The Round Table and the Elections of 1989
Talks between the regime and Solidarity lead to semi-free elections on 4 June 1989, which Solidarity sweeps; within months Poland has the bloc's first non-communist prime minister.
- A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 — Padraic Kenney, Princeton University Press (2002)
- The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom — Andrzej Paczkowski, Pennsylvania State University Press (2003)
- A Concise History of Poland (3rd edition) — Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki, Cambridge University Press (2019)
With the economy failing and new strikes in 1988, the regime opened talks with Solidarity. The Round Table met from February to April 1989 and agreed to legalise Solidarity and hold elections in which all seats in a new Senate, and 35% of seats in the Sejm, would be freely contested.
- A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 — Padraic Kenney, Princeton University Press (2002)
- The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom — Andrzej Paczkowski, Pennsylvania State University Press (2003)
On 4 June 1989 Solidarity won every freely contested Sejm seat and 99 of the 100 Senate seats. In August Tadeusz Mazowiecki became the first non-communist prime minister in the Soviet bloc since the 1940s. Finance minister Leszek Balcerowicz’s “shock therapy” from January 1990 ended hyperinflation and built a market economy, at the cost of high unemployment in the early 1990s. Wałęsa was elected president in 1990.
- A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 — Padraic Kenney, Princeton University Press (2002)
- A Concise History of Poland (3rd edition) — Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki, Cambridge University Press (2019)
A model peaceful transition that avoided bloodshed and opened the way to democracy, the market economy and Europe.
- A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989 — Padraic Kenney, Princeton University Press (2002)
- The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (3rd edition) — Timothy Garton Ash, Yale University Press (2002)
A deal struck at Magdalenka between elites, which let former communists and secret-police officers keep their influence; the work of "decommunisation" was never finished.
- Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom — Brian Porter-Szűcs, Wiley-Blackwell (2014)
- The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom — Andrzej Paczkowski, Pennsylvania State University Press (2003)
Why it matters today
1989 began the fall of communism across Eastern Europe, and Poles are proud they did it first and without bloodshed. But the negotiated deal still divides them: some see a wise compromise, others a pact that let communists escape justice and convert power into wealth.