Suchergebnisse

Towards the big opening, the late 1960s -- Bold and ambitious : a new national strategy, 1971-2 -- Perfect timing? 1973-5 -- Defending the status quo, 1976-80 -- Prosperity, progress, profit, and peace : the goals and expectations of the licence policy -- The deal of the decade : Italy, Fiat, and the production of passenger cars -- Cementing political rapprochement : France, Berliet, and new city buses -- Facing electronic giants : the FRG and audio equipment -- Gains and losses of the licence policy.

In the 1970s, the Polish socialist regime substantially broadened its political and economic cooperation with Western Europe. By doing so, it actively participated in the creation of the European détente and the enhancement of globalisation. However, while initially bringing promising results, this strategy made Poland the most indebted and politically unstable socialist country in Europe in the 1980s. Examining the socialist elites' attitudes towards cooperation with Western Europe in the late Gomu?ka era and in the Gierek period, the chapter explains the rationale behind decisions such as raising foreign debt, purchasing Western licences or expanding contacts with Western politicians. It argues that Poland's opening was driven by the confidence and unity of the socialist elites, which declined throughout the decade, leaving the socialist regime not only dependent on the West but also in internal decay and seriously undermined in its legitimacy.

In the 1970s, the Polish socialist regime substantially broadened its political and economic cooperation with Western Europe. By doing so, it actively participated in the creation of the European détente and the enhancement of globalisation. However, while initially bringing promising results, this strategy made Poland the most indebted and politically unstable socialist country in Europe in the 1980s. Examining the socialist elites' attitudes towards cooperation with Western Europe in the late Gomu?ka era and in the Gierek period, the chapter explains the rationale behind decisions such as raising foreign debt, purchasing Western licences or expanding contacts with Western politicians. It argues that Poland's opening was driven by the confidence and unity of the socialist elites, which declined throughout the decade, leaving the socialist regime not only dependent on the West but also in internal decay and seriously undermined in its legitimacy.

This book offers an international reading of the Polish socialist regime's history in the 1970s, and its opening up to the West. It bridges Poland's socialist domestic history with critical developments of the global and European 1970s, including détente in the Cold War, western European integration, and globalisation. In this period of international transformations, socialist Poland under Edward Gierek's leadership multiplied its economic and political contacts with capitalist countries, especially western Europe, and became a leader of East-West cooperation among Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and Warsaw Pact members. Relying on sources from public and corporate archives in five different European states, the book demonstrates both that the global political and economic transformations of that period were critical for the decision-making process in Poland and, moreover, that the national socialist elites participated in shaping these transformations. By looking at the goals and expectations of the Polish socialist elites and their practices of political and economic exchanges with western Europe, the book explains the logic which drove the socialist regime into entanglement with the West. As is shown here, this entanglement proved inextricable and critical for the socialist regime's failure and Poland's political and economic future.