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The economic recession and the grave social problems fundamentally changed Solidarity’s position.Under the then prevailing extraordinary politics it was difficult to formulate consistent attitudes tothe most pressing policy problems, also programmes for the future and links to important socialinterests in society were needed. The plans for the transition from plan to market were both vagueand inconsistent. Most important was to keep the communists out. As put by Voytek Zubek 44 ,Solidarity indirectly supported the old communist view that the (new) system is basically ”healthy”and ”historically progressive” and ”the leaders (i.e. the Solidarity-leaders) always right”. Solidarityacted as it was enough to “convince” the opponents and push the (post)communists in the defensive.From the outset Solidarity lacked well educated and professional people especially on meso levelwho could fill out the vacuum left after the demise of the old nomenklatura, and thus create a newand better administrative apparatus. Should Solidarity gain governmental power, still the oldnomenklatura would have a considerable political influence because of the administrative control.Also mechanisms for conflict solution in society were missing. Because of weak interest groupsdissatisfaction was in many cases expressed on the streets, i.e. through protest strikes anddemonstrations, sometimes in violent forms. The lack of political visions was politicallydemobilising, so evidence showed that under social and economic recession political programmesand visions for the future were strongly needed. On the way down in the “valley of tears” it wasalmost impossible to mobilise the voters politically and bring them new hope and inspiration for thefuture.2.4. The new social environmentIn the new post-communist social environment tensions erupted between the old abstract goals forthe future and the day-to-day politics. Wnuk-Lipinski rightly argues that the market orientedreforms introduced after 1989 weakened the common interests inside the social groups which untilthen had supported Solidarity, e.g. workers on big state enterprises, farmers and state-employed inthe education and health sector. In the fight to take care of these groups’ demands and interestsSolidarity had to compete with demands from other interest groups and parties, e.g. OPZZ, SLD,PSL, KPN and UP. To accomplish that aim some in Solidarity wanted to speed up transition tomarket economy, almost at every cost. Other groups spoke about a specific ”third way” for Polandbased on catholic religious ethics and moral economics. After the founding elections Solidarityfailed to formulate concrete programmes which could work as alternatives to Rakowski’s economicreforms.From the outset, the question whether Solidarity (”NSZZ Solidarnosc”) may constitute a politicalmovement or a trade union was difficult to answer. Compared with ”first Solidarity” after 1989 thesecond Solidarity became more ”exclusive”, and acted in a more restrictive way refusing tocooperate with most other political parties and movements. The second Solidarity constituted abroad catch-all anti-communist movement. However, after 1989 more attention had to be paid to therealisation of concrete policy goals. Values and interests had to converge, if the attempt to create afunctional party identity and culture should succeed. But on that point Solidarity faced bigproblems.As already said, the greatest support was obtained from conservatively minded workers on thebiggest state enterprises, i.e. the “dinosaurs” from the Stalinist period. Support for Solidarity has44 Voytek Zubek, ”The Phoenix Out of the Ashes: The Rise To Power of Poland’s Post-Communist SdRP”, Communistand Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3, 1995:275-306.52
also been fairly high on bigger private enterprises, while the influence has been low on the newminor private firms, where the attitudes to market economy have been more positive. Furthermore,resistance from employers side against the establishment of trade unions has been the strongest onnew small enterprises. In order to get more support and new members the trade union Solidarityhad to secure for itself a better representation on new private enterprises; if that did not happen, thenumber of trade union members might fall to under one million, i.e. less than half of themembership of the “post-communist” OPZZ. The regional structures also had to be adapted to thenew administrative division consisting of 16 regions (“voivods”), however, for historical reasonsstrong resistance against such regionalisation existed in almost all regions of the country - includingthe biggest one, Mazowsze.Thus we can say that the norms from 1980-81 did not fit with the construction of a new functionaldemocracy and market economy, neither inside the Solidarity movement nor in Poland as a whole.Furthermore, we can conclude that in the first stage the goals for the future were broadly formulatedas abstract symbols and discourses including demands for self-organisation and "”spolecznienie"”of the state, i.e. transition to a morally based economy. Lech Walesa’s demands of”przyspieszenie”, i.e. “speeding up” the fight against the old system, were pushed forward, and later“democratic socialist ideology” was included with demands for a participatory democracy and amoral type political economy.2.5. The first big crisis and the political come-back in 1997The 1993 election was a shock for the Solidarity movement. In the new parliament elected in 1993Solidarity did not parliamentary representation at all. According to Mariusz Muskat (Bäcker etc,2001:167) the fundamental error was the premature assumption of power back in 1989. The Unionfailed to recognize the importance of formulating strategies for coping with the most importantproblems in society. Moreover, the links with the nation were weakening and the old Solidarityethos waning.In 1993 Solidarity went on the barricades and put forward a vote of non-confidence to HannaSuchocka’s Solidarity-led government, later, after the defeat at the 1993 election, Solidarity rejectedthe ”godless” “post-communist” proposal for a new constitution. Acting outside parliamentSolidarity tried to regain the lost influence by organising strikes and demonstrations against the“post-communist” government. Among the more spectacular initiatives we find the collection of500,000 subscriptions supporting Solidarity’s proposal for a new Solidarity inspired constitution 45 .In the commission which prepared the proposal for a new constitution also representatives from thecommon secretariat of the centre-right groups were represented. The 500,000 subscriptions gaveSolidarity the right to be represented in the constitutional commission set up by the parliament, butthe aim to bring its own proposal to a national referendum at the same time as the proposal from thegovernment failed because of resistance against the constitutional proposal from the ruling “postcommunist”parties SLD and PSL.At that time the prospects for creating a common front against the ”post-communists” were notbright. To a great extent the disagreements on the Right concerned the role of trade unions on stateand regional level, e.g. policy related questions such as privatisation and economic reforms. Thetrade union Solidarity’s strong position were mostly due to the organisational vacuum on thepolitical Right. No other political groups could act as a “unifier” (Knuzewski, 1998:157). After the45 ”Obywatelski Project Konstitucji Rzeczpospolitei”.53
Page 3: “This provisional situation chara
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Page 10 and 11: the significance of strategic choic
Page 12 and 13: presidentialism gave rise to “flo
Page 14 and 15: antipolitics and reinforcement of a
Page 16 and 17: In the late 1990’s elections most
Page 18 and 19: determined primarily by “politica
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Page 22 and 23: which attitudes to state regulation
Page 24 and 25: Anti-communism has been defined in
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Page 28 and 29: Cartel agreementsbetter representat
Page 30 and 31: Basically the absence of clear cons
Page 32 and 33: After 1989 different types of polit
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Page 38 and 39: analyses of party institutionalizat
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Page 44 and 45: expected, much due to the many spli
Page 46 and 47: Furthermore, the polarisation on el
Page 48 and 49: Finally, Solidarity can also be con
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Page 56 and 57: The formation of AWS can be conside
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Page 60 and 61: According to the original plans the
Page 62 and 63: values. According to Rybicki, as so
Page 64 and 65: AWS should fight against all types
Page 66 and 67: 2001 parliamentary election, howeve
Page 68 and 69: and workers voted ZChN. At the 1993
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Page 72 and 73: establishment like than LPR’s. Th
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Page 76 and 77: industrial policy. According to the
Page 78 and 79: pressurizing the government to give
Page 80 and 81: democrats, thereby locating itself
Page 82 and 83: To conclude, the Freedom Union (UW)
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Page 86 and 87: such as KSCM and KSS in The Czech R
Page 88 and 89: The SLD leaders were mainly recruit
Page 90 and 91: the falling popular support for pri
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Page 96 and 97: Has the Left any freedom of manoeuv
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Page 100 and 101: The Labour Union (UP), Democratic U
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Nevertheless, before that had taken
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