Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

the most prominent roles in the protests and demonstrations, and their concerns were focused on issues of free speech and political rights above all. As their neo-Stalinist enemies were quick to point out, Warsaw’s dissident intelligentsia paid little attention to the bread and butter concerns of the working population. In return, the mass of the Polish people was studiously indifferent to the persecution of Jews and students alike, and Jewish students especially. Two years later, in 1970, when the government raised food prices by 30 percent and the shipyard workers of Gdansk struck in protest, the compliment was tragically if unintentionally returned: there was no one to take up the cause. But the lesson of these years—that if Poland’s workers and intellectuals wanted to challenge the Party they would need to bridge their mutual indifference and forge a political alliance—would