Blinding pride

Are Poles so proud of their past that we tend to glorify it, or are we right to be boastful?

I like to take a possibly balanced and objective view in many academic debates on controversial topics, and at the same time try to be critical of my own position. Yet even now I have been caught up in the trap of nationalistic pride.

An essay for my module on Democracy and Democratization in Contemporary Europe is on the question of Polish transition to democracy. The title “Poland 1989-1991; reforma-pactada, ruptura-pactada or a civil-initiated transition?” is an attempt to compare the Polish democratization to the Spanish model and at the same time define if the path taken was a civil-initiated or elite-initiated process. Before I began my research, the answer seemed to be obvious: Polish transition was a civil-initiated process started by the Solidarity. Therefore I was surprised when in the first basing reading by Linz and Stepan (1996) in the chapter on Poland it stated that it was a negotiated transition started by the regime.

And yes it was. It was the regime that began the negotiations and proposed the Round Table negotiations. And we all should acknowledge this fact. This is not to say that the society did not play a major role trough strikes and manifestations. And this is not to say that “General Jaruzelski woke up one day and say ‘what a glorious day for democracy’”. Solidarity through its action literally put a knife up against party’s throat and made them chose between democratization, or virtually division of power between Solidarity and Party within the state.

Another thing that we should recognize, is that Solidarity could have achieved much more from the transition, did not have to agree on the Round Table, which produced a seriously unfavourable conditions for democratization, underestimated its own strength, and highly overestimated the cohesion of the party. Twenty years after democratization we should not still glorify the 1989 developments. This is the time for self-criticism and realistic debate. What I will argue – this is a topic for a dissertation. In brief, Solidarity provided the push for transition, but the negotiations were started by the regime and this gave them upper ground. True consolidation of democracy came only in 1991, and the Round Table made the opposition pay a high price for little change.