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The thick line policy (Polish: gruba kreska, thick stroke, or gruba linia, thick line) was the term used by prime minister of Poland, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, in the exposé[pl] delivered in the Sejm, on September 12th 1989.[1]
He said, "We split away the history of our recent past with a thick line. We will be responsible only for what we have done to help extract Poland from her current predicament, from now on". (Przeszłość odkreślamy grubą linią. Odpowiadać będziemy jedynie za to, co uczyniliśmy, by wydobyć Polskę z obecnego stanu załamania.)[2]
Tadeusz Mazowiecki in November 1989, on a campaign trail in Krzyżowa.
In more recent years, his intentions were considered by many people, and his gruba kreska is often understood as a policy of nonpunishment for crimes committed by the communist regime of pre-1989 Poland.[3][4][5]
The president of the Council of Ministers, colloquially and commonly referred to as the prime minister, is the head of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The responsibilities and traditions of the office stem from the creation of the contemporary Polish state, and the office is defined in the Constitution of Poland. According to the Constitution, the president nominates and appoints the prime minister, who will then propose the composition of the Cabinet. Fourteen days following their appointment, the prime minister must submit a programme outlining the government's agenda to the Sejm, requiring a vote of confidence. Conflicts stemming from both interest and powers have arisen between the offices of President and Prime Minister in the past.
Adam Michnik is a Polish historian, essayist, former dissident, public intellectual, as well as co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza.
The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, Poland from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarność and other opposition groups in an attempt to defuse growing social unrest.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime minister since 1946, having held the post from 1989 to 1991.
Presidential elections were held in Poland on 25 November 1990, with a second round on 9 December. They were the first direct presidential elections in the history of Poland, and the first free presidential elections since the May Coup of 1926. Before World War II, presidents were elected by the Sejm. From 1952 to 1989—the bulk of the Communist era—the presidency did not exist as a separate institution, and most of its functions were fulfilled by the State Council of Poland, whose chairman was considered the equivalent of a president.
Mieczysław Franciszek Rakowski was a Polish communist politician, historian and journalist who was Prime Minister of Poland from 1988 to 1989. He served as the seventh and final First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party from 1989 to 1990.
Bronisław Wildstein is a former Polish dissident, a journalist, freelance author and, from 11 May 2006 to 28 February 2007, was the chief executive officer of Telewizja Polska. Wildstein rose to nationwide prominence in Poland in January and February 2005, after he smuggled files on informers and victims of the former communist secret police from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) and distributed them to fellow journalists. The files are commonly referred to as "Wildstein's list".
Stanisław "Stan" Tymiński is a Canadian businessman of Polish origin, dealing in electronics and computers, and a sometime-politician in both Poland and Canada. Although Tymiński was born in Pruszków, he was a completely unknown person in his native Poland until shortly before the 1990 presidential election, he emerged from the first ballot as the second strongest candidate; defeating liberal prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and forcing Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa to stand a second ballot. After Wałęsa defeated him by a wide margin, Tymiński was a leader of Party X in Poland (1990–1995) and then returned to Canada to resume his business activities. Tymiński also contested the 2005 Polish presidential election.
The history of Poland from 1945 to 1989 spans the period of Marxist–Leninist regime in Poland after the end of World War II. These years, while featuring general industrialization, urbanization and many improvements in the standard of living,[a1] were marred by early Stalinist repressions, social unrest, political strife and severe economic difficulties. Near the end of World War II, the advancing Soviet Red Army, along with the Polish Armed Forces in the East, pushed out the Nazi German forces from occupied Poland. In February 1945, the Yalta Conference sanctioned the formation of a provisional government of Poland from a compromise coalition, until postwar elections. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, manipulated the implementation of that ruling. A practically communist-controlled Provisional Government of National Unity was formed in Warsaw by ignoring the Polish government-in-exile based in London since 1940.
The Solidarity Citizens' Committee, also known as Citizens' Electoral Committee and previously named the Citizens' Committee with Lech Wałęsa, was an initially semi-legal political organisation of the democratic opposition in Communist Poland.
The Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action was a political faction in Poland coalescing several members of the Solidarity Citizens' Committee.
Communism in Poland can trace its origins to the late 19th century: the Marxist First Proletariat party was founded in 1882. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania party and the publicist Stanisław Brzozowski (1878–1911) were important early Polish Marxists.
Robert Leszek Moczulski is a Polish historian and politician, a member of various organizations, first supporting then supposedly opposing the communist regime in the People's Republic of Poland while dividing the opposition movement.
Parliamentary elections were held in Poland on 4 June 1989 to elect members of the Sejm and the recreated Senate, with a second round on 18 June. They were the first elections in the country since the communist government abandoned its monopoly of power in April 1989 and the first elections in the Eastern Bloc that resulted in the communist government losing power.
Solidarity, a Polish non-governmental trade union, was founded on August 14, 1980, at the Lenin Shipyards by Lech Wałęsa and others. In the early 1980s, it became the first independent labor union in a Soviet-bloc country. Solidarity gave rise to a broad, non-violent, anti-Communist social movement that, at its height, claimed some 9.4 million members. It is considered to have contributed greatly to the Fall of Communism.
Tygodnik Solidarność is a Polish right-wing weekly magazine. Started and published by the Solidarity movement on 3 April 1981, it was banned a year later by the People's Republic of Poland following the martial law declaration from 13 December 1981 and the thaw of 1989. It was legalized in June 1989 after the Polish legislative elections, 1989.
Communist crimes is a legal definition used in the Polish Penal Code. The concept of a communist crime is also used more broadly internationally, and is employed by human rights non-governmental organizations as well as government agencies such as the Unitas Foundation, the Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism, the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania, and the Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism.
Polish underground press, devoted to prohibited materials, has a long history of combatting censorship of oppressive regimes in Poland. It existed throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including under foreign occupation of the country, as well as during the totalitarian rule of the pro-Soviet government. Throughout the Eastern Bloc, bibuła published until the collapse of communism was known also as samizdat.
Marcin Święcicki is a Polish politician and economist. He is a former deputy minister of economy, former minister for foreign economic relations as well as a former city mayor of Warsaw.
Tadeusz Kowalik was a Polish economist, public intellectual and political and social activist. As a prolific publicist in the area of political economy, he is notable for his dissenting leftist views expressed during the Polish systemic transformation.
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