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Poland Marketization and Stabilization
The first noncommunist government in Eastern Europe was
formed in Poland by Tadeusz Mazowiecki after Solidarity
won an
overwhelming victory in the parliamentary election of June
1989.
The government came to office on September 12 and within
one
month announced an ambitious program of economic reforms.
The
objective was not to improve the socialist system, as had
been
the case in previous reforms, but to accomplish a rapid
and
complete transformation from the Soviet-type economy into
a
capitalist system and to reintegrate the Polish economy
into the
world economy.
Under the best of circumstances, accomplishing such a
transformation would be an enormous task. But, like other
Comecon
countries, Poland had an inefficient industrial structure
that
was fuel- and material-intensive and a foreign trade
mechanism
incompatible with expansion of exports to the West. The
inherited
system did not support greater supply of consumer goods,
nor was
it any longer appropriate for trade with Poland's Comecon
partners, all of which were now restructuring their
economies
according to national requirements and resources. Without
fundamental restructuring, the economy faced further
declines in
production, high unemployment, and strong inflationary
pressure.
Therefore, the first postcommunist Polish governments
pursued
economic reform with great urgency, although they had
limited
success.
Data as of October 1992
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