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Cover -- THE DEFEAT OF SOLIDARITY -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Democracy and the Organization of Anger -- 2. Solidarity Against Itself -- 3. Market Populism and the Turn to the Right -- 4. How Liberals Lost Labor -- 5. Communist and Postcommunist Experiences of Class -- 6. Labor at Work: Unions in the Workplace -- 7. Conclusion: Class, Civil Society, and the Future of Postcommunist Democracy -- Notes -- Index

"For both academic analysts and political activists, this book offers useful lessons from the Polish experience with anti-politics and neocorporatism." â€"Political Science QuarterlyBased on extensive use of primary sources, this book provides an analysis of Solidarity, from its ideological origins in the Polish "new left," through the dramatic revolutionary months of 1980-81, and up to the union's remarkable resurgence in 1988-89, when it sat down with the government to negotiate Poland's future. David Ost focuses on what Solidarity is trying to accomplish and why it is likely that

""For both academic analysts and political activists, this book offers useful lessons from the Polish experience with anti-politics and neocorporatism."" --Political Science QuarterlyBased on extensive use of primary sources, this book provides an analysis of Solidarity, from its ideological origins in the Polish ""new left,"" through the dramatic revolutionary months of 1980-81, and up to the union's remarkable resurgence in 1988-89, when it sat down with the government to negotiate Poland's future. David Ost focuses on what Solidarity is trying to accomplish and why it is likely that.

Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party has drawn international attention with its hard-line right-wing rhetoric and policies on a range of issues, from immigration to LGBT rights to attempts to gain control over formerly independent institutions such as the judiciary and the media. Some critical voices in Poland and elsewhere have drawn comparisons with fascism. The party denounces such parallels, pointing out that Poland suffered Nazi occupation, even though it venerates Polish politicians of the World War II era who espoused positions such as eliminationist anti-Semitism. To avoid such impasses created by raising fascism in analyses of contemporary politics, this essay proposes using Poland as a case study for a new category of analysis: Right-wing Exclusionary Nationalist Popular Illiberalism, encompassing both classic fascism and today's right-wing populism.

This review of Michał Siermiński Dekada przełomu: Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980 [Transformative Decade: The Polish Oppositionist Left 1968–1980] critiques the author's focus on ideas by offering a class-based understanding of the changes in Polish oppositionist politics, makes a case for the leftism of the "Civil Society" program of the 1970s, and argues that the old oppositionists' discussions of the Church and "nation" were not violations of leftism but a way to frame the left so as to make it more acceptable to more people. The left faces very different tasks and problems now than it did in the 1970s or 1980s, which explains why Siermiński could write such a left-wing critique today. Yet while his book is extremely valuable, and the present left does certainly need a new program, it could still use some of the self-governing ideas of the 1970s in its current struggle against neoliberalism.

This article is part of the special cluster titled Generation '68 in Poland (with a Czechoslovak Comparative Perspective). Whereas much of the European right greeted the fiftieth anniversary of 1968 with a critique of its legacy, Poland's ruling Law and Justice party was largely silent, both because 1968 did not usher in a counterculture and because the protests were directed against the communist party. And yet the Law and Justice party detests the legacy of 1968, for three reasons: 1968 was shaped by the left, '68 activists and their values played a key role in the ensuing opposition, and because the right actually sympathizes with the communists of 1968, then dominated by nationalists. The right thus traditionally attacks the legacy of 1968 by attacking 1989 instead, when '68' ers played a central role and new left progressivism could finally emerge. That began changing early in 2018 when Poland's parliament passed its Holocaust-speech law banning calumny against the "Polish Nation." The resulting criticism brought 1968 back with a vengeance, with the right openly inhabiting the role of the national-communists, and beginning to attack Poland's 1968 directly. Shedding new light on the diverse meanings of 1968 and the relationship of the right to national communism, the piece ends by looking at developments through Bernhard and Kubik's theory of the politics of memory.

Historicizing the Left: A Review of Michał Siermiński "Dekada Przełomu: polska lewica opozycyjna 1968-1980", Warszawa: Książka i Prasa 2016This review of Michał Siermiński Dekada przełomu: Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980 [Transformative Decade: The Polish Oppositionist Left 1968–1980] critiques the author's focus on ideas by offering a class-based understanding of the changes in Polish oppositionist politics, makes a case for the leftism of the "Civil Society" program of the 1970s, and argues that the old oppositionists' discussions of the Church and "nation" were not violations of leftism but a way to frame the left so as to make it more acceptable to more people. The left faces very different tasks and problems now than it did in the 1970s or 1980s, which explains why Siermiński could write such a left-wing critique today. Yet while his book is extremely valuable, and the present left does certainly need a new program, it could still use some of the self-governing ideas of the 1970s in its current struggle against neoliberalism. Historyzowanie lewicy. Recenzja książki Michała Siermińskiego Dekada przełomu. Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980, Warszawa: Książka i Prasa 2016Niniejsza recenzja książki Michała Siermińskiego Dekada przełomu: Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968–1980 poddaje krytyce nacisk położony przez autora na idee, dowodząc, że zmiany w poglądach politycznych polskiej opozycji należy postrzegać w perspektywie klasowej, projekt "społeczeństwa obywatelskiego" z lat siedemdziesiątych był w swojej istocie lewicowy, a dyskusje na temat Kościoła i "narodu" nie oznaczały zerwania z lewicowością, tylko ujęcie jej w ramy bardziej akceptowalne dla większości. Przed lewicą stoją dziś zupełnie inne zadania i problemy niż w latach siedemdziesiątych czy osiemdziesiątych XX wieku, co tłumaczy, dlaczego Siermiński mógł obecnie napisać tego rodzaju lewicową krytykę i dlaczego krytyka ta jest tak wartościowa. Jednakże choć współczesnej lewicy z pewnością potrzebny jest nowy program, może ona wykorzystać pewne idee z lat siedemdziesiątych w walce z neoliberalizmem.

AbstractHow has the Law and Justice Party in Poland (PiS) been able to get significant labor support to introduce far-right policies that undermine pluralist democracy? We look at PiS in the context of the "left fascist" traditions of the past, when redistributionist policies won wide support among workers who were accepted as part of the favored "nation." Labor support breaks down along three lines, with industrial labor most closely aligned with PiS, white-collar labor (in education and health) mostly opposed, and the marginalized small-city precariat being mobilized by PiS, but also finding a place in explicitly fascist parties further to the Right. Left alternatives, weakened due to the collapse of class discourse, are slowly reemerging, but the Right will likely command most labor support for the near future.

This essay criticizes Havel's famous "living in truth" paradigm and parable of the greengrocer as morally wrong, politically false, and complicit in the later emergence of a backlash against liberal intellectuals and democracy. By vilifying the weak, Havel disregards the role resources play in enabling opposition. By insisting that the opposite of living in truth is "obedience," he disregards the particular weapons of the weak. Havel's approach is contrasted with Polish versions of independent civic activism, whose intellectual theorists, understanding their privileged resources and making a calculated play for political influence, urged people to disobey but never derided anyone for not doing so. In the end, "living in truth" is seen as of little relevance to the success of past opposition, and Havel's approach dangerous to hold up as a model.

In the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, Hungary was long considered one of the "success stories" of post-communist transition to liberal democracy. Yet in recent years the Hungarian government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has pioneered a new conception of "illiberal democracy." In a July 2014 speech, Orban indeed declared that "the era of liberal democracies is over." Similar declarations can be heard in other parts of post-communist Eastern Europe. The Hungarian Patient: Social Opposition to an Illiberal Democracy, is a collection of essays by Hungarian social scientists and intellectuals reflecting on both the sources of this emergent illiberalism and the sources of opposition to it. Because it is important for American political scientists to understand the way their colleagues in other parts of the world reflect on the challenges of democracy, and because the Hungarian situation is significant for the future of Europe and the EU, we have invited a wide range of scholars to comment on the book and on its topic—the significance of the emergence of "illiberal democracy" in Hungary and in Europe.

After 1989, class appeared to be everywhere and nowhere. The messy consequences of the emergence of new classes and new types of economic inequalities were plain for all to see, but no one uttered the term "class." The concept appeared illegitimate because of associations with the old regime, even though it always had more success explaining developments in the capitalist world east Europe was entering than the state socialist world it was leaving. The media and academy adopted a discourse of "normality" instead: New rules resulted not from policy choices empowering certain groups at the expense of others but from necessity, and people just had to adapt. Because the economic collapse nevertheless elicited much anger and frustration, the absence of class talk contributed to a proliferation of nationalist talk, and thus had political consequences. The paper rehearses reasons for the decline of class analysis in the region, and notes the post-1989 fascination with the "middle class." It explores the evolution of class analysis during the communist period, culminating in the embrace of a stratification theory that resisted discussion of power, which made sense at the time but became a burden after 1989. Several critical class analyses of state socialism, from the 1930s to today, are then introduced, demonstrating both their relevance and their unfortunate absence from debates. New types of class analyses promoted by younger scholars and activists are emerging, however, and are discussed in the summaries of the other essays in this collection.

Class became virtually a taboo topic in Poland after the fall of the communist system, and a discourse of "normality" took hold. Social scientists and journalists considered new market institutions natural and inescapable and urged people to adapt. Sociologists were more interested in the identity of the new elites than the social consequences of the new capitalism, and a cult of a not-yet-existing "middle class" quickly grew. Inequality and poverty, previously understood as systemic, were now presented as due to individual pathology. That class talk became so marginalized despite the historical robustness of Polish sociology as a discipline is explained by the dominance of a functionalist stratification paradigm, which kept questions relevant to the new system, about emerging class relations and power, from even being raised. Polish sociology thus appeared stuck in the past and in the future—thinking about stratification without power, and imagining an individualist meritocracy as already in effect—but not ready to ask about the class formation and new economic relations of the present. The paucity of class analysis allowed illiberal populist nationalism to grow, blaming economic problems on internal "anti-Polish" enemies. New kinds of class thinking has revived in the new millennium, promoted by a new generation raised in a capitalist society and trained in western universities, and legitimized in part by class analyses of postcommunism by scholars from abroad. Though hobbled, class analysis is making a modest comeback.