5 ms·
Poland's first partly free election was on 4 June 1989, preceded by the roundtable negotiations. The protests in Czechoslovakia came later, called the Velvet R
by jakozaur 4mo ago
Poland's first partly free election was on 4 June 1989, preceded by the roundtable negotiations.
The protests in Czechoslovakia came later, called the Velvet Revolution, from 17 to 28 November 1989. In June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections, a year after Poland.
Poland paved the way for the whole of central and eastern Europe. The Round Table produced the negotiated-exit template that Hungary built on in its own talks that summer, and that Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the Baltics drew on as their regimes fell within months.
And it did so from the deepest macroeconomic crisis of any of the satellite states: hyperinflation running into the hundreds of percent by late 1989, an unresolved sovereign default from 1981, and chronic shortages.
Since then Poland has converged fastest of any of them. From a low base it has climbed to the upper-middle of central and eastern Europe by GDP per capita PPP, overtaken Hungary, and is now closing on Czechia and Slovenia.
- somenameforme 4mo agoI'm curious what this means in real terms from the perspective of a Pole. GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. For instance Ireland has one of the highest GDP/capitas in the world -- around 50% higher than the US. But that's because of economic games with their working as a tax haven to enable corporations to avoid paying taxes to their home countries. It doesn't translate to anything for the average Irishman.
- rayiner 4mo ago> GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. "Often" is the wrong modifier. GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person. If you look at the GDP/capita growth in India and China since 1990, or South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, since 1950, that reflects very real increases in material standards for ordinary people. There's two, relatively well-understood situations where GDP/capita isn't reflective: 1) Countries where the economy is dominated by resource extraction or tourism 2) Tax havens But it's pretty easy to tell whether one of these exceptions applies. It doesn't in the case of Poland, which has a broad, diversified economy with a high level of industrial production.
- standeven 4mo agoIsn’t GDP pretty easy to boost with deregulation and government overspending, at least in the short term? Neither of which benefits the people.
- bobthepanda 4mo agoYou can’t really keep that up over 35 years though, which is what Poland has achieved.
- philwelch 4mo agoDeregulation does benefit the people, at least if it's done in ways that lead to sustained economic growth.
- mejutoco 4mo ago> GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person GDP is an average, not a median, so it might align with the average person, not the median. The average/mean can hide many things (see Anscombe s quartet) which is one of the problems with GDP IMO.
- rayiner 4mo agoIt depends what you’re using the data for. If you’re comparing across countries, or looking at a developing country over time, it’s a relatively small factor. The ratio between the average and the median isn’t that big even in the U.S. (about 1.3). Meanwhile, Poland’s GDP per capita has tripled since 2005: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=PL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location....
- mejutoco 4mo ago> The ratio between the average and the median isn’t that big even in the U.S. (about 1.3) Being off by 30% might not matter for some usages, but it is not a small amount. It seems the median is more accurate to report and we agree.
- scyzoryk_xyz 4mo agoAs a Polish millenial the perspective is a rollercoaster. In one way the transformation of absolutely everything over and over and over is mind blowing in a positive way. OTOH we're also all paranoid running on what feels like a never ending hamster wheel of inflation, raises and mortgages. And then Gen-Z's feel straight get up locked out of everything. We visit western European countries and it's like WTF it's cheaper here? The multi-generational spread is wild - my boss remembers being raised in 80's scarcity culture verging on 2-3rd world hunger. But our entry level employees are running around demanding everyone to be up to date with everything they see and hear in these little glowing rectangles. It's like two separate progressions have been superimposed on top of each other.
- mjtk 4mo agoVibecession at country scale. Seems like growth feels like instability for many citizens.
- daliusd 4mo agoSame story in Lithuania
- sam_lowry_ 4mo agoAlso economic inequality is quite differently shaped across ages People over 60 are poor, 40..60 are a mixed bag, 20..40 are struggling to keep up.
- pseudohadamard 4mo agoThe Baltic states are a pretty odd mix, Estonia could be any western European country while Latvia next door still feels in places like the Red Army has only just pulled out. It was quite a jolt going from one to the other. Mind you since we'd started from Russia both of them looked pretty good in comparison, that place was dire.
- boogierobis 4mo agoDude has not been to Narva lol
- felixg3 4mo agoWithin a short time, especially since the EU accession, the development of Poland is just remarkable. I have personally spent a lot of time there and I think the quality of life, safety, access to healthcare, is excellent. Sure, it’s not perfect, but - I know, capital city bias, but I can’t think of a better place. Macro data, as imperfect as they are, reveal a dramatic trajectory in Life expectancy, HDI, while the gini-coefficient remained relatively stable.
- pipes 4mo agoI'm Irish. Well northern Irish. The Republic Ireland seems a lot richer than when I was growing up in n. Ireland. Ireland is the second biggest exporter of software in the world now. I'm pretty certain the tax paid by both corporations and their well paid staff definitely translate to something for the average Irish man. Even if he thinks it doesn't.
- wooger 4mo agoUS tech companies that 'on paper' export software from Ireland as a tax loophole make it technically the 2nd biggest exporter of software in the world. There are more people in single 2nd tier city metro areas in other European countries than in the whole of Ireland.
- kazinator 4mo agoThe protests in Czechoslovakia came earlier, in 1968! The Soviets rolled in the tanks in response. Poland had a mass solidarity movement rise up in 1980. The USSR didn't decide to send in the military then; they were lucky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_reaction_to_the_Polish_crisis_of_1980%E2%80%931981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_reaction_to_the_Polish_... There was a lot of unrest in Poland, and general strikes. Martial law was imposed. If you were an immigrant from Czechslovakia in a refugee camp in Austria at around that time, you'd be learning to speak Polish.
- cromka 4mo agoSo 1990 Eastern Europe freed itself thanks to... 1968 Czechoslovakia?
- kazinator 4mo agoOf course not (but we can't say it didn't matter, either).
- keiferski 4mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Pozna%C5%84_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Pozna%C5%84_protests
- legulere 4mo agoEven earlier in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953 Here in Germany they very often talk about the importance of what happened in Poland for the reunification
- card_zero 4mo agoI'm enjoying the way this dispute reflects on the USSR. We were the first to try to escape! No, we were the first, years before that! No, you're both wrong, it was us!
- eduction 4mo agoSelf glorifying nonsense. Gorbachev ALLOWED Poland to not get crushed. You think Poles were any braver in 1989 than the Chinese people who laid down their lives in Tiananmen? You think your solidarity was in any way superior to what they did, what the Hungarians and Czechs did decades earlier? You succeeded due to good timing and because Gorby was your ultimate overlord rather than Deng Xiaopong. Poles should go thank him. Stephen Kotkin says this much better than I ever could. https://youtu.be/0tXvLJXkFFg?t=295&si=26yINqxrcSdOUxCv https://youtu.be/0tXvLJXkFFg?t=295&si=26yINqxrcSdOUxCv