ABSTRACT
After ten years of systemic transformation in Poland, the extent of the changes in the political and economic spheres is hard to believe. The rules under which the economy operates have changed from a centralised system of planing and management toward a market system. The political system has changed too, from a socialist to a democratic one. The process of changing the legal framework and of creating new political and market institutions was very fast, but equally painful. Most people were unprepared for the new conditions, as well as for the rapidity of change. The initial euphoria of the breakdown of communism could not last for ever.
