On the Eve of the Great Change. Selection of the Socio-Economic Model of Poland in Relations of Selected Participants in the Discussion on Economic Changes (Perspective of Autumn 1989). An Outline of the Subject Matter

Abstract

The paper discusses the subject matter of selecting the socio-economic model of Poland from the perspective of the autumn of 1989, as viewed by selected participants in the discussion on economic changes. In the recent years, on the Polish publishing market a lot of recollective literature (i.a. Władysław Baka, Leszek Balcerowicz, Ryszard Bugaj, Janusz Grzelak, Aleksander Hall, Tadeusz Kowalik, Karol Modzelewski, Janusz Reykowski, Henryk Samsonowicz, Andrzej Wielowieyski) has been published discussing the crucial period following the establishment of T. Mazowiecki’s government, when the so-called Balcerowicz’s plan was being developed, with a significant participation of international economic institutions. Together with memoirs of the actors of past events from the nineties (i.a. Izabella Cywińska, Bronisław Geremek, Waldemar Kuczyński, Jacek Kuroń, Mieczysław F. Rakowski), it presents an interesting panorama of beliefs concerning the direction of economic transformations on the threshold of systemic transformation.

What is a little surprising about these memoirs is openness with which some of the then politicians and opinion leaders admitted that they had been completely unaware of what they had exactly supported and accepted the proposed package of reforms. The insufficient understanding of the contents of free market changes’ projects was often accompanied by idealization thereof that was simply not based on the economic knowledge and was combined with arbitrarily made assessments. The massive discord between declarations made by T. Mazowiecki on the attachment to the idea of social market economy or between undoubtedly mainly working-class nature of the all-nation revolution of 1980 and the intensively free market profile of socio-economic transformations that took place after the bloodless coup in 1989, should be considered a certain paradox.