ABSTRACT
Poland’s transformation after 1989 was made up of two dimensions. The first was part of the general regional shift away from communism and towards democracy, the market and Europe. The second was a return to its pre-communist traditions and some aspects of its historical institutional and political dynamics. The latter partly overlapped with the former but it also threw up numerous obstacles to the smooth adaptation of democratic capitalism as well. As we have seen, communism in power soon assumed a national dress in Poland. This meant that many traditional institutions and practices such as the Sejm and the concept of parliamentary sovereignty as well as numerous judicial and administrative bodies not only survived but, also, proved surprisingly easy to re-animate in the democratic era. The same, as it turned out, could not be said for the interwar political parties. Some cultural values were also heavily modified by the modernisation and secularisation aspects of the communist experience.
