In my article I try to examine the genesis of the Round Table negotiations in Poland and East Germany in 1989-1990 on the basis of the existing literature and archival sources. Despite the shared name “Round Table”, there were many significant differences concerning the genesis of the negotiations between the ruling communist parties and the opposition in the two countries. These differences can be observed on many levels, starting with the internal situation in both countries in the wake of 1989 – through their varied economic conditions, disproportionate political power of the opposition and dissident movements – up to different, though so close in time, political-historical context of both negotiations. Describing these historical asymmetries helps better understand spectacular changes of 1989 and their long lasting consequences.

Rule of Law, Legality and Depoliticization were key concepts in the negotiations at the Round Table, in the subsequent dissolution of the security apparatus and in the police reform of 1989/90. Based on published protocols and archival sources, the article explores the use of these concepts in rapidly changing contexts. It argues that the regime and the opposition attached different, even outright op-posite meanings to these concepts, and used them accordingly. As it turned out, it was precisely these semantic cleavages which made an agreement possible in the first place. Key aspects of the regime change in 1989 were being shaped pragmatically, rather than on ideological grounds.