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.

The following day, the Sejm passed a resolution obligating the Minister of Interior (at the time Antoni Macierewicz), to publish the list of communist secret police collaborators.

On 5 June 1992, 00:00 AM, after a vote of no confidence was approved, with 273 in favour and 119 against, Olszewski was forced to resign as prime minister and his cabinet was immediately replaced in an event known as the nightshift ("Nocna zmiana").

[2] Olszewski was related to Stefan Aleksander Okrzeja, a Polish socialist nationalist from the turn of the 20th century who was executed by Russian authorities in 1905 for leading insurgent activities.

[4] In an article titled "Na spotkanie ludziom z AK" ("Reaching out to the Men of the Home Army") published in March 1956, Olszewski, along with journalists Jerzy Ambroziewicz and Walery Namiotkiewicz, called for the rehabilitation of former Armia Krajowa soldiers who faced persecution from communist authorities for anti-state activities.

[7] One of the first openly published articles of its kind to break the official silence on the Armia Krajowa, Olszewski argued that its veterans deserved a positive historical assessment in the struggle against Nazi Germany, describing all subsequent prosecutions of its ranks as being politically motivated.

[8] Despite the government's initial toleration of Po prostu's critiques, authorities moved in to forcibly close down the publication's offices in October 1956, citing it of presenting a false view of political and economic realities, spreading "disbeliefs" about socialism and proclaiming "bourgeois concepts".

[16] Olszewski, along with Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and other anti-government dissidents, participated in the Round Table Talks in early 1989 with the ruling PZPR, where he served as the opposition's legal expert.

[21] 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.

[23] 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.

[21] 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).

[28] 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.

[29] 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.

When Olszewski reshuffled ministers, placing Andrzej Olechowski at the Ministry of Finance, observers believed that the premier had reverted to a hard-line economic reform posture.

[26] Yet when the Sejm passed a bill authorizing salary and pension increases, raising the budget deficit by fifty percent, Olechowski fiercely objected and resigned from the cabinet, claiming he did not have "the slightest idea" of how to explain the government's economic reasoning to the IMF.

Jan Parys, Olszewski's defense minister, actively pursued efforts to de-communize the Polish Armed Forces and establish civilian ministerial control.

[35] Parys's implication of a possible coup d'etat on the behalf of Wałęsa and his allies with bribed high-ranking military officials rocked the entire Polish political establishment.

[39] The overlying reason for the clash between both men emanated from the fact that both the prime minister and the president believed their respective offices carried the prerogative to direct government policy, particularly in the defence, interior, and foreign ministries.

[41] Skubiszewski's diplomatic efforts to reach a compromise with his Russian colleagues were met with vehement criticism from Olszewski, with many close to the premier believing that any monetary or trade settlements constituted a renewed occupation.

Shortly after returning from Moscow from signing the cooperation treaty on 26 May 1992, Wałęsa formally asked the Sejm to withdraw its support from Olszewski's premiership, stating he had no faith in the government.

Responding to the lustration resolution six days later on 4 June, Interior Minister Antoni Macierewicz released to all parliamentary faction heads a secret list of 64 names of communist-era collaborators drawn from his ministry's archives.

Known as the Macierewicz List, which was quickly leaked to the public, the roster included Wiesław Chrzanowski, the Marshal of the Sejm and a member of Olszewski's coalition as well as Leszek Moczulski, the head of the opposition Confederation of Independent Poland.

[33] In response, Wałęsa immediately demanded for the government's dismissal, yet in private, the president confessed to opposition legislators his worries that Olszewski was orchestrating a last minute coup against him.

The opposition was joined from the right by the Confederation of Independent Poland, whose members derided the Olszewski government's attempt at radical lustration just before a vote of confidence as outright blackmail.

Two weeks following the government's no-confidence vote, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled 11–1 the Sejm's 28 May lustration resolution singling out alleged communist collaborators as illegal due to it not being a statutory enactment, as well as violating both the dignity of citizens and democratic values.

[52] Olszewski led his party to support the vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka in 1993, believing her economic policies had harmed the state.

[53] In the subsequent elections that year, Olszewski lost his seat as the electorate swung to the Democratic Left Alliance (led by Aleksander Kwaśniewski), despite a failed attempt to reunite rightist forces with the Centre Agreement, now headed by Jarosław Kaczyński.

[57] Under the new party banner, poll numbers initially gave Olszewski's block a sixteen percent approval rating by the middle of 1996, yet this period was cut short with the creation of Solidarity Electoral Action, a rival conservative alliance led by Marian Krzaklewski.

Christian National Union politician Stefan Niesiołowski strongly defended Olszewski during his vote of no confidence in 1992, declaring to the premier's detractors that "you're making a political mistake and Poland won't forget this error".

[76] In an interview in 2007, Niesiołowski (now a Civic Platform parliamentarian) regretted his defense of the former prime minister in hindsight, describing Olszewski as "being a poor man who supported a moral lie" with the Macierewicz List, "and was still silent".