Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Pisma i dokumenty. Protokoły posiedzeń rządu 1989–1991
Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Writings and Documents. Minutes of Cabinet Meetings 1989–1991

Contributor(s): Andrzej Kaczyński (Editor), Wojciech Mazowiecki (Editor), Jacek Wojnicki (Editor)
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, History, Government/Political systems, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Tadeusz Mazowiecki; systemic transition; Third Polish Republic
Summary/Abstract: Tadeusz Mazowiecki (1927–2013), the first non-communist prime minister of Poland after the Second World War, was undoubtedly a major figure of Polish political life of the second half of the twentieth century. This has spurred the initiative to compile a multi-volume edition of Mazowiecki’s scattered writings and documents connected with him, which would encompass the entirety of his time as a social and political activist. The minutes of Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s cabinet meetings comprise the second volume in a series of writings and documents associated with this politician, being published since 2023 by the University of Warsaw Press in cooperation with the University of Warsaw’s Tadeusz Mazowiecki Chair and Faculty of Political Science and International Relations. The publication coincides with the thirty-fifth anniversary of the swearing in of the first non-communist cabinet in post-War World Two Poland. This is the first time the minutes are presented to the public. A matter-of-fact, minimalistic record of key tasks faced and decisions made captures the character of the government’s meetings and workings. The minutes document the scale and pace of the introduced changes, showing what and when most important at a time when everything was changing and every change mattered. They trace the emergence of a democratic state after decades of authoritarian rule and of a free-market economy replacing a communist economy of scarcity. They detail all major international dealings of the cabinet, and are a source of information about present-day institutions, then in the making. Mazowiecki’s government laid foundations for a new Polish statehood – in a country devastated economically and politically by almost half a century of communist rule. It transitioned Poland from authoritarianism to democracy, and its economy from inefficient systemic poverty to free market. These reforms were not perfect, but they were revolutionary, though implemented in an evolutionary fashion. The fifteen months of Mazowiecki’s government proved enough to begin strategic changes in all areas of Polish life, changes that would be continued afterwards. They were not enough, however, for all these changes to be completed under Mazowiecki’s government – even though it is this government that was blamed for the errors and mistakes of the systemic transition, not its critics and successors. Tadeusz Mazowiecki was a man who attached great importance to the world of values. He perceived politics as acting for the sake of the common good. Today this no longer is a feature associated with politicians. This is all the more reason to offer a reminder that there was a time when politics could be done differently, and that this time was not that long ago.

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