Editing Polish United Workers' Party (section)

==== Breakdown of autocracy ====
[[image:Spawacz wręcza legitymacje PZPR.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Awarding of party membership booklets by Jaruzelski, 1986]]
The attempt to impose a naked military dictatorship notwithstanding, the policies of [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] stimulated political reform in Poland. By the close of the tenth plenary session in December 1988, the Polish United Workers Party was forced, after [[Strike action|strikes]], to approach leaders of Solidarity for talks.

From 6 February to 15 April 1989, negotiations were held between 13 [[working group]]s during 94 sessions of the [[Polish Round Table Agreement|roundtable talks]].

These negotiations resulted in an agreement that stated that a great degree of political power would be given to a newly created [[bicameral legislature]].  It also created a new post of [[President of the Republic of Poland|president]] to act as head of state and chief executive.  Solidarity was also declared a legal organization. During the following Polish elections the Communists won 65 percent of the seats in the [[Sejm]], though the seats won were guaranteed and the Communists were unable to gain a majority, while 99 out of the 100 seats in the Senate — all freely contested — were won by Solidarity-backed candidates. Jaruzelski won the presidential ballot by one vote.

Jaruzelski was unsuccessful in convincing Wałęsa to include Solidarity in a "grand coalition" with the Communists and resigned his position of general secretary of the Polish United Workers Party. The PZPR' two allied parties broke their long-standing alliance, forcing Jaruzelski to appoint Solidarity's [[Tadeusz Mazowiecki]] as the country's first non-communist prime minister since 1948. Jaruzelski resigned as Poland's president in 1990, being succeeded by Wałęsa in December.