1 See Gleason, Abbott, Totalitarianism. The Inner History of the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 10.Google Scholar

2 ibid., p. 161.

3 See above, note 1.

4 Cf. Arblaster, A., The Rise and Decline of Western Liberalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), pp. 308–32Google Scholar. Berlin accepted Arblaster's classification and proudly called himself a “Cold Warrior” (See Galipeau, C.J., Isaiah Berlin's Liberalism [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994], p. 134).Google Scholar

5 For a comprehensive elaboration of my views on totalitarianism see my book Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom. The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar

6 According to Arendt, before the war a truly totalitarian system existed, in fact, only in the USSR. In Germany it was established “only during the war, after the conquest of the East furnished large masses of people and made the extermination camps possible.” (Arendt, H., The Origins of Totalitarianism, new ed., with added prefaces (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1973).Google Scholar

7 Orwell, G., Collected Essays (London: Secker and Warburg, 1968), 2:135.Google Scholar

8 Cf. Friedrich, C. and Brzezinski, Z., Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 9–10.Google Scholar

9 Boffa, G., The Stalin Phenomenon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 70.Google Scholar

10 Johnson, C., “Comparing Communist Nations,” in Change in Communist Systems, ed. Johnson, C. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), p. 2.Google Scholar

11 Tucker, R., “The Choice of Lenins?,” in Stalinism: Its Impact on Russia and the World, ed. Urban, G. R. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 177–78Google Scholar. For the first interpretation (the tradition of autocracy) see Tucker, R., Stalin in Power. The Revolution From Above 1928–1941 (New York: W. W. Norton, New York, 1990).Google Scholar

12 See Tucker, , Stalin in Power, pp. 591–92.Google Scholar

13 Arendt, , Origins, preface to part 3 (06 1966), pp. xxxv, xxxvi-xxxvii.Google Scholar

14 See Löwenthal, R., “Development vs. Utopia in Communist Policy,” in Johnson, , Change in Communist Systems, pp. 33–116Google Scholar; Löwenthal, R., “Beyond the ‘Institutionalized Revolution’ in Russia and China,” in The Soviet Union and the Challenge of the Future, ed. Shtromas, A. and Kaplan, M., vol. 1, (New York: Paragon House, 1988), pp. 13–34Google Scholar. The view that the ultimate cause of the collapse of communism was the final exhaustion of the communist utopia is widely shared in Russia. It was expressed by Boris Yeltsin during his visit to the United States in July 1991. See Heller, L. and Niqueux, M., Histoire de l'utopie en Russie (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1995), p. 267.Google Scholar

15 Brzezinski, Z., The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989), p. 252.Google Scholar

16 The mentality of Polish communist leaders of these horrible years is faithfully reflected in their interviews with Teresa Torańska. (See Torańska, T., Them: Stalin's Polish Puppets, trans. Kolakowska, A. (New York: Harper and Row, 1987)Google Scholar. Their ideological self-confidence, bordering on gloomy fanaticism, sharply contrasted with the pragmatic attitudes of those members of the PUWP (Polish United Worker's Party) who have joined the party after 1956. But precisely because of this their communism was the authentic New Faith. In addition they were often of Jewish background and this made them immune to the contaminating influence of Polish nationalism. This has been stressed by Jeff Schatz who respectfully calls them “the last genuine millenarians,” “the last true Communists” in Poland. (See Schatz, Jeff, The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists in Poland [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991], p. 322).Google Scholar

17 Pomian, K., “O październiku,” in Książka dla Jacka W Sześćdziesiątą rocznic' urodzin Jacka Kuronia (Warsaw, 1995), p. 168.Google Scholar

18 Świda-Ziemba, H., “Stalinism i polskie spoleczeństwo,” in Stalinism, ed. Kurczewski, J. (Warsaw, 1989), pp. 86–87Google Scholar. The author's account has been based on systematic participatory observation of different social strata in the years 1948–56.

19 Adam Podgórecki's expression. See Podgórecki, A. and Los, M., Multidimensional Sociology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), pp. 240–41.Google Scholar

20 Shtromas, A., Political Change and Social Development: The Case of the Soviet Union (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1981).Google Scholar

21 Shtromas, who has analyzed the phenomenon of the positive intrastructural dissent in the Soviet Union, rightly points out that even Alexander Solzhenitsyn for a long time tried to preserve his position within the system and consciously avoided open confrontations. He wanted to increase his authority in the eyes of the authorities, to receive the Lenin Prize for literature and thereby strengthen his influence on intrasystemic changes. For that reason he even refrained from publicly condemning the Soviet invasion on Czechoslovakia. See Shtromas, ibid., pp. 84,92.

22 Jeff Schatz rightly stresses that the “anti-Zionist” purges of 1968 “symbolized a definite end to the prewar Communist ethos,” thus bringing about a substantial decommunization of the party (Schatz, , The Generation, p. 307Google Scholar). To support this view, he quotes the words of A. Zambrowski, son of an important “old communist,” according to whom the pogrom of old Communists in 1968 was “history's revenge for the violence that had been done to society” (ibid. Quotation from Zambrowski, A., “Moje rozmowy z ojcem,” Most, No. 5–6. pp. 127–138, Warsaw, 1986).Google Scholar

23 Ascherson, N., The Polish August (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), p. 96.Google Scholar

24 The most important oppositional organization was, of course, the famous KOR (Workers' Defense Committee). See Lipski, J. J., KOR: A History of the Workers' Defense Committee in Poland, 1976–1981, trans. Amsterdamska, Olga and Moore, Gene M. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar. The best analysis, in any language, of the relationship between political opposition and Solidarity labor movement in Poland is, in my view, Ost, David, Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics: Opposition and Reform in Poland since 1968 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

25 See Kolakowski, L., “Tezy o nadziei i beznadziejno ci,” Kultura, No. 6, 1971Google Scholar; and Michnik, A., “Nowy ewolucjonizm” (1976)Google Scholar. For the English translation of Michnik's essay see Michnik, A., “The New Evolutionism,” Survey (London), No. 22, Summer&Autumn 1976.Google Scholar

26 Kolakowski, L., Main Currents of Marxism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 2: 514.Google Scholar

27 Cf. Friedrich, and Brzezinski, , Totalitarian Dictatorship, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar

28 For a more comprehensive presentation of the paradoxes of this political situation see Walicki, A., “Notes on Jaruzelski's Poland,” in Crisis and Reform in Eastern Europe, ed. Fehéi, F. and Arato, A. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991), pp. 335–91Google Scholar. The first part of this long essay was published in Archives Européennes de Sociologie (vol. 26, no. 2, 1985) under the title “The Paradoxes of Jaruzelski's Poland.”

29 A classical expression of this mythologizing viewpoint is Michnik's book Reflections on the History of Honor in Poland (1985). Writing in prison, the author swears loyalty to “hopeless struggle” and “doomed cause,” proudly condemning Realism, Reasonableness and Historical Necessity (represented allegedly by Jaruzelski's regime). In fact the morale of those in power was by then deeply shaken and attributing to them ideological self-confidence was a strange misreading of reality.

30 See Bukovsky, V., “Totalitarianism in Crisis: Is There any Smooth Transition to Democracy?,” in Totalitarianism at the Crossroads, ed. Paul, E. F. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1990), pp. 13–14Google Scholar. For Besançon's attacks on Michnik, and the round-table agreements in general, see his interview in the weekly Solidarność (Warsaw, 2 February 1990) and his article “Adamowi Michnikowi w odpowiedzi,” Kultura, No. 6, 1990, pp. 126–28.Google Scholar

31 I have stressed this aspect of the abuse of the theory of totalitarianism, in at least two essays in Polish: “Totalitaryzm i Posttotalitaryzm. Proba definicji,” in Spoleczeństwa posttotalitarne: Kierunki przemian, ed. Sadowski, Z. (Warsaw, 1991), pp. 13–26Google Scholar, and “Demony Peerelu,” Respublika nowa, No. 3, 1993, pp. 4–9.Google Scholar

32 It should be noted, however, that this view was close to the way of thinking of a vast majority of the “post-Solidarity camp.” This explains the important symbolic gestures which accompanied Walesa's election as the President of Poland. The former president, General Jaruzelski, was not invited to take part in Walesa's inaugurational ceremony, which took place on 22 December 1990; Polish state was called “The Third Republic” (i.e. the direct successor of the prewar “Second Republic”) and the president-elect received the insignia of presidential power from the emigré president, Ryszard Kaczorowski. Thus Poland returned symbolically to 1939, and the Polish People's Republic was reduced to legal nonentity. In an article written at that time I expressed the view that such an act of a wholesale delegitimization of the People's Republic of Poland would not have been supported in a free, popular referendum. See Walicki, A., “From Stalinism to Post-Communist Pluralism: the Case of Poland,” New Left Review, 01/02. 1991, p. 121.Google Scholar

33 The existence of a deep tension between Michnik as an advocate of national reconciliation and the earlier Michnik—the most eloquent spokesmen for the intransigent position, claiming that the communists were irreformable and that a dialogue with them might lead to spiritual surrender—was aptly pointed out by Michnik's friend, Father Józef Tischner. See Michnik, A., Tischner, J.Żakowski, J., Miȩdzy panem a plebanem, “Znak,” Warsaw, 1995, pp. 437–38.Google Scholar

34 In the West the same position was taken by Alain Besançon who defined the idea of forgiveness as a morally repellent “mockery of Christianity.” See Besançon, , “Adamowi Michnikowi w odpowiedzi,” Kultura, No. 6, 1990, p. 127.Google Scholar

35 See “Czy PRL trwa?,” Gazeta wyborcza 16 03 1995, p. 3.Google Scholar

36 Such irrational fears of the return of the past have been called “the neurosis of the transformation.” See Frentzel-Zagórska, J., “Demokracja, elity polityczne i nerwica transformacyjna,” Kultura i spoleczeństwo, No. 4, 1994, pp. 41–59.Google Scholar