The Polish Round Table and the Fall of Communism
By 1988 Poland's Communist government was economically bankrupt. The Round Table Agreement of 5 April 1989 legalised Solidarity and created semi-free elections. On 4 June 1989 Solidarity won every freely contested seat in the lower house and 99 of 100 Senate seats. In August 1989 Tadeusz Mazowiecki became the first non-Communist prime minister in Eastern Europe since 1948. The Polish transition was the first domino. Hungary opened its borders in May 1989, allowing East Germans to flee west. The Berlin Wall fell in November. Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, Romania's violent overthrow of Ceaușescu, Bulgaria's managed transition — all followed within the year. Poland's negotiated, peaceful exit from communism offered the model that made 1989's revolution largely bloodless.
- Year: 1989 CE
- Category: Political
