The Polish Round Table Talks took place in Warsaw, communist Poland, from 6 February to 5 April 1989. The government initiated talks with the banned trade union Solidarity and other opposition groups to defuse growing social unrest.
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👉 Polish Round Table Agreement in the context of 1988 Polish strikes
The 1988 Polish strikes were a massive wave of workers' strikes which broke out from 21 April 1988 in the Polish People's Republic.
The strikes, as well as street demonstrations, continued throughout spring and summer, ending in early September 1988. These actions shook the Communist regime of the country to such an extent that it was forced to begin talking about recognising Solidarity. As a result, later that year, the regime decided to negotiate with the opposition, which opened way for the 1989 Round Table Agreement. The second, much bigger wave of strikes (August 1988) surprised both the government, and top leaders of Solidarity, who were not expecting actions of such intensity. These strikes were mostly organized by local activists, who had no idea that their leaders from Warsaw had already started secret negotiations with the Communists.
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Polish Round Table Agreement in the context of Peaceful Revolution
The Peaceful Revolution (German: Friedliche Revolution) – also, in German called Die Wende (German pronunciation: [diː ˈvɛndə], "the turning point") – was one of the peaceful revolutions of 1989 at the peak of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s. It was a process of sociopolitical change that led to, among other openings, the opening of their borders to the Western world.
These events were precipitated by Solidarity's peaceful revolution in Poland and enabled by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to abandon intervention in the Soviet sphere of influence and other shifts to the Soviet Union's foreign policy.