Poland's Transformation

Book excerpt: Poland has carried out two peaceful revolutions in the span of one generation: first, the self-limiting movement of Solidarity, which undermined the legitimacy of Communism and then a negotiated transfer of power from Communism to free market democracy. Today, while Poland is seen as a success story and is joining political and economic associations in the democratic West, Poles themselves seem downcast. They ask: is social anomie a price worth paying for a successful transformation? In making moral compromises with an outgoing tyranny, can one avoid cynicism and disappointment with democracy? Zbigniew Brzezinski, professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University has called Polish Transformation "a work that provides a comprehensive as well as incisive overview of the extraordinary difficult and historically unprecedented process of transforming an increasingly corrupt and decayed totalitarian system into a modern democracy." John Lenczowski, director of the Institute of World Politics, adds that "this extremely useful volume explains the essential elements of the post-communist political transition in Poland. Its authors convey...the cultural and ideological underpinnings that can be captured only by authorities who have developed over a lifetime that special sixth sense for detecting the elusive and unquantifiable soul of a country." Radek Sikorski, the executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute, writes that "we should be grateful to the authors and editors of this thoughtful volume for asking questions which remain relevant for that uncomfortably large part of humanity that still lives under totalitarian or authoritarian regimes." Marek Jan Chodakiewicz holds the Kosciuszko chair in Polish Studies at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is the author of After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War II and Between Nazis and Soviets: A Case Study of Occupation Politics in Politics, 1939-1947. John Radzilowski is author and editor of numerous works ranging from Polish to East European history. Darius Tolczyk is associate professor of Slavic Languages at the University of Virginia. He is the author of See No Evil: Literary Cover-Ups and Discoveries of the Soviet Camp Experience.