page_title: Jan Olszewski
section_title: Foreign and domestic policy
hierarchical_section_title: Jan Olszewski / Prime Minister: 1991-1992 / Foreign and domestic policy
caption_attribution_description: English: A.T.Kijowski's Talk Show whith Jan Olszewski Polski: Andrzej Tadeusz Kijowski z Janem Olszewskim w Studio Nowej Telewizji Warszawa podczas programu A Teraz Konkretnie
context_page_description: Jan Ferdynand Olszewski was a Polish conservative lawyer and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Poland for five months between December 1991 and early June 1992 and later became a leading figure of the national conservative Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland.
  During his premiership, Olszewski's cabinet worked under new international conditions. At the end of December 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved. This motivated the government to start integration with NATO and European Community. For the first time, in official documents, it was mentioned that membership in NATO is part of Polish defence strategies. Negotiations to withdraw Russian armies from Poland started at the end of October 1990, we speeded up. In March 1992, a period of confusion occurred when president Lech Wałęsa presented his conception of new economic and military alliance with former Warsaw Pact during his visit to Germany, which went against the euro Atlantic direction of the government. Olszewski’s government changed the concept of privatization of national corporations. Total stop of privatization led to open conflict with liberal groups in the parliament.
context_section_description: Following the oath of office, Olszewski's government faced difficulties on many fronts. Previously, Olszewski had placed deep criticism on Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz from the previous two administrations and his controversial Balcerowicz Plan, vigorously opposing the minister's shock therapy program. Removing Balcerowicz from the cabinet, Olszewski selected Karol Lutowski, a known critic of shock therapy, as his replacement.  With unemployment rising to 11.4 percent and the nation's gross domestic product declining by ten percent over the course of one year, the Olszewski government  faced pressure to amend the unpopular economic plan. Despite his professed monetarist beliefs, Olszewski pushed for a package of reforms to loosen credit, ease earlier anti-inflation policies, reintroduce price supports for a number of agricultural products, and release more subsidies to the state sector of the Polish economy. 
  Included in his industrial interventionist policy, the premier also proposed the unification of the nation's economic ministries to coordinate ongoing privatizations, as well as for all industrial and trade policies. When put to a vote, however, the deeply fragmented Sejm rejected Olszewski's reform packages, due to objections that the proposals were overly domineering or were too weak. Over the course of his government, the Sejm proved to be a barrier to any strong reforms. Olszewski explained his views on economic reforms in an interview with Anthony Murawski in the summer of 1992, published in September 1992 in Multinational Monitor magazine (founded by Ralph Nader). In particular, the prime minister's plans to reverse the Balcerowicz Plan proved impossible due to his fragile minority government. Without majority support, Olszewski relied on the conditional support of Mazowiecki's Democratic Union and Bielecki's Liberal Democratic Congress, yet both men and their respective parties insisted on prioritizing economic reforms. Within the government itself, the relationship between the seven parties composing the coalition was fragile at best, teetering on collapse by March 1992. Under pressure from the president to expand the coalition, Olszewski turned to the Democratic Union and the Confederation for an Independent Poland, though the Union insisted on a conservative budget before it could join the cabinet.
  As with the two previous administrations, the Olszewski government's foreign policy continued to steer towards the West, with the stated desire of joining NATO. The prime minister's selection of Jan Parys as defense minister indicated a policy hostile to Russia while Foreign Minister Krzysztof Skubiszewski, a veteran of the previous Mazowiecki and Bielecki governments, pursued efforts of moderation and compromise, balancing relations between the West and Moscow. President Wałęsa, however, sharply disagreed with the prime minister, arguing that foreign policy efforts instead should drive towards building an alternative military alliance with fellow ex-Warsaw Pact states. Wałęsa's proposals coincided with his own security uncertainties over the recent violent collapse of Yugoslavia, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and from a fear that joining NATO would put Poland in an opposing position to Russia. In response, Olszewski accused Skubiszewski, and by extension Wałęsa, who both advocated cooperation with Russia in regards to troop withdrawals, of "Finlandizing" foreign policy. 
  Individuals close to the Olszewski government, like Jarosław Kaczyński, referred to Wałęsa's Belweder residence as a den of Russian interests, which was determined to "maintain and protect the communist set-up" and control Russian influence in Polish internal affairs. Additionally, both men stood at odds over Polish-Ukrainian relations, with Olszewski arguing that the relationship with Kyiv needed equal footing with Polish-Russian relations. At the same time, relations with the West financially soured under Olszewski's tenureship. In the face of the premier's attempts to stimulate the economy by proposing to raise the budget defic
caption: Olszewski (right) defending his government's actions on Andrzej Tadeusz Kijowski's talk show in July 1993
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