For the first time since the end of communism the young, aspiring middle class faced a hostile authority. The Fukuyamian reality of post-communist life had always determined that political freedoms were synonymous with economic liberalism. This inevitably resulted in liberal tolerance becoming an element of economic privilege. The sight of the representatives of the provinces berating the ideals of cosmopolitanism, sexual freedom or political pluralism confirmed the cities’ prejudices. In the cities we shook our heads in disbelief as the identical twins, who now held the two most powerful positions within the state, spoke of revenge and retribution.

It was this alarm that mobilised the urban voters to oust PiS from government in 2007. PO could activate voters from the cities, while PiS, who essentially continued the neoliberal course of economic reform, were unable to sufficiently galvanise the rural areas. Poland had once again stood up to the forces of reaction and division. For Poland has been misunderstood in the West. This is not an inward nation that wants to close itself from the rest of world, but one seeking its own domain within the global village. Its people have done more than could have been expected to embrace the country’s opening to the international economy and gain the skills needed to survive in its hostile environment.

This was given extra impetus after joining the EU. People moved west and capital flowed east. The economy boomed, unemployment declined and the cultures and fashions of the West became part of Polish life. Cheaper travel opened up destinations that were once only imagined and brought a new influx of tourists into the country. As a Brit in Poland I could see my stereotype shifting from being someone who drank tea at five o’clock to a binge drinker on Kraków Square.

The Kaczynski twins and their allies were not representative of these new optimistic times. Dissatisfaction was now more likely to be expressed through gaining work in Ireland or the UK, than raking up the histories of past politicians. In these conditions power was transferred to the more palatable version of Polish conservatism, with Tusk elected Prime Minister. His image is one that represents a more hopeful post-political age. He is better looking, more youthful and articulate and is able to hold his own at international summits and speak the language of diplomacy.

He promised that his government would create an ‘economic miracle’, through following the example of Ireland. These words are coming back to haunt him. Just as Poland had seemed to have found the recipe for economic and social advancement a new external enemy has arrived. Poland has not been affected by the global economic crisis like some of its smaller neighbours, who are more heavily exposed and dependent upon foreign trade and capital. In fact Poland is one of Europe’s ‘tiger economies’ – growing in the first quarter of this year by a whopping 0.8%. But unemployment has once again creeped back up into double figures and the cold hand of recession is beginning to tighten its grip.

For two decades Warsaw had continued to develop, even while other parts of the country floundered. The city continued along its path of modernity, work remained generally plentiful and the benefits and rewards of globalisation became evermore available. However, this time it could be different. One result of the global credit crunch is that there is now a lack of capital moving around the international economy, with this scarce resource flowing back from the peripheries towards the centre.

The post-communist countries in central-eastern Europe are particularly exposed to this trend. Alongside industrial workers and agricultural producers, the jobs of the urban middle class, usually employed in the international companies that swept into the country, are now under threat. At present this reality is approaching anecdotally: stories of friends who have lost their jobs, companies that are cutting back, salaries that are being reduced. Its extent and depth is unknown – we sit tight and hope for the best.

Despite the pleas for unity, the twentieth anniversary of the fall of communism has exposed the divisions that run through Polish society. Virtually no one will question the historic role of Solidarity, the importance of John Paul II, the gains of living in a democratic system or the benefits of being part of an expanded European Union. The main beneficiaries of the transition to capitalism repeat these ad nauseum and present them as reasons for national unity. They try to remind society how it had stood together against a common enemy and at how this unity, this solidarity, had helped not just to transform Poland but the world.

Yet this is an exaggerated story, despite the elements of truth that it contains. By 1989 Solidarity was a shadow of the mass social movement of the early 1980s that had claimed 10 million members. The role of Solidarity was an important factor in the end of communism, but it was not decisive. The system was collapsing from within, unable to compete with a global capitalist economy or keep up with the arms race instigated by Reagan. The Solidarity movement had arisen with such strength and force, precisely because the economic contradictions of this system were felt so acutely in Poland.

In face of these hardships a unity was found not through romanticist notions of the Polish nation but via a social force that could exert its own demands as the general will. For Solidarity was first and foremost a trade union, an organ of the working class. The tragedy of the past twenty years is that while everyone has wanted to climb upon the bandwagon of Solidarity, they have also attempted to dilute the real force and meaning of this movement. All attempts to replicate the unity of Solidarity, whilst excluding and marginalising the very social class that brought it together, are inevitably futile and dishonest. As one trade union banner read in Katowice: ‘We won your freedom, who’s going to win ours?’

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