Zbigniew Messner
Zbigniew Stefan Messner (13 March 1929 – 10 January 2014) was a Communist economist and politician in Poland. His ancestors were of German Polish descent who had assimilated into Polish society. In 1972, he became Professor of Karol Adamiecki University of Economics in Katowice. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers\' Party from 1981 until 1988, deputy prime minister in 1983–1985 and Prime Minister 1985–1988. In 1988, Messner\'s cabinet received a motion of no confidence in the Sejm (Parliament), (still dominated by Communists) and had to transfer power to Mieczysław Rakowski. This was an unprecedented event in the Communist world, one of the strongest signs of democratic change brought by Mikhail Gorbachev. Alternatively, this change in cabinet could easily be viewed as one of many similar steps of internal reorganization conducted periodically by regimes in all Communist-dominated countries.
He died in Warsaw in 2014.
