The dramatic events of 1989 in Poland had their roots in the country's economic crisis of a decade earlier. In "The Polish Economic Crisis," Batara Simatupang analyzes the economic crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s and places it in a wider political-economic context. He identifies the issues involved in this recession as a combination of governmental economic incompetence, a lumbering bureaucracy, and the tenuous legitimacy of the ruling communist party--all set within the international economic environment in which Poland existed.
The book also analyzes the aftermath of this crisis and the steady procession from recession to slump. The country's poor economic performance, the failed attempt to reform the economic and political systems in 1988 and 1989, the loss of geopolitical support, and the disintegration of state socialism all culminated in a much more serious crisis. The regime's ultimate collapse made possible the deflationary shock and rapid transition to a market economy in 1990. The book traces the path to Poland's political breakthrough in 1989, relating it to the collapse of "really existing socialism" in the rest of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.