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Browse Items: Internal politics
Official Romanian Version of December Events
This telegram from the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sent on December 19, comes two days after the shooting of demonstrators in Timisoara and informs Romanian ambassadors abroad of the government's official position on the crisis and how they should handle questions from their foreign hosts about the "so-called events" taking place in their country. Ambassadors were instructed to deny….
Debating the Participation in the Roundtable Talks
Prior to the historic Roundtable Talks between the opposition and the communist party and state officials in Poland, negotiations occurred on many levels, as shown in this document. Not only were participants in the opposition negotiating with communist leaders, but they were also negotiating among themselves. Leaders of the opposition held numerous meetings in the fall of 1988 to discuss the….
Plans for Reorganizing Solidarity
Prior to the historic roundtable talks that took place between February and April 1989 in Poland, preparations took place on many levels. In this letter dated January 20, 1989, a couple of weeks before the beginning of the roundtable talks, Andrzej Stelmachowski, a Solidarity activist, provided suggestions to Solidarity leader Lech Walesa on how to prepare for the upcoming discussions. In….
Solidarity Election Poster for Graznye Staniszewska
Description/Annotation still required. Please refer to Anastasia Mikheeva’s translation of text:
“Vote for Grazyne Staniszewska, Candidate for Sejm”….
Polish Voting Rights
This campaign poster for the Polish Solidarity movement shows Polish voters what was at stake in the upcoming elections in June 1989. Under the terms of the arrangement negotiated with the Communist party, 35% of the seats in the Lower House of the parliament (Sejm) were to be freely contested. However, voters could also vote "no" on candidates for the other seats and if a candidate….
Report from the Working Conference of Opposition Leaders
This report, from September 1, 1988, details the meeting of a diverse coalition of Polish opposition members, consisting of trade unionists, academics, journalists and representatives of the Solidarity movement. They agreed that their major priorities were for talks with the government regarding the status of unions, pluralism, and economic and political reforms. They agreed to the….