THE RULE OF LAW IN AUTHORITARIAN STATE AND THE PROGRAM OF UNIVERSAL PRIVATIZATION
THE RULE OF LAW IN AUTHORITARIAN STATE AND THE PROGRAM OF UNIVERSAL PRIVATIZATION

HOW THE GDAŃSK LIBERALS SAW THE AGREEMENT WITH THE COMMUNISTS ON THE EVE OF POLISH TRANSFORMATION

Author(s): Jan Śpiewak
Subject(s): Politics, Sociology, Security and defense
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: neoliberalism; democracy; Solidarity; labor movement; intelligentsia; political transformation
Summary/Abstract: In this article, I present the Gdańsk liberal milieu’s idea of political transformation. It was based on two foundations: the idea of an authoritarian rule of law and the universal enfranchisement of citizens on public property. It assumed the creation of a transitional regime, between the totalitarian communist state and a democratic sovereign Poland. The concept of universal enfranchisement, presented by Janusz Lewandowski and Jan Szomburg, implied carrying out an “act of euthanasia” of statism through extensive privatization of state property. The Gdańsk liberals argued that first there must be a change in the economic base in Poland, and only then could the system be fully democratized. The spread of private property was the most important “threshold” of the political transformation that would transform a nation of workers into a nation of free owners.

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