From the Idea of Self-Management to Capitalism: The Characteristics of the Polish Transformation Process

The Polish “Solidarity” was the largest independent self-governing mass movement in the Eastern European region, which after the transition fell apart. This article is seeking to answer the question; how could pure market capitalism also be established in Poland, which fully contradicted the “Solidarity” self-governing socialism theory? How was it that such a large mass movement could disappear under these new circumstances? The Polish opposition activists (Kuroń, Modzelewski, Kołakowski, Brus, Michnik) wanted to establish a “self-governing socialism” together with the working class from the middle of the 1960s. In the years 1980–81 this was also established for a short period during the “Solidarity”. After the introduction of Martial law, due to the world economic system, the indebtedness of socialist economics and the pressure of international financial institutions it was impossible to resolve the crisis in a “socialist way”. In addition to this the revolutionary changes within the industry scattered the classical working class, which was the basis of the “Solidarity”. This article strives to answer these questions based on archive documentation, while comparing Polish events with Hungarian. This article finds it is important to analyze the role of historical traditions and the transformation of the world economic system at the same time. This shows the specialities and resemblances of the countries in the Central Eastern European region.