ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with Poland’s external economic relationships in the 1970s and the economic crisis of 1979-82. The communist regime emphasized the deterioration of the external economic environment (Western economic recession, price explosion of oil and raw materials since 1973, worsening terms of trade, growing protectionism in the industrialized West and rapid rise of interest rates on the international capital markets) as the main cause of the economic crisis of 1979-82. The imposition of Western economic sanctions after the declaration of martial law at the end of 1981, which affected the Polish economy unfavourably, seemed to confirm the regime’s argument.
