ABSTRACT
The terminal state of Polish communism and its failure to evolve were in most ways made evident during 1980–81, well before the communist loss of power in 1989. The analysis of politics in terms of saints and demons, decried by PCI leader Enrico Berlinguer, was virtually unavoidable in the Polish context as these were precisely the terms in which the communist period was generally understood. The failure of political evolution in Poland was most obviously reflected in the country’s poor economic record and political inability to introduce effective reform measures in the face of apparatus resistance. Such obstacles to communist evolution continued to be reflected in the problematic course of post-communist development.
