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Social Democracy in East-Central Europe: Success by Default?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Hubert Tworzecki
Hubert Tworzecki
Affiliation:
Emory University
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Extract

In the parliamentary elections of 2001, Poland's ex-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) won more than three times the number of votes than any other party, registering its best result since 1989 and simultaneously delivering a crushing blow to the ruling Solidarity-led coalition, which not only lost power but also failed to win any seats in the lower house of parliament. If at the time of communism's collapse someone had gazed into a crystal ball and predicted that Solidarity's heirs would suffer from almost continuous disarray and the SLD would emerge as the country's most successful political party, he would have been dismissed as a crank. For a number of reasons, ranging from the country's strong religious traditions, to a political culture that saw the communist system and its servants as a basically alien force, to a long history of political contestation of communism, culminating in the rise of the Solidarity movement in 1980, Poland was the one East European country in which such a result must have seemed particularly unlikely. Further, given Poland's singularly dismal economic performance under communist rule (hardly conducive to nostalgic feelings), as well as the country's relative success with market reforms in the 1990s, one could not easily explain the ex-communist left's electoral gains as simply the result of a backlash against the consequences of economic transition.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 15 , Issue 1: Special Issue: The Future of the Democratic Left in Industrial Democracies , January 2003 , pp. 94 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2003

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References

Notes

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15. Aleksander Kwasniewski, the future two-term President of Poland, was the SdRP's first chairman. His relative youth (he was thirty-six at the time) added to the suggestion that the party was betting its hopes on a new generation of leaders. Grabowska, Miroslawa and Szawiel, Tadeusz, eds., Anatomia Elit Politycznych. Partie Polityczne W Postkomunistycznej Polsce (The Anatomy of Political Elites: Political Parties in Postcommunist Poland) (Warsaw, 1993).Google Scholar

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17. The 80 percent figure is based on a survey of delegates to the SdRP's 1993 National Congress as reported in Grabowska and Szawiel eds., Anatomia Elit Politycznych: Partie Polityczne W Postkomunistycznej Polsce (The Anatomy of Political Elites: Political Parties in Postcommunist Poland).

18. Ibid.

19. “Socjaldemokracja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej: Program Spoleczno-Gospodarczy, 1990r” (Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland: Socioeconomic Program, 1990). Reprinted in Slodkowska, ed., Programy Partii I Ugrupowan Parlamentarnych, 1989–1991 (Programs of Parties and Parliamentary Groups, 1989–1991).

20. All three constitutional documents from this period (1947, 1952, and 1976) spoke of a “right” to employment, which was often touted by the regime in its propaganda efforts as one of the greatest accomplishments of socialism.

21. “Stanowisko Rady Naczelnej SdRP w Sprawach Miedzynarodowych, 3 Marca 1990r” (Position of SdRP's Governing Council on International Relations, 10 March 1990). Reprinted in Slodkowska, ed., Programy Partii I Ugrupowan Parlamentarnych, 1989–1991 (Programs of Parties and Parliamentary Groups, 1989–1991).

22. As the SdRP was preparing to compete in the first fully free parliamentary elections, to be held in the fall of 1991, it formed an electoral coalition with several dozen other organizations, of which the most significant was the All-Polish Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ), a labor federation developed and promoted by the former communist regime as an alternative to Solidarity. The coalition was called the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), and this became the name under which the ex-communist left would henceforth run in parliamentary elections. In June 1999 the party formally changed its name from SdRP to SLD.

23. Election materials referred to here come from a collection maintained by the Public Documents department of the University of Warsaw library.

24. The so-called liberal parties (liberal in the West European rather than American sense), such as the Democratic Union (UD) and the Liberal-Democratic Congress (KLD), were the only ones that defended the policies of economic transformation, partly as a matter of principle and partly because these policies were largely the work of liberal-affiliated politicians.

25. “Manifest programowy Sojuszu Lewicy Demokratycznej” (Programmatic Manifesto of the Democratic Left Alliance), December 1999. Author's collection.

26. The issue of whether the state treasury or the SdRP/SLD was legally entitled to these assets was the subject of numerous parliamentary debates, several pieces of legislation, several decisions of the Constitutional Court, two presidential vetoes, and a criminal investigation. The results of all this legal wrangling have not proved conclusive either way; nonetheless, over the course of the decade the SdRP/SLD certainly benefited from taking over (or at least having the use of) a portion of PZPR's assets.

27. Walecki, Marcin, “Dochody Polskich Partii Politycznych—Regulacje Prawne I Praktyka” (Revenues of Polish Political Parties—Legal Regulations and Practice), in Finansowanie Polityki: Wybory, Pieniadze, Partie Polityczne, ed. Walecki, Marcin (Warsaw, 2000).Google Scholar

28. While the liberals (UD, KLD) preferred to side-step the issue, the only non-excommunist parties to question openly the “Christian values” approach were the Democratic-Social Movement (RDS) and Labor Solidarity (SP). The two joined together in 1992 to form the Labor Union (UP), which was initially conceived as a leftist alternative to the SLD. Eventually, however, the SLD's pull became irresistible and the two organizations fielded joint SLD-UP lists of candidates in the 2001 elections.

29. “Deklaracja Wyborcza Sojuszu Lewicy Demokratycznej, 1991” (Electoral Declaration of the Democratic Left Alliance, 1991). Author's collection.

30. Surveys by firms such as CBOS showed that the church's approval ratings had slipped from close to 90 percent at the start of the decade to around 60 percent by the mid-1990s. An overview of findings on attitudes toward the church and religion is available on the CBOS: <http://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/1999/KOM078/KOM078.HTM>

31. The term “thick line” came into widespread use after a speech by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Poland's first postcommunist prime minister and leader of the Democratic Union party, in which he came out in favor of just such “moving on.” The speech soon became a focal point of political debate between the right and the liberals, and was seen by the former as proof of the latter's “softness on communism.” See Krol, Marcin, “Ewolucja, Restauracja, Amnezja: O Pamieci W Czasach Postkomunistycznych” (Evolution, Restoration, Amnesia: On Memory in Postcommunist Times), Res Publica 5, no. 5 (1991).Google Scholar

32. An analysis of several annual surveys, conducted in the mid-1990s under the auspices of the Central European University in Budapest, revealed that about 80 percent of Polish respondents would consistently express a negative opinion toward giving religion a significant role in political life. Opinion about settling accounts with the communist past was more evenly divided, with about one-third of respondents in favor of “decommunization,” one-third against, and one-third neutral on the issue. See Tworzecki, Hubert, Learning to Choose: Electoral Politics in East-Central Europe (Stanford, 2002).Google Scholar

33. Ibid.