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.