Polish Round Table Agreement
The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Poland from 6 February to 5 April 1989.
- Polish Round Table Agreement102 related topics
Wojciech Jaruzelski
Polish military officer, politician and de facto leader of the Polish People's Republic from 1981 until 1989.
During the revolutions of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe, Jaruzelski supported the change of government for the benefit of the country and resigned after the Polish Round Table Agreement, which led to multi-party elections in Poland.
Polish United Workers' Party
The communist party which ruled the Polish People's Republic as a one-party state from 1948 to 1989.
With communist rule being relaxed in neighbouring countries, the PZPR systematically lost support and was forced to negotiate with the opposition and adhere to the Polish Round Table Agreement, which permitted free democratic elections.
Czesław Kiszczak
Polish general, communist-era interior minister (1981–1990) and prime minister (1989).
But eight years later he presided over the country's transition to democracy as its last communist prime minister and a co-chairman of the Round Table conference, in which officials of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party faced the democratic opposition leaders.
Solidarity (Polish trade union)
Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland.
The 1989 round table talks between the government and the Solidarity-led opposition produced agreement for the 1989 legislative elections, the country's first pluralistic election since 1947.
Lech Wałęsa
Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the President of Poland between 1990 and 1995.
Released from custody, he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the Round Table Agreement that led to the semi-free 1989 Polish legislative election and a Solidarity-led government.
1988 Polish strikes
The 1988 Polish strikes were a massive wave of workers' strikes which broke out from 21 April, 1988 in the Polish People's Republic.
As a result, later that year, the regime decided to negotiate with the opposition, which opened way for the 1989 Round Table Agreement.
Contract Sejm
Term commonly applied to the Sejm ("parliament") elected in the Polish parliamentary elections of 1989.
The contract refers to an agreement reached by the Polish United Workers' Party and the Solidarność ("solidarity") movement during the Polish Round Table Agreement.
Mieczysław Rakowski
Polish communist politician, historian and journalist who was Prime Minister of Poland from 1988 to 1989.
He also played a part in the Polish transformation from state socialism to market capitalism, as his Communist-led government was forced to reform and he was one of the key players in the Polish Round Table Agreements.
Jan Olszewski
Polish conservative lawyer and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Poland for five months between December 1991 and early June 1992 and later became a leading figure of the conservative Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland.
Olszewski, along with Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and other anti-government dissidents, participated in the Round Table Talks in early 1989 with the ruling PZPR, where he served as the opposition's legal expert.
Andrzej Gwiazda
Engineer and prominent opposition leader, who participated in Polish March 1968 Events and December 1970 Events; one of the founders of Free Trade Unions, Member of the Presiding Committee of the Strike at Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980, Vice President of the Founding Committee of Solidarity, then Vice President of Solidarity in 1980 and 1981; in December 1981 interned and next imprisoned with six other Solidarność leaders (see Martial Law in Poland).
Unlike Lech Wałęsa, Gwiazda did not participate in creation of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee, nor in the negotiations of Polish Round Table Talks.