ABSTRACT
Privatization, in the sense of transferring ownership of state property to private organizations or individuals, has been a key goal of all four of Poland's post-communist governments. The "spontaneous privatization" episode of 1989-1990 can be regarded as the first phase of privatization in Poland. During this phase members of the Polish United Workers' Party (PUWP) nomenklatura expropriated state property in an attempt to broker their political elite status under socialism into economic elite status under capitalism. The second phase can be linked to the passage of privatization legislation in July 1990, which both sanctioned a wide variety of state-controlled "outsider" privatization techniques and created the Ministry of Ownership Transformation to implement them. The new Ministry attempted privatization according to the "British model," based upon open stock sales to the public, during the second half of 1990. Poland's performance in attracting foreign capital since the PUWP lost power in August 1989 has been mixed at best.
