The Polish Economic Crisis

In order to understandthe dramatic events of 1989 it is necessary to examine the circumstances leading up to them. As is often the case in revolutions, the fundamental factors can be traced some way back and are largely of an economic nature. In analysing then economic crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s The Polish Economic Crisis examines one of the key factors in the events of 1989 and places it in its wider political-economic context. Batara Simatupang identifies the issues involved in this depression and finds these to be a combination of governmental economic incompetence, an inefficient economic system, a lumbering bureaucracy and the tenuous legitimacy of the ruling communist party - all set within the international economic environment which Poland then existed. The book also analyses the aftermath of this crisis and the transition to the new crisis of 1989. The apparent inital success of the regime in overcoming the crisis of 1979-82 proved to be temporary. Its poor economic performance, the failed attempt to reform the economic and political systems in 1988-89, the loss of geopolitical support and the disintegration of the state socialism, all culminated in a new and much more serious crisis. Unlike previous ones, this could not be resolved by regulation through crisis' but resulted in the collapse of the regime. This event made possible the combination of a deflationary shock and a rapid transition to a market economy in 1990. The Polish Economic Crisis traces the path to political breakthrough in Poland in 1989 and relates it to the collapse of really existing socialism' in the rest of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.