The Polish elections

...In a recent survey, respondents were asked their associations with the term "privatization...

...The West seems to have learned nothing from recent events in Moscow...

...But Poland is of particular interest for at least two reasons...

...These policies generated deepening income disparities and increased the unemployment rate, already one of the highest in Europe...

...Only 10 percent associated privatization with such positive ideas as greater opportunity, higher pay, and progress...

...No democratic government in Poland today can manage the economy and guide the process of transformation without the cooperation of the trade unions...

...Not even the cooperation of the OPZZ is assured...

...Their statements bring to mind a recent case when another electoral promise to change the economic policy was quickly broken...

...Any unconventional steps toward the "third road" undertaken by former Communist party activists can easily be attacked as an attempt to restore an old system...

...This letter is being written shortly after parliamentary elections in Poland, which brought a spectacular victory to the left...

...In Lithuania, a right-wing regime failed because it did not bring about any comprehensive economic reform...

...Some observers predict that the OPZZ will soon move away from its partners in the Alliance and eventually create an independent faction in Parliament...

...The party of the eccentric emigre businessman Stanislaw Tyminski, so successful three years ago, got only one-tenth of the votes it attracted in 1990...

...This is because of the lack of mature local party structures and the absence of mediating institutions and organizations that could articulate different interests and, above all, control their representatives between elections...

...All this is a very bitter lesson for the economic shock therapists—the "big bangers...

...on the other, he recently expressed his readiness to preserve "reforms" even if he has to copy the "Yeltsin method" (this was said shortly before the open battles on the streets of Moscow...

...Conservative liberals took up the slogan "One million new jobs," and the leaders of the Social Democratic party immediately accused them of stealing it...

...On Sundays in church, especially in the villages, believers listened meekly to the priest's instructions to vote for true Catholics—and then went off to vote for the radicals...

...Refusing to acknowledge their electoral defeat, they have declared that they will do their best to bring about new elections in order to reshape the distribution of power...

...Of the three nationwide trade unions, only one (OPZZ) is represented in Parliament (after the Social Democracy party it is the second largest member of the Alliance...

...Will the new government try to initiate a policy of full employment, diminished income disparities, and employee participation in management, and put public and private ownership on an equal footing...

...It was clear to many economists, sociologists, and politicians that workers would not long stand for the enormous costs of "shock therapy" and economic policies glaringly favoring private as against public enterprises...

...But the ruling elite must commit itself soon to a long-term strategy to bring about a social accord...

...Almost half listed such words as swindle, misery, robbery, exploitation, and so on...

...Privatization got a particularly bad reception in Poland...

...The National Christian Union—openly supported by the Catholic clergy—disappeared from the Parliament...

...Second, what is interesting about the Polish elections is not so much the victory of the left as the wholesale defeat of the right, which was simply swept out of the parliament...

...Two parties widely regarded as successors of the former Communist party and its Peasants' party ally have together won two-thirds of the seats in the Seym, and still more in the upper chamber...

...Will it stop trying to weaken trade unions and instead seek a "social agreement" with labor...

...Thus, Poland may once again claim to be a 38 • DISSENT Politics Abroad pioneer, this time in the transition from free-market liberalism to a politics of the left...

...So far Walesa remains unpredictable...

...But its victory was short-lived: Solidarity was blamed by the public for its longstanding support of the government's "shock therapy" policies and lost all its seats in parliament...

...Moreover, the last electoral campaign revealed a telling convergence of a number of political parties, which began to compete over which could be the most radical...

...The answers are not at all certain...

...I don't think the situation is entirely hopeless...

...TU Solidarity is now probably the left's most powerful enemy...

...On a "Third Road...

...Debt reduction on the part of the Paris Club is conditional...

...This was not the case in Poland, which has been widely praised (more in the West than in the East, and least of all inside Poland itself) as the postcommunist country that has traveled the farthest on the road to a private market economy...

...Limiting unemployment, for example, became the central theme of the campaign...

...And one has to take into account the fact that an "organizational network of free marketeers" has grown stronger during the last few years...

...Second, a great part of the electorate voted not so much for the left as against the right...

...Poland's Balcerowicz Plan has been regarded as the model to be emulated by all other postcommunist countries...

...Even if we treat the remark as pure rhetoric, it may serve to prepare us for another radical turn in his policy...

...In the Fall 1991 Dissent I described an 40 • DISSENT Politics Abroad unexpected outcome of the presidential election...

...It is true that Poland was preceded along this path by Lithuania, where a reformed Communist party was the winner in free elections...

...Will he support the new government...

...International pressures, however, create very unfavorable conditions for the reorientation of social and economic policy in Poland...

...What does the left's victory mean...

...On the one hand, he promises to conform to the democratic will of the electorate...

...A dramatic appeal for support to all the trade unions might open the way—along with a clear-cut strategy aiming at a new economic model, building on Austrian and Swedish experience...

...The social and economic costs of systemic transformation should now be negotiated with the representatives of the main social groups...

...First, the power elite has much greater freedom of action in Poland than in countries WINTER • 1994 • 39 Politics Abroad with a longer democratic tradition...

...The first signals are mixed...

...The OPZZ would probably take the risk of cooperating in such circumstances, and the extreme right-wing leaders of Solidarity could be isolated or replaced by moderates...

...The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have promised to extend credit—conditionally...

...Several factors will tend to blunt the effect of the election...

...It finally accepted employee-owned companies as one of the pillars of privatization...

...Another trade union, "Solidarity 1980," has modest political ambitions, limiting its demands to issues of working conditions and wages, but its stance toward the new government cannot be predicted...

...The Polish elections were overshadowed by events in Russia, but despite all the differences, recent developments in the two countries should be seen as part of the same trend...

...In this new situation, the burden of the whole right has to be taken up by the rather centrist party of Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Jacek Kuron (the Democratic Union), which got only 10 percent of the vote and 15 percent of the seats in the Seym...

...But prospects for cooperation seem bleak...

...This is one of the reasons why the leaders of two other parties regarded as potential coalition partners (the Peasant party and the Labor Union) declared that they would not take part in a government dominated by the postcommunist Alliance of the Democratic Left...

...It was the Solidarity Trade Union faction in parliament that sponsored the vote of censure against the government that precipitated the recent elections...

...A heavily indebted country can hardly have a free hand in shaping its economic future...

...And almost 10 percent of the remaining seats were won by Labor Union, a new party of the left led by former Solidarity activists such as Karol Modzelewski...

...As president he abruptly changed his stance, retaining Balcerowicz as deputy prime minister and minister of finance and supporting his program...

...its leaders are the most militant advocates of the "de-communization" of Poland—and the most militant opponents of social democratic policies...

...I shall not dwell in detail upon the causes of this radical shift to the left, since it was anticipated in many publications (including my articles in Dissent...

...None of the openly rightwing parties, including that of former prime minister Jan Olszewski, will enter the new parliament...

...Even so, the electorate's shift to the left may come to very little in our "half democracy...

...The peasants are in an advantageous position here, because their party is probably the most powerful lobby in the Parliament...

...The first reactions of the West seem to show that it is ready to accept the left's victory, provided that there is no substantial change in economic policy...

...Highly suspicious of the government and Lech Walesa, it did not want to take part in negotiations over the Pact on State Enterprises...

...This is the case even though the recently deposed rightwing government was itself forced to change its policies because of public opposition to its free-market "revolution from above...

...During the campaign, Walesa sharply criticized the Balcerowicz Plan from the left...

...and shortly before the election it announced an active unemployment policy...

...it launched the "Pact on State Enterprise in a Time of Transformation," which envisaged a threeparty commission to negotiate some aspects of incomes policy...

...Bearing in mind the bitter lesson of Solidarity, its leader has already declared that it would place no "protective umbrella" over government policy...

...Walesa never explained this sudden shift, but there was a widespread perception that it was a result of pressure from abroad...

...Is Poland embarking on the economic "third road" that some of us have advocated...

...still more uncertain is the "generosity" of the London Club...

...The case of employees, particularly blue-collar workers, is much more complicated...

...The first declarations of the Alliance's leaders, intended to appease foreign diplomats and international capital, don't augur well for Poland's future...