An Epochal Shift

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Above all, the events were a remarkable victory for Walesa and for Solidarity, only four months ago a banned organization. The daring and imagination that led to the dramatic developments came largely from Walesa, who shrewdly seized an opportunity to precipitate the change in government by wooing away the Communists' junior parliamentary partners. Walesa then wisely refrained from seeking the Prime Minister's job himself, preferring to work behind the scenes and perhaps eventually make a bid for the presidency.

The turning point came in June, when Solidarity won an overwhelming victory in Poland's most open elections in four decades. The trade-union movement took all 161 seats it was allowed to contest in the Sejm, and 99 of the 100 seats in the Senate. Even so, the Communist Party and its allies, principally the United Peasants' Party and the Democratic Party, retained 299 seats in the 460-member Sejm through a reserved list.

But just as the Communists misjudged their standing with the electorate, they misjudged their allies. The United Peasants and the Democrats, both of which aligned with the Communists after World War II, began pondering their own future in light of Solidarity's sweep. Some of their Deputies began arguing for a break with the regime, to build a political base independent of the Communists in time for the next elections. On July 19 the National Assembly elected Jaruzelski as President, but only with the help of seven senior Solidarity parliamentarians. Eleven Deputies from the Communist alliance voted against him.

Six days later, Walesa met with Jaruzelski and proposed that Solidarity form a government. The new President said no. Instead he invited Solidarity to join a grand coalition government headed by the Communists. Walesa refused. Soon thereafter Jaruzelski stepped down as Communist Party leader in favor of Mieczyslaw Rakowski. The President asked Czeslaw Kiszczak, who has been Interior Minister since 1981, to form a new government. By Aug. 7, Kiszczak had still been unable to do so, and Walesa once again called for a Solidarity- led government. This time he pitched his appeal directly to the United Peasants and the Democrats.

By then the public's tolerance for political infighting was wearing thin. At the same time, a government economic-reform plan had taken effect, causing food prices to shoot up dramatically. Solidarity leaders recognized that their movement would suffer if it stood by while the economy spiraled out of control.

The first real crack in the Communist facade appeared early last week when Kiszczak announced that he was handing over the task of forming a government to Roman Malinowski, president of the Peasants' Party. Jaruzelski never asked Malinowski to form a government; perhaps he calculated that Malinowski would have been unacceptable to Solidarity because of his association with the 1981 martial-law crackdown.

With Kiszczak preparing to bow out, the Solidarity leadership circulated a statement to Peasants' and Democratic Deputies calling on them to join in "a government of national responsibility under the leadership of Lech Walesa." That same night Solidarity legislators and members of the two junior partners in the Communist alliance met. Said Walesa: "I want to help the reform wings of the Peasants' Party and the Democratic Party to get into government and answer the call of the times."