The political history of Poland since World War II and the Communist takeover has been one in which crisis followed crisis. Even when there was more than a decade before the next crisis, "normalcy" was never fully "normal." Instead, the institutions and their responses were structured by the previous crisis and constantly shaded by storm clouds for the next. In 1956, 1970, and 1980, Poles successfully "voted with their feet" and ousted their leaders. In 1968 and 1976, the crises were less systemic: specific groups revolted over specific policies. As a result, even though Wladyslaw Gomulka in 1968 and Edward …

Go to article

The Solidarity Crisis, 1980-81: The Near Death Of Communism, Jane Leftwich Curry Dec 1995

The Solidarity Crisis, 1980-81: The Near Death Of Communism, Jane Leftwich Curry

Political Science

The Solidarity trade union formed in the shipyards of Gdansk after a summer of strikes called by factory workers in response to price increases on food. At the end of August 1980, the men who had replaced Edward Gierek's elite signed an accord with the striking representatives of what came to be called Solidarity to provide increased benefits, and the right to have a free and independent trade union, to strike, and to have media that reported information more freely.

It rapidly became a national movement that forced the Communist government to make many concessions. In the next fifteen months, …

Go to article

Conclusion: The Never-Ending Crises, Jane Leftwich Curry, Luba Fajfer Dec 1995

Conclusion: The Never-Ending Crises, Jane Leftwich Curry, Luba Fajfer

Political Science

Although the final demise of Communism in Poland was by far the most dramatic of the crises that punctuated Communist rule there, it was not the beginning or the end of Poland's transformation process. Virtually all the studies of transformations in Latin America and Southern Europe, as well as the developing literature on the changes in the communist world, have focused on the events and problems that just preceded the ending of one form of rule and the beginning of another. In the Polish case, at least, the transformation cannot be explained by the popular disaffection and the negotiations between …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last