Pinched by the Privations of Freedom : Poland: The difficult free-market transformation has many yearning for the bad old days of communism.

Five years ago in Poland, a Solidarity-led parliamentary coalition defied the communist regime and formed a government around Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a Solidarity leader and long-time adviser to Lech Walesa. That act signaled the end of the totalitarian phase of Polish political life and the beginning of a historic era of political and economic transition, an era known as “post-communism.”

While at first Polish political elites and Western analysts thought that a sustainable political democracy and market economy could be built in five to 10 years, the complexity of the systemic changes required is now better understood, and it is likely that Poland’s post-communist era will last almost as long as its communist period. Moreover, five years into the transformation, Polish post-communism has manifested several characteristic features that were not anticipated:

* The return of old elites. One of the least expected recent developments is the re-emergence of the old power elite as the new power elite. It was the communist nomenklatura, not the working-class members of Solidarity, who were best positioned in 1989 to exploit the chaotic atmosphere of political and economic transformation. People like Jerzy Urban, the former spokesman for the regime and now one of Poland’s most successful businessmen, were able to peddle influence in the unregulated financial environment and to exploit their connections with the mid-level bureaucracy. In the suburbs of Warsaw, villas are being built to complement the luxurious lifestyles of these former apparatchiks, frustrating the average citizen who has neither the capital nor the contacts with which to exploit the fruits of the people’s long fight. This new/old social elite has significant linkages with fellow travelers in the current post-communist government who, if history is any indicator, will not be immune to self-interest and corruption in Poland’s uncontrolled political culture.

* Lessening of the free market’s legitimacy. While Poland is considered by the West to be an economic success story, Polish society has paid a heavy price for macroeconomic success through shock therapy, and this has affected the social legitimacy of economic reform and of the notion of the free market. Two-thirds of Polish society is financially worse off now compared with five years ago. Inflation is still high (averaging 40%), unemployment is climbing (topping 15%) and prices for household basics such as milk and bread are increasing 50% per year. More than half of all Poles have no savings whatsoever, and the homeless--hitherto unseen--have become a common sight. Paradoxically to most Poles, as citizens pay taxes for the first time, social safety nets are being torn down, with drastic cuts imposed on spending on health care, education, pensions and unemployment benefits.

As the number of victims of economic reform rises, society’s commitment to the free market, or to “capitalism with a wolf’s face” as Citizens’ Rights leader Tadeusz Zielinski recently put it, is diminishing. According to recent surveys, seven in 10 Poles are dissatisfied with the results of economic reform and 39% would like the economy to be “closer to a socialist economy.” Popular support for the economic reform program stands at only 12%, with the majority of Poles stating that their country is heading in the “wrong direction.” This disenchantment with economic reform is reflected in a conversation I listened to several weeks ago in Warsaw between two university students. They were discussing the difficulties of daily life in modern Poland, and after a long, heated discussion one student finally concluded “We voted for democracy and what we got was capitalism!”

* Popular cynicism toward politics. Surprisingly, in the country where the broad-based sociopolitical movement Solidarity brought down communism, politics today is seen as an inaccessible forum for change. Society feels alienated from the public policy-making process, thanks both to the Solidarity-led governments of the early 1990s, which were perceived as elitist and insensitive to the suffering of society, and to the new post-communist government, which displays a tendency toward secrecy reminiscent of the communist era. In a return of the old “us versus them” dynamic, the government makes little effort to explain even the most basic aspects of the national economic and political program. Thus, even important state programs, such as privatization, remain an enigma to most Poles.

The appointment of former communists to important state positions only fuels this cynicism. According to recent surveys, 41% of Poles feel that the current political system is closer to an “undemocratic” system than a democratic one in terms of its representation of the needs and aspirations of the people, and only 1% are “satisfied” with the way democracy works in Poland. Most Poles suspect those in power of enriching themselves at the public’s expense, with close to 80% stating that political elites use their position to promote their private interests.

* Nostalgia for the “old” system. A series of graffiti scrawled on a Warsaw building proclaims: “Bring back communism!” “We never had communism!” “Then bring back what we had!” The difficulties that encumber Polish society during the early phase of the post-communist transformation are fostering a misguided nostalgia for a past that is falsely idealized. But to an increasing majority of Poles, the basic employment security and the provision of social services supposedly enjoyed in the Polish People’s Republic overshadow the new reality of having a choice among products and not having to stand in line for hours to buy them. With more than 75% of Poles finding a summer vacation unaffordable this year, appreciation of the freedom to travel diminishes in nostalgia for the “good old days” of guaranteed holidays.

This nostalgia for the past has permeated even younger generations as they form their beliefs about what constitutes democracy. Teaching a class at the University of Warsaw, I asked my students to define democracy. Expecting a discussion on individual liberties and authentically elected institutions, I was surprised to hear my students respond that to them, democracy means a government obligation to maintain a certain standard of living and to provide health care, education and housing for all. In other words, socialism.

While nostalgia for the past has become a common refrain in Poland, no political party has yet openly advocated a return to the past system. The anti-Solidarity coalition won because it succeeded in conveying the message that it could combine the new freedoms (including many aspects of the free market) with the social security of the past. As Polish leaders struggle to sustain the country’s high growth rate and to continue the process of privatization, bringing higher prices and increased unemployment, social discontent will increase, memories of the past will become rosier and parties that advocate government paternalism will become the dominant political preference. That is exactly the danger that the ongoing economic difficulties, the popular cynicism and the nostalgia for the past are fostering.