Crazy 1990s in Poland - transition from communism to capitalism - stories

Are you blind, it is being promoted right here on this forum by the owner and his followers.

First, once a communist party is in power, there's no questioning their authority or else you'll find yourself victim of their authoritarian power. :-)

Believing in God, that is the existence of a "Higher Authority" undermines the control of the party, and so it is not allowed.

Second, when a communist party is unable to eradicate religion, they'll try manipulating it to their advantage by rewriting the religion and using coercive power to force adherents to embrace their version of the religion.

Sound familiar ?

Third, I think it's out of jealousy.
You see, religion provides people with control over their selves and a higher, more ultimate goal in life.
That is what Communism is unable and will never be able to do.
A communist party cannot say that if you die for their cause you will go to Heaven.
But religion, for example the Catholic Church, can tell you what's your ultimate goal in life and what will you attain if you follow God's desired path in the afterlife.

That's what atheistic Communism couldn't do.

Keep in mind that Communism itself for many of its followers is a sort of religion.
But, which will you choose to be?
Slave to the communist party with its flawed idea and unsustainable policies of collectivization, oppression, absence of freedom of speech, absence of democracy, and the ultimate control resisting in one or more fallible man of power or to be "slave" to a higher power, that is God, who knows every inch of the corners of this universe because He made it and is everlasting good ?

Don't get into an argument about "if God is good, why there's suffering in this world ?"

In the end, Communism or a communist party rests its legitimacy for being the only power and the only source of control in the country or forum that they rule over.

Religions, particularly organized religions are enemies for them.

And these are the reasons why I, deep inside my heart, hate communism in its every manifestation and communist regimes around the world anytime.
As much as atheists, agnostics, or whatever you call it say that religion is illogical, weird, stupid, strange, foreign, diabolical, and others.
I could say...YOU TOO, ESPECIALLY COMMUNISTS, ARE !

No. Are you illiterate? Some political systems and parties have been called 'communist' (all terrible) but communism according to the traditional definition has never existed (and never will exist most likely).

What has existed is a combination of socialism and fascism (USSR, China etc).

When the system collapsed, all of a sudden people were able to afford goods which had been scarce before.

In 1992 I bought a 20 year old compact car which cost me 1000 PLN. That was my average monthly salary in a private language school.

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Today, as an oldtimer in good condition, it can cost €10000.

In 1992 I bought a 20 year old compact car which cost me 1000 PLN

Are you transferring currency rates because 1992 was still the old rate, do you mean 10 million? (that's a lot for the time unless you were grinding out 30 or more private hours a week)

I haven`t waited till today, I scrapped it in 2001. It took me quite long coz I loved that model - had had the service book of it since my childhood and it somehow got imprinted in my mind. :):):)

One of the most bitter descriptions of the early capitalist period can be found in a famous rockman`s song.

Now Poland by Kazik from 1992:



I didn`t like that song coz it was so depressing and exaggerated - some things he sang about were known mostly from the media but an average person never experienced them on their own.

crude translation of lyrics:

Look... Look around, how much dirt on the street
What worn out people, how tired they are
And at night dirty prostitutes are standing in front of the houses
I'm afraid to walk at night, there is so much violence
These women who work days and nights in factories
Those men who drown their despair in cheap wines
They don't see pretty things, there's no pretty things for them
Look, look around and don't try to deny
These hotel parking lots with kids begging
They're happy to wash a car with German numbers
Taxi drivers in their cars play cards for money
Waiting for the whole life for their benefactor
These abnormal views are normal for us
We're already abnormal, hehehehehe

What have you madafakez done to this land?
Catholic mixed with post-communist mania
Those who pray every morning and go to church
They would kill you just for the shape of your nose
The waters from above have already flowed into the lake of poison
To the lake of hatred, the home of the ancient dragon

In every single company it's all about money
Entrepreneurs get rich, but toilets are dirtier and dirtier
On the street near the palace the stench of traders rises
They drink, spit and vomit and sell in the meantime
Dirty carcasses lie on the tarpaulins and newspapers
And on the tables imported chocolate and beer
Those women who work up to twelve hours
To buy some bread and feed their family
It's the beginning of the end, heheheheheh
And what have you madafakez done to this land?
Where these dirty gray crowds go in summer, spring, winter
And they pass cars with broken windows
And they don't look at beggars with their hands outstretched
Those women who come home after their hard labor
Hair stuck together with dust, the master of their house is waiting for them
Hey, here comes your bus and his color is red!
And you say - it was red, now only the stench and the smell
Why in the summer here in the crowd everyone smells terribly of sweat
And they don't want to think for themselves, they already have ready phrases

On the street and in apartments a priest's cocktail with a guide
Who didn't suffer under communism is now simply nobody
What did the writer want to say? - asks the Polish teacher.
He wanted to show the inequalities of early capitalism .
It's the rich and poor,the rich and poor, the rich and poor.

What have you madafakez done to this land?
Time goes, it flows for centuries and you can't stop it by force
Stupid national pride and complexes for centuries
Dirty faces with mustaches, these aggressive frustrated women
These exhausted women when the night is shining
They are still on their feet, washing their children's clothes
An old man in a milk bar eats potatoes with cucumbers
He worked in the steelworks all his life, and it generated losses
All his hard work, everything was worth shyt
If he lay all his life, he would make less loss
In the old part of this city, the sick ask for alms
When they have enough, they buy heroin
And at night cars are robbed in front of houses
I'm afraid to walk at night, so much now there is violence
It's foretold, foretold, foretold

Look around, how much dirt on the street
Here thieves rob everyone who moves
And don't think about the police because they now have a confession
Times are reborn fifty years too late An experiment done, but unfortunately not successful
So, back to the past, catch what has already escaped
And invent heaven for yourself, and invent hell for others

The day is coming to an end, the night will cover all the dirt
You will see less of everything, only a fallen man being kicked

@pawian
Was this text written by young Novi? So dark and sarcastic.

I did like it, precisely because of what you said.
It was deliberately depressing and exaggerated to make a point.
I think he made his point well.
And my experience of Poland at that time was not too far from what he was warning about.

....grim, but I was already in Germany and I was happy that I was there.

Yes, it was and it all sounded as if all those nasty things he sings about appeared only after the new system had been introduced. While it is not true, of course, coz dirty streets and houses, frustrated people, exhausted women, thieves, prostitutes, violence had also existed in communism.


While in 1991 I came back to Poland from my world journeys and settled for good and never left it again. I and millions of other Poles who decided to stay have rebuilt this country from the ruins of communism. Ha!:):):)

I didn't live in Poland, but I came to Poland to my parents, sometimes standing for 8 hours at the border and spending money in Poland. It was some sort of rebuilt this country too.

yes, sort of. While I contributed with hard work and taxes. I was poor but happy. Look:

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It looks like a rebuild after some war. How to be happy?

I agree 100%,I always tell my kids never cry for money as money never cries for you and its perfectly OK to run after money can be not ethically but has to be fully legally by the law of the land you are in.LOL like garnishing wages from a single mother of 3:))

Communists didn`t rebuild many things. They even destroyed some on purpose. E.g, land gentry manors.


Exactly. Barefoot but still wearing spurs!

Congrats, you just summed up what was wrong with the post communist transformation and the type of souless financial predators it created.

We were the first to do such a thing. Nobody had ever tried it before. It is obvious there were mistakes. But the effect was outstanding - Poland got over the communist disease and started developing like a normal country again.


Hey, this infantile leftism doesn`t really suit you. Are you leftist in economy and rightist in social issues???

You've got it wrong... the PRL was far more about soulless financial predation than anything that came after it. That rhetoric by those who had trouble adapting to capitalism has done a lot of damage to Poland... as pawian said, Poland was doing something no other country had ever really tried... obsessing about the inevitable mistakes is wrongheaded and completely irrelevant today.

Like Jesus Christ! Jesus kicked out traders from the temple, fed the poor (social benefits) and healed them (free health service), and bashed all the adulterers and other sinners (rightist in social issues). :)

He also founded a secret religious organization so he was a sect leader.

And we were really first to transform - it started already when communists were still in power in early 1989.


For uneconomic reasons. :):):)

And you forgot about his famous words upon seeing the Caesar image on a coin: Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God. That was a praise of doing free business despite all religious differences!!! Like in capitalism. Ha!

It started in 1984-1985 when the communists began preparing for the transition, by creating financial structures and reforms that would allow them to get rich with the help of traitors and moronic chearleaders.


Giving all the economic power to those that had supposedly been overthrown? better to have gone down the czech route of revolution rather than transition.

Funny how you disgusting individuals are supporting cargopants giggling and chortling about puting the screws on a a single mother of 3, instead of being human being and cutting her some slack

Do you know of any backstage plans?? Tell us more coz it seems sth new to me. :):)

Of course 1984-85 was too early for communists to think of transition. They still believed they would be able to suppress the resistance of the Polish society and develop their communism further.

Besides, Gorbachev took power in 1985 and his new politics needed time to create proper atmosphere for changes.

So, where did you take this period from??

Ther are many academic papers in polish but this is a good summary youtu.be/tRNCbuZFXGo?t=848


I'm a radical centrist on both, with a slight left tinge on the economy and a very slight right on social.
Bringing in policies that helped the under privileged and forgotten people since the transformation is a historical hallmark of PiS. I just look at my cousin in law, during PO rule she had to work three jobs just to survive, and the post communists tried to steal the family appartment with the reprivatisation scandal in warsaw.

3 years ago the family could afford their first overseas holiday and wages are not poverty level anymore, lowest unemployment in europel. during PO timres investment in research and development was 0.6 percent of GDP, in Slowakia and Czech it was 1.4 and 2.6 percent. PO were refusing EU investment into R&D almost as if they wanted to keep Poland weak and subservient to Germany. Now PiS is righting the wrongs of the transformation and building back better the poland of our dreams. Your nIghtmare! :) :)

@amiga500, "the historical hallmark of PiS" is undermining democracy in Poland, internal Polish-Polish war, shameless nepotism and spending and giving away public money like no other party before.


I wouldn't mind that if that was all that was happening, but it wasn't. And they were giving away money not only to those "underprivileged and forgotten people", but to anyone with a kid. A lot of wasted money that could go, for example, to child and adolescent psychiatry in Poland, which is in tragic state. Do you know that PiS took away even the funding for suicide helplines for kids and teens now that the suicides among kids and teens increased on unprecedented scale? And at the same time they're spending a lot of money on TVP and Rydzyk. Doesn't that make you feel sick? And there's more of such crap, much more...

This is what PiS is like - buying votes in an easy way (by giving away public money), spending public money on their own party's interests and that of their allies, but not really solving Poland's problems.

The point here is that you cannot discern such things living in Australia ...

Instead, you are likely to develop an idealistic view of things in Poland, in line with your own political views.

Oh dear it seems you have been filling your head with oko press and tvn propaganda, undermining democracy what a joke, did you see what happened in EU parliament to those that lectured poland on rule of law, suitcases of qatar cash lolzo,

internal polish polish war, and i thought that was since time immorial, at least it wasin't a war on the polish poor ie 10 zloty an hour forcing them to leave the country en mass and raiding the pension fund of every pole.

shameless nepotism - excuse me, just because someone funded press investegations into current gov board appointments, does not PO did not do the same thing.

giving away money - if you had travelled outside of poland, you would know that child support is a given in any developed civilised country, but now when poland does it it's somehow bad.

Both very good sources


That's Poland all over. Completely normal.


That was considered quite good back in the day

25zl per day was common for a labourer and there are employers (often contractors for the RCC) who (illegally) pay not that much more today

I just gave you a concrete example from the working class side of my family, of how their life has gone from fighting to survive, to joining the lower middle class thanks to 500+, raising the minimum wage and creating job/economic growth. How is that idealistic?

You should insert 'half' in the middle of your username.