POLAND SACHED

From the very beginning, this was a magical country. I could feel the revolution and struggle still electrifying the air. Here is where the Berlin Wall began to fall. With the support of a strong U.S. President (Reagan), the Polish Pope, the legalization of Solidarity in 1989, and Balcerowicz’s plea to Jeffrey Sachs to come revamp the Polish economy in November, 1989, the end of the communist lie was about to commence. I felt like I had traveled back in time to the American Revolution of 1776.

Even as we were checking into the extraordinarily beautiful and brand new Marriott hotel – we discovered we weren’t the first to foray into the emerging economy. There in the lobby was Donald Sutherland and then Willem Defoe. I tucked the sight of these two actors into my memory for later-Gump references. The air was electrified with excitement – like the last day of school before summer vacation – and we were witnesses and participants in this modern miracle.

Sachs played such an important role in the collapse of communism. I developed a keen interest in Jeffrey Sachs’ economics because I had the opportunity to meet with and get to know his friend and implementer, Kevin McDonald later in Warsaw. While communist Poland was being pressured by Russia to hold on tight to control over the Poles through Martial Law -- Solidarity, Ambassador Davies, and the Intelligentsia led by Jacek Kuron were applying pressure that ultimately allowed groups like us through the impermeable membrane that had been created by Stalin.

Poland, like all of the Soviet Union was in financial collapse, which triggered the Shipyard strikes and Solidarity uprisings. While there had been many strikes, and many people had been massacred by the secret police (Zomo) and armies of Russian and Polish troops, it wasn’t’ until Kuron’s Intelligentsia united behind the workers that the strikes were effective (1980). The U.S. Ambassador (Davies) joined with Kuron and attended the trials of the Solidarity leaders in order to show a strong US presence that was monitoring of such illegalities.

(Later as I was ending my journeys into Poland I met a woman, a Joanna Woicjehovicz who had been jailed many times for her association with Solidarity. She shared with me a copy of her prison sentence. Interestingly enough, the sentence handed down on her paper was a dated few weeks before the actual trial date! Could the trials of the members of Solidarity under Gen. Jaruzelski have been “fixed?” But more about Joanna and the rest of Solidarity later).

Finally, after battling and persecuting Solidarity from 1980 to 1989, Balcerowicz, the Minister of Finance approached Jeffrey Sachs to fix their economy as he had Bolivia’s and Argentina’s in the mid to late 1980’s. Sachs tells his story to PBS:
“Nobody knew, of course, that even in Poland the kinds of events that had been seen in Latin America in the mid- to late 1980s would even have a chance of unfolding -- a turn towards democracy and market economy. I never would have dreamt it. When I was approached in January 1989 by a Polish government official, who had watched the Bolivian reforms and then had seen work I had done in Argentina and Brazil, and asked if he could come to Cambridge to discuss Poland's situation, I thought it would be interesting but I didn't think it was going to lead, practically, any place.
“We had a quite fascinating discussion about Poland's financial bankruptcy, what seemed to be a tendency towards utter economic collapse, and so forth. And he finally asked me would I go to Poland and help? And I thought for a moment, how I could best put it? And I finally told him very straightforwardly that I have a lot of concern with what he told me, but I could not work for a communist regime, especially one that had Lech Walesa under arrest and where the Solidarity movement was illegal and repressed. But I left [the door open]. I said, ‘Look, I'm very interested in Poland. If Solidarity is legalized some day, I would be happy to travel to Poland if I could meet not only the government, but also the Solidarity leadership. I think that there are issues that would be worth both sides hearing, and I would be very happy to be part of a constructive process if I could, helping some reconciliation and change. But only if I could meet with Solidarity.’ He gulped and said he understood, and maybe someday.
“He left the office -- this was the end of January 1989 -- and it wasn't four weeks later when he called me up and to my astonishment said, ‘Well, we're going to legalize Solidarity. Now will you come to Poland?’ I don't think they were doing it for me! But it was an incredible coincidence, of course, in timing, and I jumped at the chance and arrived in Poland on April 5, 1989, which was the day of the signing of the round-table agreement between the regime and Solidarity. And that was a round-table agreement, which legalized Solidarity and gave me the opportunity to start to discuss economic reform issues with not only the government but also with those who would very soon be the government,” (Sachs, Jeffrey, June 15, 2000; Commanding Heights, PBS Interview; Retrieved October 10, 2005 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/int_jeffreysachs.html#11

It was the legalization of Solidarity, incited by Jeffrey Sachs – that gave Hungary the courage and ability to open their borders to fleeing East Berlin/German refugees – which spelled the demise of The Wall. So it was the almighty dollar/ Free market system and Poland's trades union of Solidarnosc that contributed to the fall of The Berlin Wall.