502 SOLIDARNOSC
Czechoslovakia and East Germany were deeply anxious. When the Round
Table finally assembled in the Viceregal Palace in Warsaw — with auxiliary talks
in Magdalenka, all the participants were understandably given to caution.
Nor should one forget the continuing, low-level threat of official terror. In the
two weeks that separated the PZPR's formal agreement to talks with Solidarity
and the opening of the first session in the old Viceregal Palace on 6 February, two
nasty political murders took place. Both victims of the 'unidentified perpetrators'
were priests. One of them, Father Stefan Niedzielak, had been chaplain to the
Organization of Katyn Families. The other; Father Stanislaw Suchowolec, had
been chaplain to the branch of Solidarity in Bialystok. The secret police were let-
ting it be known that developments were not to their liking.
The months of the Round Table talks, like the months preceding them, saw
many an impasse. The Communist team was headed by Jaruzelski's right-hand
man, General Kiszczak, Minister of the Interior, by the young Aleksander
Kwasniewski, assistant to the Prime Minister, Rakowski, and by a trade-union
specialist, Professor Reykowski. They were shadowed by three powerful secre-
taries of the Central Committee - Ciosek, Gdula, and Cypryniak. The Solidarity
side was headed by their respected Catholic adviser, Tadeusz Mazowiecki,
together with the leaders of several subdivided negotiating teams - Geremek,
Kuron, Bujak, Frasyniuk, and Kaczynski. In its plenary sessions, the Round
Table had to seat more than a hundred people. Walesa, who had been very
active in the secret contacts which set the official talks in motion, now shadowed
Jaruzelski by staying behind the scenes. Both sides withstood considerable pres-
sure from their own colleagues. Just as the Party hardliners criticized Jaruzelski
for selling out to the despised Opposition, so several unbending elements of the
Opposition, like the KPN. 'Fighting Solidarity', attacked Walesa for preparing
'a dirty deal'. A key factor, however, developed from the agreement that
Solidarity's negotiators should now have access to the official media. Day after
day, and for the first time since 1980, the faces of Mazowiecki, Kurori, Geremek,
and others appeared on national TV. They were no longer 'agitators', 'extrem-
ists', and 'troublemakers'. They were intelligent, determined men calmly stating
opinions, with which the mass of the public sympathized. As time passed, a cli-
mate built up where the Communists were forced to concede far more than they
had originally intended.
At the start, the Party negotiators proposed a very limited form of power-
sharing. A re-legalized Solidarity would be invited to join a Party-run front
organization similar to PRON and would be allocated thirty per cent of the
mandates in the Party-run electoral list. This proposal, which by Communist
standards was rather generous, had no chance of acceptance. So the next stage
was for Solidarity to be offered thirty five per cent of the mandates in a reserved
sector of the electoral list that would not be subject to Party supervision. In
return, however, the Communists demanded a greatly strengthened state presid-
ency, which would obviously be under their control and which would be
empowered to dismiss an insubordinate assembly. This further proposal would