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.He came to Poland in June 1988 to providemoral support.At every meeting with Jaruzelski, Gorba-chev approved of what was happening in Poland. 54The ultimate cause for the change of political heart towardsSolidarity was rooted in economics: Poland and other East Eur-opean states were now connected to Western regimes by tradeand debt.Poland s external debt totalled over 38 billion dollarsin 1988, the highest in the Eastern bloc.Armed interventionwould endanger both trade and loans, worsen an already direeconomic crisis, and precipitate civil unrest the very thingintervention was meant to suppress.Beyond these internal con-sequences the whole project of détente would have beendestroyed by Russian police action in Eastern Europe. 168 Their democracy and oursSolidarity itself maintained an underground structure.Renewed strike action in 1988 left the Polish regime with noother option but to try and negotiate its way out of the impasse.Despite continuing strikes, which Lech Walesa tried to demobi-lise, student protests and protests from the radical wing ofSolidarity, round table negotiations with the government beganin January 1989.Kuron s response to the radical critics of the round table strategy reveals the degree to which he had nowadopted a fully articulated reformist strategy: Many of our friends, members of the opposition inPoland, asked us: Why did you go to the roundtable dis-cussions? Wouldn t it have been better to continue orga-nising people and to increase the potential for socialexplosion a social explosion which would wipe out thetotalitarian system? Our answer was No.We don t wantto destroy the system by force.the road to democracyhas to be a process of gradual evolution, of gradualbuilding of democratic institutions. 55The round table went ahead and resulted, in June 1989, inelections which the regime thought it might win, especially asthey were rigged in its favour.In the event Solidarity swept theboard with an electoral victory far greater than many in Soli-darity had imagined possible.The path to the velvet revolu-tions in Eastern Europe now lay open.But Jacek Kuron wasright when, looking back from 1990, he wrote: The real breakthrough took place in 1980, when a mas-sive wave of strikes led to the founding of Solidarity, anindependent union that the government was forced torecognise.This was truly the moment when the totalitar-ianism system in Poland was broken. 56At the same time as these events were unfolding in Poland, theHungarian ruling class were feeling their way towards a similarreconstruction of the political regime.Indeed, six days after Their democracy and ours 169Solidarity swept the board in the Polish elections the Hungariangovernment opened their own round table discussions aboutreform.A week later over 100,000 people gathered at the reburialof Imre Nagy, the murdered leader of the 1956 Hungarianrevolution.But there was comparatively little popular mobilisationin Hungary in 1989 and certainly no re-creation of the workerscouncils of 1956.Yet if the Hungarian events do not tell us verymuch about the role of the working class in the revolution, thevery quietude of the transition in Hungary allows us to see thereconstruction of a ruling class in its purest form.In the 1970s Hungary followed many of the same policiesand confronted many of the same problems as Gierek s Poland.Opening the economy to the West meant accepting Westernloans and increased indebtness.Hungary s external debt rosefrom 0.9 billion dollars in 1973 to 5.8 billion dollars in 1978.57Economic liberalisation was combined with a degree of intel-lectual liberalism.Elemer Hankiss, a Hungarian academic and,after 1989, head of Hungarian television writes, In the 1970s, in certain places a kind of social democra-tisation began.Already during the late sixties, in Hungarythe Kadar regime introduced a more tolerant policy to theopposition and society in general.It allowed a secondeconomy to evolve; it allowed a process of cultural plur-alisation to emerge, though of course it did not allowpolitical pluralisation. 58The formal economy continued to slide into deeper crisisduring the 1970s and 1980s, but the second economy grew.The number of independent craftsmen in Hungary was 50,000in 1953.By 1989 it had risen to 160,000.In the 1970s therewere reckoned to be two million Hungarian families involved inthe second economy.The numbers of entrepreneurs, shop-keepers and employees rose from 67,000 in 1982 to almost600,000 in 1989.These figures were tiny compared to theformal economy and the economic activity these forces generatedcould not reverse economic decline, but they were of sociological 170 Their democracy and oursand ideological importance.They were one indicator showingthe Hungarian ruling class a way out of the crisis.59 By the mid-1980s this growth was combined with limited but real politicalchange: a popular ground-swell, unsuccessfully resisted by thestate, got genuinely independent candidates elected in the 1985general election.Independents won 10 percent of parliamentaryseats.The question of whether or not the whole Hungarian rulingclass would attempt a transition to a more market oriented formof capitalism would be decided by the behaviour of the upperechelons of the state bureaucracy and the managers of the majorindustrial enterprises [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl milosnikstop.keep.pl
.He came to Poland in June 1988 to providemoral support.At every meeting with Jaruzelski, Gorba-chev approved of what was happening in Poland. 54The ultimate cause for the change of political heart towardsSolidarity was rooted in economics: Poland and other East Eur-opean states were now connected to Western regimes by tradeand debt.Poland s external debt totalled over 38 billion dollarsin 1988, the highest in the Eastern bloc.Armed interventionwould endanger both trade and loans, worsen an already direeconomic crisis, and precipitate civil unrest the very thingintervention was meant to suppress.Beyond these internal con-sequences the whole project of détente would have beendestroyed by Russian police action in Eastern Europe. 168 Their democracy and oursSolidarity itself maintained an underground structure.Renewed strike action in 1988 left the Polish regime with noother option but to try and negotiate its way out of the impasse.Despite continuing strikes, which Lech Walesa tried to demobi-lise, student protests and protests from the radical wing ofSolidarity, round table negotiations with the government beganin January 1989.Kuron s response to the radical critics of the round table strategy reveals the degree to which he had nowadopted a fully articulated reformist strategy: Many of our friends, members of the opposition inPoland, asked us: Why did you go to the roundtable dis-cussions? Wouldn t it have been better to continue orga-nising people and to increase the potential for socialexplosion a social explosion which would wipe out thetotalitarian system? Our answer was No.We don t wantto destroy the system by force.the road to democracyhas to be a process of gradual evolution, of gradualbuilding of democratic institutions. 55The round table went ahead and resulted, in June 1989, inelections which the regime thought it might win, especially asthey were rigged in its favour.In the event Solidarity swept theboard with an electoral victory far greater than many in Soli-darity had imagined possible.The path to the velvet revolu-tions in Eastern Europe now lay open.But Jacek Kuron wasright when, looking back from 1990, he wrote: The real breakthrough took place in 1980, when a mas-sive wave of strikes led to the founding of Solidarity, anindependent union that the government was forced torecognise.This was truly the moment when the totalitar-ianism system in Poland was broken. 56At the same time as these events were unfolding in Poland, theHungarian ruling class were feeling their way towards a similarreconstruction of the political regime.Indeed, six days after Their democracy and ours 169Solidarity swept the board in the Polish elections the Hungariangovernment opened their own round table discussions aboutreform.A week later over 100,000 people gathered at the reburialof Imre Nagy, the murdered leader of the 1956 Hungarianrevolution.But there was comparatively little popular mobilisationin Hungary in 1989 and certainly no re-creation of the workerscouncils of 1956.Yet if the Hungarian events do not tell us verymuch about the role of the working class in the revolution, thevery quietude of the transition in Hungary allows us to see thereconstruction of a ruling class in its purest form.In the 1970s Hungary followed many of the same policiesand confronted many of the same problems as Gierek s Poland.Opening the economy to the West meant accepting Westernloans and increased indebtness.Hungary s external debt rosefrom 0.9 billion dollars in 1973 to 5.8 billion dollars in 1978.57Economic liberalisation was combined with a degree of intel-lectual liberalism.Elemer Hankiss, a Hungarian academic and,after 1989, head of Hungarian television writes, In the 1970s, in certain places a kind of social democra-tisation began.Already during the late sixties, in Hungarythe Kadar regime introduced a more tolerant policy to theopposition and society in general.It allowed a secondeconomy to evolve; it allowed a process of cultural plur-alisation to emerge, though of course it did not allowpolitical pluralisation. 58The formal economy continued to slide into deeper crisisduring the 1970s and 1980s, but the second economy grew.The number of independent craftsmen in Hungary was 50,000in 1953.By 1989 it had risen to 160,000.In the 1970s therewere reckoned to be two million Hungarian families involved inthe second economy.The numbers of entrepreneurs, shop-keepers and employees rose from 67,000 in 1982 to almost600,000 in 1989.These figures were tiny compared to theformal economy and the economic activity these forces generatedcould not reverse economic decline, but they were of sociological 170 Their democracy and oursand ideological importance.They were one indicator showingthe Hungarian ruling class a way out of the crisis.59 By the mid-1980s this growth was combined with limited but real politicalchange: a popular ground-swell, unsuccessfully resisted by thestate, got genuinely independent candidates elected in the 1985general election.Independents won 10 percent of parliamentaryseats.The question of whether or not the whole Hungarian rulingclass would attempt a transition to a more market oriented formof capitalism would be decided by the behaviour of the upperechelons of the state bureaucracy and the managers of the majorindustrial enterprises [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]