This book is not only an explanation of the political dynamic that led to the Polish "revolution" and the birth of Solidarity in 1980 and 1981 but an extremely important analysis of postwar East Central Europe. Although intimately involved with various aspects of Solidarity's activities, Jadwiga Staniszkis maintains a detached and critical attitutde toward the movement. Dr. Saniszkis was one of seven advisers allowed in the Gdansk shipyard during the strikes of August 1980, negotiating on behalf of the workers. Offering interpretations of events made virtually as they were occurring, she is still able to weave these interpretations into an analytic scheme that is clearly the work of a profound and original sociologist. The author demonstrates how the authoritarian regime of Poland succeeded in incorporating and, as it were, domesticating developments that would be seen by a less astute observer (or by a traditional social scientist) as disruptive or threatening to the system's stability. Moving beyond analyses derived from totalitarian and interest group models for the study of "socialist" societies, she attempts to understand present-day Poland as a corporatist society. A sociologist of organizations, she clarifies the intricate system of mechanisms that compensates for the irrationalities produced by the ideological restrictions of Polish society. Sensitive to the symbolic manipulation in social control, she analyzes such phenomena as simulation of interest group representation and ritualization of the periodic crises of the regime. This work is a major contribution to our understanding of the so-called people's democracies. Jadwiga Staniszkis received her Ph.D. and habilitation (Docent) in sociology at the University of Warsaw. Her dissertation, "Pathologies of Organizational Structure," won the Polish Sociological Association Prize in 1976. Dr. Staniszkis visited the United States twice, as the fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and as a recipient of the Eisenhower Fellowship, Jan T. Gross is the author of Polish Society under German Occupation (Princeton). Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book is not only an explanation of the political dynamic that led to the Polish "revolution" and the birth of Solidarity in 1980 and 1981 but an extremely important analysis of postwar East Central Europe. Although intimately involved with various aspects of Solidarity's activities, Jadwiga Staniszkis maintains a detached and critical attitutde toward the movement. Dr. Saniszkis was one of seven advisers allowed in the Gdansk shipyard during the strikes of August 1980, negotiating on behalf of the workers. Offering interpretations of events made virtually as they were occurring, she is still able to weave these interpretations into an analytic scheme that is clearly the work of a profound and original sociologist. The author demonstrates how the authoritarian regime of Poland succeeded in incorporating and, as it were, domesticating developments that would be seen by a less astute observer (or by a traditional social scientist) as disruptive or threatening to the system's stability. Moving beyond analyses derived from totalitarian and interest group models for the study of "socialist" societies, she attempts to understand present-day Poland as a corporatist society. A sociologist of organizations, she clarifies the intricate system of mechanisms that compensates for the irrationalities produced by the ideological restrictions of Polish society. Sensitive to the symbolic manipulation in social control, she analyzes such phenomena as simulation of interest group representation and ritualization of the periodic crises of the regime. This work is a major contribution to our understanding of the so-called people's democracies. Jadwiga Staniszkis received her Ph.D. and habilitation (Docent) in sociology at the University of Warsaw. Her dissertation, "Pathologies of Organizational Structure," won the Polish Sociological Association Prize in 1976. Dr. Staniszkis visited the United States twice, as the fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and as a recipient of the Eisenhower Fellowship, Jan T. Gross is the author of Polish Society under German Occupation (Princeton). Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In the last year the world has been electrified as one Soviet bloc government after another has collapsed. But ten years before the events of the past year came the first successful challenge to the Leninist state--the shipworker's strike in Gdansk, which led to the first free trade union in the communist world. Here is a fascinating history of the Solidarity movement.

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.

Understanding the dramatic political, social, and economic changes that have taken place in Poland in the mid-1980s is one key to predicting the future of the communist bloc. Jadwiga Staniszkis, an influential, internationally known expert on contemporary trends in Eastern Europe, provides an insider's analysis that deserves the attention of all scholars interested in the region. Staniszkis presents the breakthrough of 1989 as a consequence not only of systemic contradictions within socialism but also of a series of chance events. These events include unique historical circumstances such as the emergence of the "globalist" faction in Mosow, with its new, world-system perception of crisis, and the discovery of the round-table technique as a productive ritual of communication, imitated all over Eastern Europe. After describing the development, collapse, and reorganization of a "new center" in Poland in 1989-1990, she discusses the first attempt at privatizing the economy. Her analysis of the dilemmas accompanying breakthrough and transition is an invaluable guide to the challenges that face both capitalism and democracy in Eastern Europe.

Timothy Garton Ash was with the strikers in the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk in August 1980 when the trade union Solidarity was born, in opposition to the Communist government. He witnessed their bravery and defiance and the emergence of an improbable leader and hero in the country's future president, Lech Walesa. This text recreates the ideals and terrors of that time, and exposes the mechanics of oppression of the communist regime.

Jack M. Bloom presents a moving account of how an opposition developed and triumphed in communist Poland, showing the perspectives and experiences of the participants, while often letting them recount their own stories and explain their thinking.