Tadeusz Mazowiecki

Shortly after World War II Tadeusz Mazowiecki graduated from the Warsaw University, faculty of law. Until 1955 he was a member of a Catholic organization, Pax; he was later removed from its membership list. In 1958 he was one of the founding members of Więź monthly, one of the few relatively democratic newspapers in Poland at that time. Between 1961 and 1971 Mazowiecki was a member of the Polish sejm as a member of Znak Christian democratic movement.
In 1970, after peaceful demonstrations of workers were brutally suppressed by the Communist authorities he voted to establish a commission to investigate the matter. Re-election now being impossible, Mazowiecki joined the anti-communist opposition. In August 1980 he became the head of the Experts Commission (Komisja Ekspertów), a group of advisors for the Solidarity movement and its leader Lech Wałęsa. After the August Agreement was signed with the regime, Mazowiecki founded the Solidarność weekly, the only newspaper not controlled by Communists in Central and Eastern Europe.

After martial law was imposed in Poland on December 13, 1981, Mazowiecki was interned, at first in Strzeblinek, then in Jaworz and Darłówek. He was one of the last members of Solidarity released from an internment camp for political prisoners, on December 23, 1982. In 1987 he left the country and started to round up support for Solidarity and the democratic opposition in Poland. He returned in 1988 and took part in secret talks with the Communist regime in Magdalenka. He became one of the leaders of the opposition at the Round Table talks between February 6 and April 5, 1989.

On August 25, 1989 he was chosen Prime Minister of Poland, the first non-Communist Prime Minister in all Central and Eastern Europe after World War II. The Mazowiecki government, although partially controlled by the PZPR, started a peaceful transformation of the Polish political system. Among its most important accomplishments were: