Development of Parties and Party Systems in ... - lah@sam.sdu.dk

evolutionary songs became a part of the party culture. After 1989, the fight for recognition and thepressure from non-communist groups and parties fostered internal cohesion and thereby enhancingparty institutionalisation.Opposite, the new non-communist parties had to establish a party culture almost from scratch.Opposite the (post)communist they could do that with “clean hands” and without “dead bodies inthe cargo”. New broad anti-communist civic movements had their roots in the fight against the oldsystem. Unlike historic non-communist parties they could not survive only by references tomemories about the time before the communist take over. Thus party history and the resistanceagainst the state socialist system occupied an important place, but did note ensure the necessaryinternal cohesion and consensus on the elite level.The revived social democratic parties did their best to link themselves to the party traditions goingback to the time before the forced unification with the communist parties after WW II, howeverwithout great success. The historic social democratic parties suffered because they had not playedany leading role in opposition the communists and under foreign occupation. Thus the commonpantheon and collective memories was less developed. Furthermore, internal fragmentation due togeneration gaps and disagreements about the most proper policy line had as the result that at thefirst free eelections the historical social democratic parties were surpassed by the reformedcommunist parties, which more quickly than expected were able to carry through their own internaltransformations.For historic reasons conspiration theories were widespread also inside the parties, therebyhampering the development of a productive and democratic party life. In a way the new partieswere facing battles on two fronts, agains enemies in their own camps (“the wars in the top”) andagainst external enemies (“insider-outsider differentials”). Often the political language has beenaggressive and not only directed against the representatives of the old regimes, but also againstpeople sharing divergent opinions on important policies. By the leaders opponents of the party linehas been called “agents”, “traitors”, “thieves of public properties” and “foreigners” and anti-semiticstatements have not been totally absent. Thus, the political debates and the political languagebetween and inside parties tended to be signified by a “language of aggression” and a “language ofattacks” 38 .II. About parties and party-systems in Poland2.1. Path-dependency and the parties and party-systems in PolandIn a path dependency perspective the Polish transition shall be seen in the context of “thephilosophy” of the round table discussions (“Magdalenka”) 1988-89, and “the Balcerowicz plan I”,for no gevernmental parties have been able to liberate themselves from the legacy of the round tablenegotiations (“Magdalenka”) and the Balcerowicz plan despite proclamations about doing so.Furthermore, the political capital, i.e. the spontaneous popular support, faded out before than first38 Janina Fras, “Political discourse in post-Communist Poland”, in Andrzej W. Jablonski, Gerd Meyer (1996):155-159.43