Goodbye PRL Referendum of November 29, 1987 (with special emphasis on the Zielona Góra Voivodeship)

Abstract

The referendum of November 1987 has gone down in history as the last political-propaganda campaign conducted in Poland by the ruling communists. The decision to appeal to the citizens' voice was one of the ideas of General Jaruzelski's team, aiming to overcome the growing socio-political crisis in the country, and especially the economic crisis about which the government was increasingly helpless. Through the referendum, the authorities of the Polish People's Republic (PRL) aimed to obtain at least minimal societal acceptance, or rather justification, for the burdensome economic reforms. However, the actions of the state apparatus, encouraging Poles to support the idea of reforms and to participate in the voting, lacked enthusiasm and were unconvincing. In this situation, the voting ended in failure both politically and in terms of turnout. At the same time, it marked the beginning of the Polish communist party (PZPR) leadership's maturation process towards implementing a new scenario – a controlled process of power-sharing with a moderate part of the opposition, which finally took place in 1989.