Tadeusz Mazowiecki - Biography

Biography

Mazowiecki comes from a Polish noble family, which uses the Dołęga coat of arms. He has a secondary education - he was a pupil at the Marshal Stanisław Małachowski Lyceum (class 1946), and then went on to read law at Warsaw University. However, he never graduated. From 1945 to 1955, Mazowiecki was a member of the Communist-controlled Catholic PAX Association from which he was later expelled for being the leader of the so-called internal opposition. Between 1953 and 1955, he was the editor-in-chief of the Catholic Wrocław Weekly (WTK - Wrocławski Tygodnik Katolicki). Under Stalinism in Poland he was involved in the defamation of the Bishop of Kielce Czesław Kaczmarek, groundlessly accused by the Communists of being an American and Vatican spy.

He was one of the founding members of the Catholic Intelligentsia Club, which was established in 1957. In 1958, Mazowiecki established Więź monthly and became its editor-in-chief. From 1961-72, he was a representative in the Sejm (the Polish Parliament), serving his third, fourth and fifth terms as a member of the Catholic party Znak. He raised the issue of the students' demonstrations which took place in March 1968, in the Sejm.

After the 1970 protests in Poland, Mazowiecki insisted on setting up a committee in order to find those who were responsible for the bloodshed. When in 1976 he was no longer allowed to run for parliamentary office, he joined the opposition.

In August 1980, he headed the Board of Experts, that supported the workers from Gdańsk who were negotiating with the authorities. From 1981, he was the editor-in-chief of the Tygodnik Solidarność (Solidarity) weekly magazine. After martial law was declared in December 1981 he was arrested and imprisoned in Strzebielnik, then in Jaworz and finally in Darłówek.

He was one of the last prisoners to be released on 23 December 1982. In 1987, he spent a year abroad, during which he talked to politicians and trade union representatives. Starting in 1988, he held talks in Magdalenka. He firmly believed in the process of taking power from the ruling Polish United Workers' Party through negotiation and thus he played an active role in the Polish Round Table Talks, becoming one of the most important architects of the agreement by which partially free elections were held on 4 June 1989 and won by Solidarity in a historic landslide.

At a meeting on 17 August 1989 the Polish President General Wojcicech Jaruzelski finally agreed to Lech Wałęsa's demand that the next Prime Minister of Poland should be a member of Solidarity. Walesa chose Mazowiecki as Solidarity candidate to lead the coming administration. On 21 August 1989 General Jaruzelski designated Mazowiecki as candidate for Prime Minister. On 24 August 1989 the Sejm voted in favour and Mazowiecki became the historic first non-communist Prime Minister in Eastern Europe for decades.