Mieczysław Rakowski

Mieczysław Rakowski ( born December 1, 1926 in Kowalewko at Nakło nad Notecią, Poland, † November 8, 2008 ) was a Polish politician and journalist.

Life

Rakowski worked during the German occupation of poses in a repair work of railway. After the war, he studied history in Warsaw and completed his doctorate in 1956. Concurrently served from 1945 to 1949 an officer of the Polish Army and since 1946 a member of the Communist Party of PPR ( from 1948 PZPR ). In 1957 he was appointed deputy editor of the newly founded weekly newspaper Polityka, a year later the chief editor ( until 1982 ). He was regarded as representative of the reform wing of the party, hated the neo-Stalinist communist and nationalist groups within the PZPR alike. Rakowski also held leadership positions in the Polish Journalists Association. His actual career began party under party leader Edward Gierek, as in 1972 he was a deputy in the Sejm and 1975 Member of the Central Committee. Under Wojciech Jaruzelski he rose in 1981 as Deputy Prime Minister on. He justified martial law and became one of the most prominent opponents of the democratic opposition to the trade union Solidarity. In 1985 he took the post of Deputy Speaker of Parliament, until he became the head of the government in September 1988. As prime minister, he initiated economic reforms, some enterprises were privatized.

During his reign the political " round tables " began with the united opposition occurring Citizens Committee for Solidarity Lech Walesa. In the elections on 4 June 1989 Rakowski did not receive a seat in Parliament more and then stepped back from his post. A month later, he followed the elected as President Jaruzelski shall take the Chair of the PZPR, which he retained until the conversion of the party in the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland in January 1990.

Then Rakowski returned in his profession as a journalist. He had a significant role in ensuring that the German Social Democrats chose after the turn of 1989/90 his party as a political partner in Poland and their inclusion in the Socialist International, supported, which amounted to an international rehabilitation of the Polish post-communists.

Private

Rakowski was first married to the violinist Wanda Wiłkomirska, later with the actress Elżbieta Kępińska. He always spent his holidays in a village in Masuria with many prominent actors, musicians and writers. He was also often interlocutor of Marion Dönhoff.

Publications

• SDP w okresie powojennym 1949-1954 (1960 )
• Przesilenie grudniowe (1981)
• Partnerstwo (German: Partnership, 1982)
• Jak to się STALO (1991 ) (Engl.: It started in Poland: the beginning of the end of the Eastern Bloc, 1995)
• Zanim Stane przed Trybunałem (German: Before the Court Standing, 1992)
• Thu M. F. Rakowskiego pisali. Lata - listy - ludzie (German: written on MFRakowski years - letters - people, 1993. )
• Dzienniki polityczne (German: Political Diary ) Vol 1-7 (1998-2004)