Against the backdrop of the widespread use of political violence in post-war Poland, the article discusses the tools and mechanisms that ensured a peaceful transition of power from the ruling communist regime to the anti-communist opposition in Poland between 1988 and 1990.

The influence of the unsuccessful attempt at the large-scale use of force – the introduction of martial law in December 1981 – on the tendency of the authorities and the opposition to political compromise is analyzed in detail. The prerequisites, stages and main participants in the transfer of power are considered. An attempt was made to identify the main factors: institutional mechanisms and informal agreements that contributed to the peaceful transformation of the political system. In preparing the article, publicly available, but rarely attracted by specialists materials on the modern history of Poland from the Polish and Russian media, as well as materials of the electronic portal “dzieje.pl” supported by the Museum of History of Poland and the Polish Press Agency (PAP) under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and Polish national heritage and Wikipedia materials were used