This study examines the relative successes and failures of reform programmes in Poland and Czechoslovakia, as well as the causes of these successes and failures. It provides a synthesized and comparative study of efforts to achieve systemic economic transformation. The work begins with the identification of background forces in these two countries - cultural, social, political and economic - analysing their impact on micro-responsiveness to reform policies. Then, within the framework of these forces, the author traces the causes of the two economies' reform failures during and since the Communist era. The central purpose of the work is to provide objective lessons for economies attempting systemic transformations or implementing development policies.