In 1988, PZPR Communist party leaders started negotiations with representatives of the then unofficial opposition. In the early months of 1989, as a result of the Round Table talks, an
agreement was signed calling for partially free elections to the
Parliament. The opposition was to have 35% of the seats in Sejm, and an
entirely free election to Senate. The election held on 4 June 1989
brought a landslide victory to Solidarity. It was clear that the
Communist Party would not be able to continue to govern in the face of
such massive opposition from the people. Although the Parliament
returned, dubbed the "contractual Parliament", elected Gen. Jaruzelski
President of the Republic, the office of Prime Minister was entrusted
to a Solidarity candidate, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who had been chief
adviser to the Gdańsk strike committee in 1980. On 29 July 1989
the Parliament changed the country's name and constitution. The
People's Republic of Poland became a thing of the past. The age of the
Third Republic of Poland commenced. The events in Poland precipitated
the fall of the entire Communist block. The Yalta arrangement
collapsed. The Round Table compromise and peaceful transfer from the
Communist system to a democratic system were possible thanks to the
fundamental changes in the policy of the USSR, which in the period
between 1986 and 1988 began to implement the ideas of glasnost and
perestroika - political and economic openness to the outside world.