, institutions, and society. We also have had a rich tradition of Copernicus lectures on which we build. They have included such prominent figures as Leszek Kolakowski, Czeslaw Milosz, Stanislaw Baranczak, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jacek Kuron, Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Górecki, Krzysztof Zanussi, Ryszard Kapuscinski, and Ewa Hoffman. But why focus on the Polish Round Table of 1989 in 1999?

We conceived this conference already in the summer 1997. Already at that time, anticipations of the tenth anniversary of communism's collapse were being readied. They were most frequently cast in the image of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The picture is quite important since we understand 1989 as the year in which Germans signaled their wish to be one people, and Europe's cold war divisions could be overcome. That imagery is also quite appropriate since the communist system was in crisis and collapsed quite readily in Czechoslovakia and East Germany. But 1989 did not begin in October. The changes that took place in 1989 in both Poland and Hungary were critical to the subsequent transformations of the rest of the communist world. Their negotiated revolutions led to the negotiated collapse of communist world in the region. In particular, Poland's political struggles and innovations lay the foundation for changes. The Round Table became a model of transformation, embraced and elaborated in Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and as far away as Mongolia.

If we are to understand the process, through which communism collapsed peacefully, we must therefore understand the conditions, contingencies and consequences of the Polish Round Table negotiations.

We could have invited, as some newspaper articles have recommended, we could have invited a familiar academic roster of participants to answer the question. And indeed, there are many impressive scholarly works already devoted to this subject, and many of the scholars who produced these works are in the audience. Some of them will serve as moderators; some of them are, in fact, participants in this conference. But for this event, we wanted to go beyond academic paradigms of pacted transitions or conflict resolution and enter into the turbulence of the politically engaged. We wanted to focus on the political imaginations of the participants themselves and their conceptions of their roles and responsibilities before Poland, their constituencies, and history. In this sense, we seek to bring the experience and insight of those who changed the world into the light of open and scholarly discussion.

Of course there are many fora where men and women of politics can provide their own interpretations of history but those accounts are typically tied to the politics of the day. Even accounts of 1989 in 1999 are sometimes more easily understood in the politics of the future, rather than in terms of the constraints and options of the past. We have tried to do something different here.

IIn our letters of invitation to conference participants, we have asked them to attend an international event where presentations are made, moderators pose questions, and everyone listens with the interest and respect that is characteristic of a scholarly conference. We believe that such an initiative, where those who made history discuss their contributions in the setting of a global university, will affords us an opportunity to explore not only the intricacies of Polish transformations and politics, but also its broader meaning for the history, and future, of this world.

We have invited those of you who have registered to attend this conference to send us questions you would like to see this program address. We have reviewed those that were sent in early and, in other sessions, we shall collect questions on the spot to assemble and provide to our moderators. Tonight, due to the lateness of the hour, the fatigue of our guests recently arrived from Poland, and the fullness of our program, we shall not be able to hold discussion in this hall.

I want to emphasize that our ambition here is not to celebrate or heap blame on those who made the Round Table; our ambition rather is to understand better the conditions, contingencies, and consequences of the political choices that led to the Round Table and negotiated collapse of communism. But it's more than that, too. One of the greatest intellectual challenges before the world is to understand better how former enemies can sit at a table and negotiate changes that assure not only a peaceful transition but a stable and prosperous future for all concerned. Father Józef Tischner, whose illness prevents him from being with us today, said this about the Round Table, and I will say it in Polish in order to preserve his voice: "Dla mnie juz Okragly Stól byl wyrazem naszej wlasnej politycznej twórczosci, podobnie jak Solidarnosc. Solidarnosc miala ideowe zaplecze chrzescijanstwa, a Okragly Stól mial zaplecze w Solidarnosci. Te dwie koncepcje Solidarnosc i Okragly Stól wcielaly bardzo polska droge pokojowego przechodzenia od swiata rewolucji do swiata pokoju." (Translation into English: "For me the Round Table has been an expression of our own political creativity, just as Solidarity has been. Solidarity was ideologically based on Christianity, and the Round Table was ideologically based on Solidarity. These two concepts, Solidarity and the Round Table, have embodied a very Polish route of transition from the world of revolution to the world od peace").

When I read this passage in Miedzy panem a plebanem, I was frankly moved and drawn to wonder whether this Polish road to a world of peace might not be a potentially universal path, whose exploration might profit all who learn from it. But then I also recognized that without the broad and critical assessment of these negotiations in the atmosphere enabled by a scholarly setting, like this one, the real lessons might never be learned, and for that reason I am especially grateful to have with us these three prominent men of Polish politics, who in 1989 represented some very important alternative assessments on the possibilities and significance of the Polish Round Table.

We invited each of these men to answer the following question: "Where will future historians locate these events around the Round Table negotiations in the history of Poland and of the world?" An easy question, no doubt.

We had a hard time, however, deciding on what kind of order tonight's speaker should go in. But then I realized that since I was going first, the easiest order might simply be to go from youngest to oldest. So if you don't know, Mieczyslaw Rakowski will go second, Wieslaw Chrzanowski will go third, and Adam Michnik will go first. Let me just say a few words about him.

Ira Katznelson, one of the leading political theorists of the USA, has described Adam Michnik as "arguably Eastern Europe's emblematic democratic intellectual." Adam Michnik has been associated with some of the most dramatic transformations of Polish history in the last three decades, in support of freedom of speech in 1968, in defense of workers in the late 1970s, in the formation of Solidarity in 1980, and, of course, in the development of the Round Table negotiations in 1989. He is today the chief editor of Poland's most widely circulated newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. Ladies and gentlemen, Adam Michnik.

Panelist:
Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, Solidarity activist, human rights activist, participant in the Round Table for the opposition

Ladies and gentlemen, the argument about the Round Table is one that accompanies all of the conflicts of our epoch: ethnic, religious, and social. This is the same manner in which the British and French supporters and opponents of the executions of the kings discussed, this is the way the Spanish and Argentinean opponents of the dictatorship discussed, this is the way white and black opponents of the Apartheid discussed. This is, finally, the argument between Israeli and Palestinian supporters and critics of peace negotiations. Those who favor the peaceful way of resolving conflicts are always faced with similar questions and charges. How can one think about making a pact with an enemy? How can one seek a compromise with someone who should be punished for their crimes? And usually the answers given are similar. You have got to come to terms and seek compromise with the enemy, precisely because he is an enemy. There is no need to negotiate with friends. What is the real choice here? Either a war, easy to provoke, and which can last permanently, or a difficult path towards peace based on compromise. But a compromise always leaves something to be desired. To be able to live in peace and freedom, it is necessary to replace the language of war by the language of peace, and this was the attempt that Poland undertook ten years ago. The underground Solidarity was divided; there was the wing that was against negotiations no matter what, and there was another wing that was eager to negotiate with communists, no questions asked. As I recall my own view, I had a sense of opposing both sides. I was very much in favor of the tough opposition in the underground, at that time, in order to obtain a decent compromise for the future. Many of the leading politicians of Solidarity reasoned the same way in those underground times: Lech Walesa, Zbigniew Bujak, Mazowiecki, Geremek, Jacek Kuron, Frasyniuk, and also Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, all those people who later on pursued their different paths. I often hear accusations that by having chosen the logic of compromise, I have betrayed my own biography. That's why I want to start commenting about my own case. While in prison in Gdansk, I wrote a small booklet Takie czasy (These Are the Times), which was smuggled from the prison and published in the underground press, and that's what I wrote: "Solidarity should reject the philosophy of 'everything or nothing,' both in regard to the Soviet Union and to Polish communists, both in regard to partial changes and to pluralism that has to be created in the civic life. Because I claim stubbornly that unless the international situation changes, the compromise in Poland, with the democratic reform as its ensuing consequence, is not only realistic a perspectives, but actually it's the only solution available. For communists, it will be a way of achieving legitimacy, while for us it will be a path towards decent life. Pursuing the compromise and evolutionary changes, we're allowing for a situation in which the communists will bow under social pressure and agree to at least partially free elections to local governments and the Sejm. And the communists will do that not because of their love of democracy but because of calculation. Such reform will be more favorable to them than the permanent continuation of the cold civil war." And I also wrote this, in the same booklet, in prison, in '85, while I was waiting for my sentence: "This could be a solution: enabling the Polish society to truly elect thirty percent of its representatives to the Sejm. And yet, those same thirty percent on one electoral voting list, next to Siwak and Urban, could only lose their authority." I apologize for quoting myself. These days, however, there are so many politicians in my country who suffer with amnesia or who make up new biographies that it is useful to reach for the arguments I quote now. In those debates about the Round Table, which there are numerous in Poland, there is a constant claim of ill will, slander, betrayal, machinations, manipulations. My feeling is that for short-term gains, there is some tendency to falsify contemporary Polish history. Such insinuations make the dialogue impossible. They help to create an image of a traitor and enemy, rather than of a polemicist and critic. And, ultimately, what really was a great, impossible to predict, success of Poland, its bloodless getaway from communism, is often presented now as a misfortune for our country and a source of its present problems. I claim that this kind of false historiography engenders false policies. There are two myths that accompany the debate about the Round Table. The first myth, popularized by politicians and columnists associated with the former communist party, talks about the benevolence of the party leaders, who simply turned the power over to the opposition as soon as it became possible. The second stereotype talks about the conspiracy of "the reds with the pinks." However, there was neither benevolence nor conspiracy. The strategic goal of the communist party was to gain a new legitimacy for the communist rule in Poland and abroad, and allowing some form of legalized opposition was to be the price for that. The strategic goal of the Solidarity opposition, on the other hand, was legalization of Solidarity and launching the process of democratic transformation. After years of repression, in '88 it became clear that the strategy of martial law has failed. In May and August a wave of strikes showed that Solidarity was still a durable element in the Polish political arena and that it was necessary to talk with Solidarity. On the other hand, under martial law, Solidarity was a community rather than a labor union, a myth rather than an institutionalized political movement. Its strength was its logo, which really affected the collective societal memory, and its leader Lech Walesa, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. But in truth, in many work establishments, and in actual underground structures, Solidarity was weak. That is true that in comparison with dissident communities in countries of the former eastern bloc, Solidarity appeared to be powerful. We, however, knew that the multimillion union of '81 had been reduced to only a sliver of its former power. And yet, Solidarity still had retained some of its major trump cards. Public opinion support in the West. Solidarity had been discreetly supported by the Pope, John Paul II. Some bishops were giving their strong support to Solidarity. Besides, there was the logic of change within the Soviet Union, its political and economic inefficiency. Finally, Solidarity could also count on the distaste of Jaruzelski's team for reintroducing some form of martial law. It appears that after the 13th of December '81, the communist rulers of Poland tried to put in force, put in being, some sort of Kádár's scenario: stabilization through repression, and modernization through limited reforms of the system. Underground Solidarity's strategy at that time was simple: to survive the repressions and wait for better political circumstances. These new circumstances came with Gorbachev. The changes in the Soviet Union produced a new situation in which the Round Table became possible. That compromise was, as usual, the result of relative weakness of both partners. The authorities were too weak to trample us, and we were too weak to topple the authorities. And out of those two weaknesses a new chance arose for a new compromise resolution. And it appears that the primary role was played by the readiness of two persons, one, Lech Walesa and the other, Wojciech Jaruzelski. These two politicians were perhaps the only ones that had full credibility in their political communities. Nobody from the Solidarity side could risk such negotiations without Walesa or against Walesa, because it would have been considered a betrayal. And I think that on the other side, without Jaruzelski, such compromise wouldn't have had enough validity. It must be said, at the same time, that each of these two partners differently understood the goal of the negotiations. Jaruzelski never hid his intentions. Already on the first of September '88, when the second wave of strikes ended, he was thus speaking at the meeting of the Central Committee: "There are no losers and no winners. We have not backed off. We have now repeated the offer presented at the Sejm on the 28th of October in '81. This was the resolution about creating the National Reconciliation Council, which was brutally rejected then. At that time Solidarity lost its chance and remained empty-handed. Today, we are saying: there is no place for Solidarity, which has once again proved that it's a party of strikes, a party of troublemakers, but there is room for some people from the former Solidarity who would like to cooperate. "Of course, an element of this policy was creating a rift between the good and the bad Solidarity people. At the beginning of October '88, at the meeting of the Central Committee, Minister Kiszczak said: "Constantly, together with comrade Ciosek, we have been warning Walesa that we only need people who believe in dialogue to participate in the Round Table, if we do not want the Round Table to fail. We were drawing a clear-cut picture before Walesa and his colleagues that political adventurers and hawks should be excluded from the talks. It seems that in no circumstances can we agree to the participation of Kurons, Michniks and the like." But even this kind of approach was not approved by most of the leadership of the communist party. "Our enemies, our opponents are smart," they said. "All of the fractions of the opposition are being put together by our opponents, they are winning propaganda gains, and this ruins our thesis regarding constructive and destructive opposition. Those are people who are acting out of some inspiration of external international centers and getting money from them." These are General Kiszczak's words. And Mieczyslaw Rakowski, the Prime Minister at that time, would say: "Today, we cannot accept reactivation of Solidarity. And all of our other proposals will not be accepted by Solidarity, representatives of Solidarity that is. Therefore, we have to ask the question: what next? In my view, if we do not agree to reactivate Solidarity, we should expect a political shock of a major scale, and because of this, we should start getting ready for some sort of confrontation, in great secret, of course." All these quoted speeches, I think, point out to a clear picture. In the communist party leadership, despite their inner divisions, most people apparently did not want to reactivate Solidarity, but to break it into factions, and to take its activists over into the existing political infrastructure. And it seems to me that the attacks against some selected underground activists, like Jacek Kuron and myself, were motivated by this attitude. I remember those days. After the meeting between Lech Walesa and General Kiszczak on the 1st of September '88 there, some anxiety appeared in our ranks. On the one hand, Lech Walesa stopped to be a private citizen, quote unquote, consistently boycotted by the authorities. On the other hand, however, we sensed some deceit in the government's tactics, their vague position regarding legalization of Solidarity, unclear initial conditions, which practically blocked the path towards negotiations. All of this caused our distrust. We had many conversations then. In one of them, I heard from one of my friends, "What? You want to talk with the communists? It was tried before by General Okulicki and other leaders of the underground Poland!" We argued a lot. I remember another of my colleagues who explained to me that it's not the communist authorities that will legalize Solidarity, but vice versa, Solidarity will lend legitimacy to the communist authorities. I remember a long conversation with a friend of mine, involved in the underground independent cultural activity, and for her the Round Table simply meant a betrayal of ideals, giving in to censorship, and giving up on true independence. I did not share these views but I understood these friends, because this sort of compromise could discredit us. It could! And it really required some sort of violation to one's self, of one's emotions and one's memory. I remember how hard it was for me to overcome my own internal resistance and fears. I remember how much effort it took me to try to understand the reasons of our yesterday's enemies, who now were to become adversaries and partners. Ever since September '88 we were clearly setting up the issues. The necessary condition was legalization of Solidarity and Lech Walesa had a perfect sense of how far we could push. He did not give in to pressures regarding any individuals' participation but stubbornly insisted: "Solidarity first." Because of his unquestioned authority in the opposition circles, the communist leaders gave in to his tough stand. Before that, though, for many weeks, there was a real war of nerves. We were hearing from Prime Minister Rakowski that Poles are actually more interested in a lavishly set table than a Round Table. There was also the decision to close down the Gdansk Shipyard, when we simply felt pushed to the wall; we just had to protest that. By the way, this was also when the weirdest scene of the twentieth century European history took place, when the Gdansk Shipyard workers were giving a loud cheer to salute Margaret Thatcher. Hard to think that the iron lady had so much support from those rebellious proletarians! There were other memorable speeches. There was a well-known speech of General Jaruzelski in Ursus, in which we were referred to in a discourteous manner. We saw it all as a certain general concept of incorporating some opposition people into the government in such a way that they would share the responsibility without sharing the power. From all those materials I've quoted abundantly here, and they are all secret documents of the Central Committee of the communist party published in 1994 by the publishing house "Aneks," it appears that the breakthrough in the position of the authorities occurred actually in December '88. On the 24th of November, the round table, prepared for the debates, was actually being taken apart, but on the 30th of November, there was a TV debate between Walesa and Miodowicz and that was a shock for the public, for public opinion. I will never forget it. All of my friends were anxious, worrying that Walesa would be literally eaten alive by Miodowicz, a trained demagogue, but I was quite sure that Lech will simply rip him apart, because on Walesa's side was the right, and the truth. And I will never forget, and His Excellency Alojzy may also want to mention it here, when we were celebrating in His Excellency's office when Lech came back from the television recording. Something really broke at that moment. Lech appearing on TV came out very calm, moderate and responsible, and he was unlike, so much unlike the government image of him as some sort of troublemaker that the authorities had to come up with something different. And indeed, in December of '88 Mr. Rakowski phrased some of his famous questions regarding legalization of Solidarity, addressed to party activists. This was a turning point. This was the moment when we sensed some shift on the authorities' side. In late December, a document was prepared. It was done by the Politburo prognosis team and wasn't signed but I could sense that the rapacious pen of Professor Janusz Reykowski must have been at work. And this document says: "There is no indication that the issue of Solidarity will naturally dissolve. Solidarity is a fact. Solidarity exists; it exists despite our restrictions. There is no indication that restrictions will succeed in eliminating this phenomenon in the future. If so, why not start some discussion about legal existence of Solidarity? Our present position is, as a matter of fact, really focused on torpedoing the Round Table." This is what the party analysts are saying about the party position, 'torpedoing the Round Table.' In some way, one or another, the Round Table has to lead to some sort of legalization of Solidarity. Legalization of Solidarity is a risk for us, but if we don't do that, can someone guarantee its dissolution? We can either keep solidarity within the norms of law or set it, with its real potential, outside the norms of law." And this was a position radically different with the entire policy line of the party. Therefore, it's not surprising that during the December plenary meeting, a massive attack of party activists against the leadership occurred. Party activists did not want to re-legalize the hated Solidarity. When we analyze those days now, we have to see the conflict within the party apparatus, within the governing elite. And those who falsify that part of history for their own present political reason and claim that there was no such dramatic split, then they create false historiography, which, in turn, has to create false politics. Under those circumstances, on the 17th of January, there was a special session of the Politburo. In the minutes of that session we can read: "The First Secretary Gen. Jaruzelski said that the leadership was lacking confidence of the activists, and that creates a crisis situation. Either the Central Committee members," Jaruzelski is saying that, "Either the Central Committee members will show confidence in the leadership, or the leadership should offer their resignation. And if the confidence exists, we have a right to demand implementation of the passed resolutions." On behalf of comrades Rakowski, Siwicki, and Kiszczak, Jaruzelski announced that if they do not receive such a vote of confidence, they all going to offer their resignations. In other words, Jaruzelski, together with the two Generals and the Prime Minister Rakowski, made "an offer not to be refused," like they said in the movie, The Godfather, to the Central Committee. An offer not to be refused, you either give your signature here, or your brains will be splashed on that piece of paper. In this manner, the path to Solidarity's re-legalization was being opened, but we, the members of the opposition, had to pay a high price for it. We were to offer legitimacy to the system by taking part in the elections. The communist party leaders wanted change everything in a way that would preserve the status quo. Creating the so-to-speak contractual pre-agreed election formula in the elections for the Sejm was their way to achieve this, and it was the price we agreed to pay for Solidarity. I remember the inauguration of the Round Table very well, when I was forced by Professor Geremek to put on a suit and a necktie, and when, listening to snide comments of Walesa and others, I went to the Viceroy Palace in Warsaw. To get into the debate room, one had to go upstairs, and at the top there were General Kiszczak and Secretary Stanislaw Ciosek welcoming the guests. I managed to hide in the bathroom so as not to be seen by anybody to shake hands with the chief of police. I was simply afraid my wife will kick me out of the house. So I found a hiding place in the bathroom, waited for several minutes there, but as I emerged, Mr. Kiszczak was still there offering his hand in a handshake. You know, lights, cameras ... and this was the way I lost my virginity! We had a sense of strangeness of our situation. Only two-and-a-half years before I had been released from prison, and there were my colleagues, friends from the underground, Kuron, Bujak, Frasyniuk, others. But at the same time, I was aware that some sort of historic shift was taking place which I was unable to define at that time. I understood one thing: the democratic opposition was finally taking a step over the threshold of legality. From that Viceroy's Palace our path could only lead either to the Rakowiecka street prison or to the end of the communist system. During these negotiations, I still smelled out for traps and deceit, and yet step by step, I was able to notice the birth of a historic chance for my homeland. The Sejm elections were to be the key trap, since Solidarity deputies in the Sejm would have been a minority, so that's why Solidarity activists were skeptical about those elections. I remember the dramatic meeting of the National Committee in Gdansk, where, together with Jacek Kuron, we were trying to persuade our friends that Poland was facing a great chance, and that we should take advantage of it, but we ran into tough opposition, even among our very close friends. And I don't know how it would have ended were it not for Bronislaw Geremek, who broke out of his splendid isolation and brought his entire authority to influence the National Committee to get involved into the elections. We argued about procedures, electoral voting procedures but the main charge was that those who conducted the negotiations were not fully representative. And this is a valid charge. That was true. It's my belief that step by step we were dismantling the communist system. Our adversaries thought that they would modernize the system through reforms, but we felt that we were pursuing a peaceful destruction. Well, the underground Solidarity was not a regular democratic structure because it couldn't be and Lech Walesa's views were always decisive, but at the same time, Solidarity had a deeply rooted democratic spirit within its culture, so there immediately appeared numerous internal arguments about who should propose candidates for the Sejm. All that was said about the arbitrariness of the process is true but I think it couldn't be done differently. Solidarity's chance was its legend and the legend of Walesa. Solidarity was weak, several, maximum several, thousand people in all of Poland. No fully democratic procedures were at that point possible. It was crucial to act quickly in order to create a reliable team that could win the elections. We pretended we were stronger than we really were. It was necessary to take a risk. We gambled that Solidarity's strength would grow during the election campaign, and that its legend will be institutionalized. This was our bet and we won. Now, about Magdalenka. The great myth of Magdalenka. Magdalenka was a place where the most difficult, conflicting issues were being deliberated upon by an elite group. During the Round Table, I participated in all of these deliberations. And it really was fascinating to watch the former enemies sitting at the table and trying to find some sort of common language. It was clear to everybody, including General Kiszczak, that they were burying the old world. It was clear to everybody that in this new, unknown world, they will happen to live together, the former prisoners and the former jailers. Later on, a myth was coined that some kind of secret pact was signed in Magdalenka, and it still circulates as a stereotype. And like all stereotypes, it is resistant to argumentation. I can only say: nothing of the sort had happened, no secret conspiratorial agreements but it was a search for compromise in the most inflammatory, most difficult issues, such as unionization of production facilities working for the army, problems in mining, the issues of the Senate and the President. And we really fought hard about all these. And that's it. There were no secret agreements. We went ahead to the elections and we won in a manner that simply frightened us by its scale. We didn't know what to do with our victory, but what matters the most is that in those elections the communist system was rejected by the Polish nation. During the Round Table, we debated in what manner to continue, to keep going forward. I favored the Spanish path to democracy. I believed that just as in Spain, where the Franco's elite and the republican elite were able to come to terms tactically, we should be able to do that, too. The accusation of betrayal came up later. Perhaps we will come back to this, but at this point I just want to say one thing. The Round Table compromise was possible because on both sides there were people who risked accusation of betrayal by their own communities. And that's a reformers' fate, that they go at a snail's pace and they get banged on the head by their own extremists. But it's only thanks to such reformers that we can trust that the philosophy of agreement has a future and that one can build that future on the conviction that only a Poland shared by those who fought against the People's Republic, and those who served the People's Republic can be a truly democratic Poland. If we exclude anybody, we will have to accept discrimination of some sort, which in the final analysis always results in lies and injustice. Thank God Poland has chosen another path. Thank you.

Moderator:
Michael D. Kennedy, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan

It is probably a very good thing that the conversations at Magdalenka did not have any time limits on them, and I have to recognize and apologize to our speakers that we have given them a really impossible task to say so much in the time that we have given them, and so I do apologize for that, but I'm very grateful for how much can be said in this very brief moment. Our second speaker this evening is Mieczyslaw Rakowski. Mr. Rakowski was chief editor of Polityka from 1958 to 1982. He became Prime Minister on September 27, 1988, and immediately launched a radical economic reform. He stood with General Wojciech Jaruzelski in offering his resignation in January 1989 from the Politburo, should the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, Poland's communist party, fail to endorse a resolution on political and union pluralism. He was the last First Secretary of the party and is today the editor of Dzien, Przeglad Spoleczny. Ladies and gentlemen, Mieczyslaw Rakowski.

Panelist:
Prime Minister Mieczyslaw Rakowski, Editor-in-Chief of Polityka (1958-82), member of the Central Committee (1975-90) and First Secretary (1989-90) of the Polish United Workers' Party, Prime Minister (1988-89)

Dear ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would like to thank all of you for inviting me for this conference, this seminar, because in fact the Round Table and the circumstances associated with it, as well as the process of arriving to the Round Table, and the present comments about it, they all require our constant attention. ... (break in tape) ... I would like to pass on to you sincere regards from General Jaruzelski and I would like to say that he has not come here only for one reason, and that is his health, which unfortunately is getting worse. He is suffering from an eye disease and it's been harder for him to read since he had an eye-lid cancer surgery, and then his old back problem has returned, which causes difficulties with sitting in one place for a few hours. Now I'd like to move on to the task that has been assigned to me. Obviously, I will not relate in detail what happened in Poland and what eventually led to the Round Table, because twenty minutes is not enough, of course. Adam Michnik has gone beyond this limit since he was speaking for thirty-five minutes but, well, he represents the winning side.

Michnik:
But I stutter ...

Rakowski:
You haven't stuttered this time! You don't stutter when you don't want to! I'll try to squeeze myself into that twenty-minute limit, so please forgive me if I'm very brief. So, first of all, it is true that the tenth anniversary of the Round Table has inspired new discussions, arguments and evaluations, not so much, of course, within the whole of society, the masses, as above all among political elites and perhaps among parts of the intelligentsia, because the majority of the society is busy with completely different things than anniversaries even of this caliber. However, this does not diminish the importance of all of these debates focused on the Round Table which have been recently carried out in Poland. Listening to these discussions and participating in them, I have discovered that emotions still play a large part in the evaluation of the Round Table, and the evaluations being voiced depend on where one stands in the political spectrum and on what generation one represents. As for the latter, among those who criticize the Round Table most violently are young right-wing activists who think that Magdalenka was a betrayal of Solidarity, of the opposition, and that the Round Table was, as Adam Michnik has said, "a transaction between the reds and the pinks." Well, at that time, when the leadership of the opposition, Lech Walesa, Mazowiecki, Geremek, Kuron, Frasyniuk, Michnik of course, Bujak, and others ... When these leaders had mustered their courage to trust us, although they had reasons not to do so, well today's young critics of the Round Table were in high school, or they were freshmen at universities. They have nothing in their resumes to prove heroic struggle against the communist regime, so they just write new resumes, trying to make up for that gap. Criticizing the Round Table, they present themselves as the ones who, had they been there then, would have really defeated those commies and they would have sent them where they belong, to detention camps somewhere, maybe not in Siberia, but they would have found a place. Well, this group, that is simply writing its own resume, thinks that "the reds" and "the pinks" have created a myth about the great importance of the Round Table negotiations, while the meetings at Magdalenka were actually cannibals feasts. That's what I heard on one of the TV shows in Poland. Well, it's important to note that sometimes it's frightening to hear such opinions, because they demonstrate a completely ahistorical mode of thinking of some part of the Polish intelligentsia, mostly in the right wing camp today. But that's just the introductory remark which justifies the need to constantly pay attention to the history of the Round Table. And I'd like to ponder why this kind of solution of a radical social conflict could happen in Poland. What is it that brought about the Round Table? And I reject the idea that it was only thanks to Solidarity that the Round Table was possible. I question the truth behind this thesis, because it takes two to tango. The initiative of starting negotiations with the opposition and recognizing it as a partner was also needed. It was needed on the part of those who held the power, and I cannot agree with those who say that we, as the communists, well, history put us in that position, ... or communism was about to enter its grave. Yes, of course, it would undoubtedly have gone to its grave, but nobody knows when. It was not carved in stone that that had to happen in the late 1980s. In other words, the new political will had to appear in order to allow us to re-evaluate a lot of our ideas about the socialism and power and to put an end to a policy of permanent political confrontation, through the use of administrative methods of dealing with the political opposition which arose at the end of the '70s and lasted in the 1980s. Well, how it happened specifically? I will come back to that, but to answer this question, it seems to me, one must look into the modern Polish history, sometimes quite distant in time. More specifically, we have to think whether the situation of Poland after 1945, and especially after 1956, was in any way unique. I think there were several reasons that made it possible regardless of what I've heard here or seen in that movie, whose commentary, to tell you the truth, I did not like. Not to mention that there were misrepresentations there, but let's leave it alone. Well, it seems to me that trying to decide whether there was something unique about Poland that has led us to such solutions, we need to take into account the following traits: First of all, the traditional Polish ties with the West, which had never been cut off, even when they were limited, of course, very much limited, super limited, as they like to say now in Poland, in the Stalinist era. But after 1956, there was some intensification, some kind of opening of those contacts. And those ties, in my opinion, have influenced the way of thinking of the Polish intelligentsia, including the part of the intelligentsia that was in the party, or in other words, a relatively large part of the politically active segment of the Polish society. I would like to add here, in parentheses, that according to the calculations that we made at some point, between 1957 and 1989, exactly nine and one-half thousand graduates of Polish universities received Western scholarships and studied in the United States, France, Britain, and after 1970, that is after the pact with Germany, also in West Germany. Poland was the only country of the Eastern bloc which was sending ..., and yes, they were leaving with the authorities' permission, so I can say "sending" so many young people to the West. Well, that generation ..., well of course, most of those were party members, but not all, though. Well, when they came back to Poland, they created a different kind of atmosphere in their communities. They were not prisoners of one ideology any more because they had an opportunity to confront the ideology that was being fed to them with the reality in the West. And I think that was very unique to Poland which, in my view, is very important and should not be overlooked. Another unique trait was what happened after Gomulka came back to power in 1956, well, putting an end to collectivization of the farms and strengthening of the private sector in agriculture. That was a solution of one of the most important matters to the Polish nation, since, well, collective farms were always, that is when they were being introduced, linked to no other country but the Soviet Union, of course. In this sense it was a national matter. Private farming has undoubtedly influenced the entrepreneurial spirit of the Poles, which we have been able to observe after the transition. Another unique characteristic was Gomulka's attitude towards the Soviet Union, or in other words, the fact that after 1956, the control of the Soviet Union, of the Soviet leadership over the Polish party was not as strong. Gomulka was definitely a national communist, and his attitude toward the Soviet Union was critical, especially when it came to agricultural policy. He was censured many times by the Soviet comrades when he complained that they cannot govern their farming industry. They were saying, well, we know our farming situation better than you, Comrade Gomulka. Gomulka had one kind of weakness, which made him act against then young people, such as, let's say, Mr. Michnik and his friends, and in general against the so-called revisionism, and that was his constant fear that Moscow will strike some kind of a bargain with Germany over our heads. He didn't feel secure about our western border. I remember a conversation I had with Gomulka in July of '64 after Adzubej's (name blurred) visit in Germany, where he proclaimed that only two nations in Europe truly know how to cry, the Russians and the Germans, and when he was talking a lot about Russian-German friendship. I happened to talk to Gomulka at that time, and what he said was ... well, he criticized Adzubej's speeches and he said, "Well, they've been selling us out for about two hundred years. Do you think there are no more of those who'd want to strike another deal?" And he added: "I keep repeating that in Potsdam the Polish border at Oder and Neisse Rivers was ratified. But it is not really true. Stalin fought for his border in Kaliningrad and nobody questions that…. Stalin didn't coerce ...," and I'm quoting him directly, "didn't coerce full ratification in Potsdam, you know on participants of the Potsdam Conference, because he wanted to have strings which he could pull at some point." Well, that fear that Gomulka had influenced his position. But this was not the only important thing about Gomulka's coming to power. His arrival marks the end of the rule in Poland of communists from the Third International, who were slavishly devoted to Stalin and who accepted the Soviet Union's hegemony over the entire communist movement without reservations. That generation was then superseded by a younger one, which did not have, let's put it that way, ideological, political and emotional ties to Stalinism. Well, very often it is said that Tito was the one who opposed Stalin, and that is correct. I'd like to mention, though, that Gomulka opposed Stalin, too. In '48, when he was expelled for the rightist-nationalist deviation, it was actually because in July of '48 he said in a speech that the Polish Socialist Party had a more correct approach to the question of independence than the KPP (Polish Communist Party). Well, shortly before the unification congress, Stalin talked to Gomulka ..., since Stalin respected Gomulka in a certain way, as opposed to Bierut, to whom he talked like "job twoju mac" (Russian). Well, Stalin invited Gomulka and wanted to talk him into joining the leadership of this new united party. Beria was present during that conversation, and when Gomulka refused, he interjected and said, and I'll say it in Russian, "Towariszcz Hamulka, widz Towariszcz Stalin wam predlagajet." That means: "Comrade Stalin is proposing this to you." Then Stalin said, "Tisze, prokuror, tisze." "Calm down, counsel, calm down." And, of course, Gomulka did not enter the leadership of that new party. Well, I think that, that's another Polish unique characteristics. Now I'll say something that may not sound too good in this company, but I think that, paradoxically, Moczar also strengthened the national trend in the Polish party. I have never been an admirer of Moczar, or his friend, but it's a little bit like, you remember from the Fiddler on the Roof, when the protagonist, deliberating about his situation, is singing: "It's bad, on the one hand, but on the other hand, it's good." Well, Moczar, in my opinion, perhaps against his will, although it's hard to tell, but one way or another, he strengthened the national factor. Let me now wrap up this issue of the Polish unique characteristics, but it was important to say all this because it is significant for the later developments in the Polish situation. Well, trying to condense, I did not mention that another unique trait was the national role of the Catholic Church, in the sense of the national strength. And of course, the intellectual circles throughout this whole period, which were different than in the other countries of the real socialism, or communism, as you like to call this period. Well, the freedom, we had more freedom, ... it doesn't mean that we had freedom, but we had more freedom than in Czechoslovakia in the '60s, before the Prague Spring, which was a relatively sudden eruption, than in other countries, than in Hungary. Moreover, in Poland there existed something among the intellectuals which I would call a national pride. Polish intellectuals, people in the arts and culture were always treated by the Russian intellectuals as role models, people who had something to say, people who were more free. It's not a coincidence that Russians, I mean the Russian intelligentsia, studied the Polish language in order to be able to read the Polish press in the '60s and '70s. It was much worse in the 1980s, because when Solidarity came about, the number of copies of the Polish papers sent to Russia was severely reduced, in the case of Polityka, for example, to eighty-three copies. And we need to say that Poland, Polish films, Polish books, as well as the Polish sciences, especially social sciences, sociology, were all treated in the Soviet Union as something worth knowing, something that's an inspiration to many Russians. All this put together caused, of course it's my opinion, the fact that after 1956, since the beginning of 1957, Poland has been able to maintain its own uniqueness in comparison to all the remaining countries of the Soviet bloc, and this very uniqueness at a certain moment, in '76, results in the appearance of an organized opposition, that is the Committee for the Defense of Workers. That opposition, however, was developing earlier; the tenth anniversary of the October 1956 that was already starting, and what happened in Leszek Kolakowski's case, and, of course, the letter from Kuron and Modzelewski to the party members. All of these were elements of the emerging opposition but it could all happen because such were the political conditions. It was not possible in Czechoslovakia, or Bulgaria, and not at all possible in the Soviet Union, where they still had Siberia and mental hospitals, since you know, someone who was against the Soviet power could not have been in his right mind. Well all that led to the fact that the emergence of the opposition was, well, something that the party leadership did not expect, but at the same time they kind of knew it existed. In 1980, Solidarity came up and mass strikes. Now a question is whether what happened in Poland then had a chance to survive. I do not think so. The experiment lasted sixteen months and was the first clash of two opposing political powers of unequal strengths, although that movement had about ten million members. And it is my opinion that during the first period, the communist party authorities, to whom I belonged and that's why I often say "we" and not "they," that regime was not politically or psychologically ready to accept the opposition as something that might exist in the socialist system, and even less ready to share power with it. And accepting trade unions independent of the state administration and really the state as such, no, that was not part of the very concept of socialism. We still believed that martial law, and I do not want to talk about martial law, because there is no time for that, but after martial law was imposed, we in the party still believed that we faced a crisis, we were fully aware of that, but we thought we could weather the crisis on our own, without the opposition. And I reject the idea ..., I actually smile when I hear some of my former comrades who claim now that they were then ready to accept the opposition, and they thought that, well, the leaders of the party were just hard-line dogmatics glued to power, and that's why they didn't want to legalize the opposition and share the power. That's nonsense. This is a historical lie. We believed, we were convinced that we could cope without the opposition and this conviction, as a matter of fact, lasted until the mid-1980s, but it was also related to our fear of the Soviet Union. Because the generation of Jaruzelski and, in general, the generation that went through the gulags, Polish communists, or those who later became communists, those who were cutting trees in Siberia, this generation came back to Poland with a sense of helplessness towards power. It wasn't any kind of servility but it was sheer fear and respect for the power east of the Bug river. That was one of the lessons which Jaruzelski learned, and in my opinion, there's no doubt that it had an impact on his attitude toward the opposition in the 1980s. I only have three more minutes. Well, five perhaps. How did it happen? How did the negotiations start? How was the opposition recognized? It was a process. The leadership, along with part of the party activists, was losing hope that we could cope with the crisis without the opposition. And by 1988, that was a conviction which was more and more prevalent within part of the leadership and among central activists of the party. As early as in mid-June of 1988, at one of the Politburo meetings, Jaruzelski says that if we ... that cannot change the society; if anything, well, the society can throw us out, which has happened before, more than once. Then, in June there is a plenary meeting of the Politburo when Jaruzelski for the first time formulates the idea, the concept of the Round Table, but he says that this table should gather representatives of pluralist trends of civil thinking and he talks about opposition-like thinking rather than the opposition, since these are two different notions. However, at the same time, Jaruzelski is undergoing the accelerated growing up process. I'm talking about Jaruzelski not because he was a dictator but because it was up to him whether the Round Table negotiations would or would not happen. Not anyone else! Not anyone else! Of course, there was pressure and both sides were tired of that situation and wanted to change it, but he was really the leader. So in December, the situation got to be dramatic, and as Mr. Michnik said, in January it was already clear that the Round Table would take place. Here I would have to disagree a little with Adam Michnik, who said that we wanted to leave everything the way it had been, that we didn't want to change anything. This is not true. Well, we should not be regarded as such fools. No, that's not true! Not true! In January of 1989, at the Central Committee, we passed a resolution about the trade union pluralism which, practically speaking, was equal to recognizing Solidarity. That's how it was. And besides ..., for God's sake, well we have to turn to Him sometimes, we could see what was going on around us, after all. Besides, please remember that Gorbachev turned to us to get our reform plans, and for the first time, we were becoming the leading force in this part of Europe. And in fact as far as the Round Table is concerned, we were the leading power of the Soviet bloc for the first time, but of course, it was too late to gain anything. And now, finally, the last issue ... I'm about to finish, Professor. Now there is an opinion that the collapse of communism began with the fall of the Berlin Wall. I must say that, well, with all my admiration for the Germans, they are cheating us again. They've convinced the world. The Berlin Wall and that's it, the beginning of the fall. No, the Round Table was the beginning and others followed us. For the first time in hundreds of years. That's why this kind of conference that you have organized here is, in my opinion, something worthy of highest praise, because well ..., I'd like to catch in to the Round Table negotiations, catch in to Michnik and others, and go down in history as one of those who were aware of the fact that real socialism had exceeded its own capabilities. Thank you.

Moderator:
Michael D. Kennedy, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan

I think I'm beginning to be very happy that I was not at the Round Table, in part because I realize I would never be a good negotiator if my control of time is any indicator of my capacity to get what my overlords would tell me to do. But in this case, I'm glad. In all of the cases, I'm glad that we are not the slaves of time but we do, unfortunately, have some constraints. Our last speaker this evening is Wieslaw Chrzanowski. Professor Chrzanowski is distinguished by a long and consistent career in opposition to communist rule. After serving in the anti-Nazi resistance during the Second World War, Professor Chrzanowski studied law at Jagiellonian University, Warsaw University and the Warsaw School of Economics. He was arrested in 1948 and sentenced to eight years of prison for his involvement in the Union of Christian Youth. He founded the Start Catholic Discussion Club in 1957, a year of my birth, and was a member of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski's Information Committee from 1965. In the 1980s, Professor Chrzanowski served as an adviser to Solidarity and as a member of Cardinal Józef Glemp's Social Advisory Board. He was among the founders of the Christian National Union in 1989, and served as its President until 1994. Professor Chrzanowski was Minister of Justice in 1991, Marshall of the Sejm from 1991 to 1993, and a Senator since 1997. Ladies and gentlemen, Wieslaw Chrzanowski.

Panelist:
Wieslaw Chrzanowski, Professor of Law at the Catholic University of Lublin, Solidarity activist, former Member of Parliament, President of the Christian-National Alliance (1989-94)

Mr. Chairman, esteemed ladies and gentlemen, among the visitors from Poland, those who ten years ago took part in public life, I was not among those who sat at the Round Table, although I had been invited to it. This does not mean that I was totally opposed to the concept, the idea of the Round Table, but for that reason my voice within the framework of this conference will probably sound somewhat differently. On the other hand, I am totally opposed and my view is negative when it comes to any attempts to build up a legend of the Round Table, in connection with its tenth anniversary. History from ten years back is not yet history; it is history in action, and in this regard, the legend has its own role to play. Moreover, within the Western world that has gotten used to democratic rules, adopting this point of view, this model, is easy. Confronted with growing hostility of the social climate, in order to avoid conflict and responsibility, the government camp decides to strike a deal with the extra-parliamentary opposition, since the parliamentary one doesn't exist, about some negotiated transfer of power. The opposition, in turn, agrees to this because it is aware that the government camp still holds ways to resolve the conflict by force, and it doesn't want to risk such a scuffle. However, in Poland of the '80s, the situation was different. It was closer to the one of 1918, when Poland for the first time in the twentieth century, after one hundred some years of captivity, was regaining its freedom. At that time, in some parts of the country, the occupying powers would negotiate capitulation agreements while in others, it was necessary to fight, such as in the Wielkopolska Uprising or the defense of Lvov. The peaceful transfer of power was undoubtedly more beneficial. Ten years ago, the communist camp was closer, I stress that it was closer but not identical, to the position of the occupiers of Poland during the mentioned period than to the government side in the democratic country, even though this camp was composed of Poles. It received the power -- true it was a long time before - as investiture from the Soviet Union and it could exercise it thanks to the Soviet Union's support. The actions of many members of the government camp were driven by ideological causes, but they were international rather than Polish causes. General Jaruzelski's declaration from the '80s attests to that. He said: "We will defend socialism like we defend independence." In fact, every imperialism seeks support in some sort of universal ideology. Even the Nazis during the World War II, while forming their troops from various ethnic populations in Western Europe, published its own elite publication titled Europe, the Nation. That's why in order to understand the fall of this system of enslavement in 1989, it is necessary, above all, to analyze the growth of societal forces of resistance and methods of application of those forces. The Round Table can be categorized as one of such methods. These forces were mistakenly called the opposition, and yet treated as illegal, while an opposition is an indispensable component ... but of a democratic system. After the war, those who were opposing the imposed system were first referred to as reactionaries, and in Stalinist prisons, we were classified as anti-state prisoners. Political prisoners as a category didn't exist. So, the opposition of these days, also known as atheist, was an equivalent of dissidents in the Soviet Union. Three models of resistance of a captive nation that evolved in Poland in the nineteenth and twentieth century preserved their validity in the '80s. The insurrection model found its expression in appeals to organize demonstrations commemorating the dates Solidarity's de-legalization, in appeals sent from internment camps by some leaders to use force fighting against the authorities, and in planning the national strike. Following this scenario threatened the physical crushing of the civil resistance by the regime security forces and the victory in the communist party of the so-called "concrete" wing, together with secret police. However, the model of active defense was the dominant one in society and it consisted in exerting some pressure on the governing regime every day, in every area of social life, and in involving in this resistance the most people possible, while avoiding frontal collision. This model was being followed also by rapid development of the underground press, published illegally, without censorship, and supported by the de-legalized Solidarity structures in work places. The major role was also being played by the Church, through frequently organized weeks of Christian culture, Holy Masses dedicated to the homeland and attended by many thousands of people, development of pastoral work among farmers and working people, and so forth. These actions were led mostly by parish priests. Speeches of Cardinal Glemp often sounded somewhat differently, but in the case of threat to the parish priests, their superiors defended them. And those superiors were being wooed by the communist authorities. There were some casualties, however, including Father Popieluszko and several other members of the clergy. In this area we cannot overestimate the importance of the two pilgrimage voyages of John Paul II to Poland. The Primate of Poland and the Secretariat of the Episcopate favored the model of direct interaction with the authorities in order to gain concessions that would enlarge the margin of freedom. This resulted, for example, in the restoration of foundations as an institution within the legal system, including the foiled attempt to set up the Primate's Foundation of Aid to Individual Farmers and the preparation of the association legislation by the government and Church experts which enabled the creation of voluntary associations. The authorities feared reactivating Solidarity because of its mass character. For a long time, they were afraid of this, so instead, they offered decentralized associations. The authorities, sensing the growth of societal resistance and the weakening of support from the east, sought ways of reducing the disquiet, tempting with a possibility of reconciliation. Those efforts started with the purely facade PRON, the Patriotic Movement of National Rebirth, but subsequently partners for higher up negotiations were seriously being sought within the ranks of the opposition. The Consolidation Council with General Jaruzelski was one way to do that but the only well-known person from the opposition whom they managed to win over was the lawyer Sila-Nowicki. Similarly, the advisory team at the Sejm, made up of a few dozen experts, despite inviting many people from independent circles, didn't turn out representative. Another failure was the attempt to create a coalition government including members of the opposition. Finally, when the authorities realized that their small, feigned steps towards pulling in some dissidents, some opposition people into the orbit of power were failing, and the social pressure was increasing, -- social pressure does not mean Solidarity or anything, but it was a pressure by society as a whole -- the authorities decided to set up the Round Table. Their intention was to allow some part of the opposition to co-rule in a limited and controlled fashion and to liberalize the system to a certain extent. And perhaps the acceptance of re-legalization of Solidarity was influenced by weakening of Solidarity structures. There are some indications, some documents proving that there were such assessments of the situation, not only on the authorities' side, but among the opposition circles as well. (tape switch) … Starting this new initiative gave the authorities an opportunity to preselect appropriate opposition members to become partners in talks. Formally speaking, the main partner was to be Walesa, the legendary leader of Solidarity, and people indicated by him. But actually in those days the choices were made for Walesa by Mr. Geremek and Mr. Mazowiecki. To a great extent, they wanted partners of the leftist lineage, often former party comrades or Catholics from circles which had formerly been given concession to function officially. The government camp couldn't always figure out these prospective partners very well. The best example of this is for how long they were prohibiting the participation of Mr. Michnik here and Mr. Kuron. On the opposition side, participation in the negotiations was motivated by the perspective of visibly broadening the margin of freedom, restoration of legal Solidarity and, in view of the growing wave of protests, prevention of some sort of frontal collision, in the situation when the organizational and technical potential of the regime's repressive apparatus was still considerable. The blackmail of possible Soviet intervention also had some significance since the opposition side was less familiar with how our Eastern neighbor's capabilities to intervene had eroded. Finally, for the leftist opposition, which is a somewhat simplified term, it was an opportunity to eliminate or limit the influence of the right wing of the opposition, illegal opposition, I mean. There were apprehensions that once communism collapsed, our political arena would be dominated by nationalist and Christian-democratic elements. Such apprehensions, groundless as it has turned out, were generally expressed in the '80s in Krytyka, the main underground publication of the leftist opposition. In setting up the negotiations of the Round Table, a major role was played by the Church, particularly Bishop Orszulik, present here. The Church believed that, in order to preserve peace in the society, a retreat from the so-called real socialism should follow in stages. Now, it's time to express my opinion about what would have happened had there not been the Round Table. Let me stress that this is an ex post facto opinion, from our present perspective, which those who had been joining those talks could not have, and being involved in politics, one mustn't endanger ... mustn't gamble. The opinion on this issue will strongly influence how we will evaluate the Round Table's significance. I don't mean the evaluation of its participants but the evaluation of its significance. It is absurd to claim that we could face civil war. In the situation when the intervention from the East was already illusory, and the generals were aware of that, the army would stand on the side of the nation. Even in 1981, the Politburos of the Polish and Soviet communist parties were not sure of the loyalty of the Polish army. There are traces of this in the Politburos' protocols, which we were able to see a year-and-a-half ago in Jachanka, at another interesting conference where Marshall Kulikov met with General Jaruzelski, Mr. Mazowiecki, Mr. Pipes, and Mr. Brzezinski. I also had an opportunity to participate in that conference. And yet several months after the Round Table, together with the fall of the Berlin Wall, other communist regimes in central Europe, except for Romania, collapsed peacefully. The Round Table did not cause decomposition in the imperial structure of the Soviet Union; it was rather the consequence of that decomposition. It wasn't what sealed the collapse of communism as a socio-economic system. The end of the system was already perceived by Prime Minister Rakowski's government, which undertook steps in a new direction. It did accelerate, however, accelerated by a few months only changing the guard of power in Poland, and it did influence significantly but not decisively the manner of transferring the power. On the other hand, the Round Table provided measurable, although at that time not fully predictable, advantages to the participating partners. For those in power in those days, the results of the elections of 1989 were startling. Then, out of the one-third quota, not a single regime candidate was elected. That's how the attitudes of the Polish society, created by the policies of active defense, produced results. That's why the two-thirds Sejm majority, guaranteed by the Round Table agreement, fell through. In this atmosphere, the satellite parties ventured to oppose the communist party hegemony and the government of Mazowiecki was created, while General Jaruzelski did not try to use the constitutional clause, ensured by the Round Table, allowing the president to dissolve the parliament under any pretext. Such a clause existed till the moment when The Small Constitution was introduced. What's more, less than a year-and-a-half later, Jaruzelski gave up on the position of the president, even though he had been guaranteed a five-year term. For those reasons, the era of real socialism, in the public opinion, ended on the 4th of June, on the day of the elections. And the date of the Round Table agreement is not really observed by the society. I actually realized that thanks to the University of Michigan, in connection with today's conference. However, as a result of the discussed agreement, the pre-June government camp, instead of capitulation and punishment for the past, found its place smoothly within the new order of parliamentary democracy, and retained its material and organizational assets. The accepted formula of a state of law often serves as a cover from punishing lawlessness. Among gains of the other partner was the ability to make personnel decisions regarding the negotiated one-third of the 1989 Sejm seats. The decisions were handled in such a way, as Mr. Michnik mentioned before, so much within their own circle, that it was severely criticized even from within, actually to the point that Mr. Mazowiecki and also Mr. Hall here refused to become candidates. As for taking over important mass media, it's enough to mention Gazeta Wyborcza, presently Mr. Michnik's paper, the publication of which was a concession from the government to Solidarity arranged at the Round Table. I won't go on with the list. Thus, beyond its legend, the Round Table negotiations have been significant in the Polish political arena. Within this scope, undoubtedly, they have significance. However, those negotiations haven't had a universal caliber. It would be an illusion to seek analogies with the Spanish, Portuguese, or Chilean decline of the authoritarian system. In our country, it was a system that was imposed from outside, and it could survive only with the outside support. In these other countries, the systems were indigenous and so were their declines. This is the reason why it's hard to imagine, unfortunately, that our formula could be helpful in solving the tragic events in the former Yugoslavia, that is, the present conflict in Kosovo. Thank you.

Moderator:
Michael D. Kennedy, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan

These three gentlemen have offered us very important and very different accounts of the place of the Round Table negotiations in Polish and world history. This is as we intend. I am honored to have been able to sit on the stage with them. I am further pleased that we will be able to include these presentations as well as all the ensuing discussions in this conference in an archive that will be dedicated to the discussion of the significance and consequences of the Polish Round Table. There are, of course, even more interpretations of the Round Table and we have arranged this conference, so that at least some of those additional accounts might be heard. We have invited a very distinguished group of men and women who will contribute significantly to our understanding of those times not only in Poland but also in Hungary and the rest of East Central Europe, China, and in Cuba, and in Cuban American relations. This evening, in short, is only a beginning.

As it is only a beginning, I invite all of you to return on Saturday, when we shall consider the Round Table, in general, once again. And take note, however, of the lessons that we have learned from the conference itself. I am very sorry to say that for various reasons, Premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki will be unable to participate in that meeting. Joining President Kwasniewski and Bishop Orszulik will be Adam Michnik, Lech Kaczynski, and Grazyna Staniszewska.

Registration for the academic portion of the conference, may I say, more intense academic portion of the conference on Thursday and Friday is already filled, I'm sorry to say, and I'm happy to say, given the significance of the interest. For those of you who have already registered for Thursday and Friday, we invite you to return tomorrow to consider the conditions, contingencies, and consequences of the Round Table negotiations of the 1989. We will see the rest of you on Saturday.

I can imagine no better way to conclude this evening's discussion than by asking all of us to return to the first page of the program. I would like to conclude this opening session by reading a portion of the blessing His Holiness Pope John Paul II has conferred upon all of us who participate in this conference. His Secretary of State has written:

"His Holiness hopes that this disciplined reflection on the spiritual, cultural and political aspects of Poland's peaceful transition to democracy will highlight their ultimate foundation in a moral imperative arising from the vision of man's innate dignity and his transcendent vocation to freedom in the pursuit of truth. He is confident that the Conference's work will call needed attention to the superiority of patient dialogue over all forms of violence in the resolution of conflicts and the building of a just and humane social order."

These are our hopes as well. Thank you for your attention this evening. I wish to thank all the contributors to this evening's program. Thank you very much and I wish you all a good night. Dziekuje bardzo, milego wieczoru. (Translation onto English: Thank you very much. Have a good evening).

Organizing Committee, Communism's Negotiated Collapse:
The Polish Round Table of 1989, Ten Years Later
Copyright © 1999 The Regents of the University of Michigan

Last updated: December 20, 1999