Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki has removed the Round Table from the presidential palace at which discussions paving the way for the end of Communism took place in 1989.
During a press conference held in front of staff disassembling the table, the opposition Conservatives (PiS) aligned Nawrocki declared that his decision marked the “end of post-Communism in Poland” and said that the furniture will be transferred to the Museum of Polish History.
Dziś wolną, suwerenną, niepodległą, ambitną Polskę stać na dużo więcej niż idealizowanie Okrągłego Stołu. Nie można go ani zapomnieć, bo to ważny element dyskusji historycznej, ale nie można go idealizować, oddając mu hołd w Pałacu Prezydenckim. pic.twitter.com/IsLUDrbCV6
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— Karol Nawrocki (@NawrockiKn) December 18, 2025
The term “post-Communism” is used when making the case that in 1989 the former Communists were able to ensure they retained influence in Polish public administration, judiciary, media and finance and that this meant that significant elements of communist rule remained in place.
The Round Table talks in 1989 between the opposition and the communists led to the legalisation of the Solidarity trades union which had been delegalized during martial law and semi-free elections to parliament. That was meant to be a compromise by which the Communists would retain power in exchange for allowing greater civil, political and economic freedoms.
But as a result of the Communists suffering a catastrophic defeat in these elections – winning one seat of over 250 seats Solidarity was allowed to contest – their satellite allies formed a coalition with Solidarity in parliament. That led to the appointment of the first non-Communist government east of the river Oder.
Events in Poland helped to add momentum to the downfall of Communism in other countries around the Soviet Bloc as the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev signaled it was willing to see non-Communist governments emerge in the countries of the former Warsaw Pact.
Speaking yesterday Nawrocki said celebrations that Communism had ended in 1989 turned out to be premature “because, as we know, Communist elites and security service officers after 1989 continued to play an important role”.
He argued that some opposition figures who sat at the round table experienced a form of “Stockholm syndrome in which all the crimes of the Communist system were forgiven and those who murdered Poles were still supported in a symbolic and political sense”.
The President said he felt the time was right to break free of that heritage.
“Today, a free, independent, sovereign and ambitious Poland can do much more than idealise the round table. We cannot infect future generations of Poles with the backwardness of the communist system,” declared Nawrocki.
“Today, in the 21st century, young Poles – those born in the 1990s and 2000s, but also my generation, do not have to make deals with former dictators, Communists or post-Communists,” added Nawrocki, who was born in 1983.
The removal of the table means “I can proudly say that post-communism has today ended in Poland”, he stated.
Nawrocki is a historian who previously led the state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). That is the body responsible for investigating Second World War and Communist crimes.
The President acknowledged that discussions of the significance of the Round Table Talks were still ongoing but that the event should not be “romanticised by paying tribute too them at the presidential palace”.
His aides later argued that placing the Round Table at the Museum of Polish History would allow more people to actually see this item and give the museum the chance to present it and to initiate debates over its legacy.
The ruling centre-left coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticised Nawrocki’s move, saying that it was wrong to downplay the importance of the Round Table and the peaceful transition it initiated.
Włodzimierz Czarzasty, who is the the Speaker of Parliament and leader of the Left Party, descendent of the Communist party that ruled Poland between 1944 and 1989, said that it was only “thanks to the Round Table Talks that we have democracy in Poland and someone like Karol Nawrocki and others before him could become president.”
Nawrocki has publicly criticised the Tusk coalition for allowing Czarzasty, who was a member of the Communist party to attain the prestigious position of Speaker of Parliament.
