"To My Unpleasant Surprise"

"This book is about the similarities between communism and liberal democracy. The idea that such similarities exist started germinating timidly in my mind back in the Seventies of the last century, when for the first time I managed to get out of communist Poland to travel to the so-called West. To my unpleasant surprise, I discovered that many of my friends who consciously classified themselves as devoted supporters of liberal democracy - of a multiparty system, human rights, pluralism, and everything that every liberal democrat proudly listed as his acts of faith - displayed extraordinary meekness and empathy toward communism. I was unpleasantly surprised because it seems to me that every liberal democrat's natural and almost visceral response to communism should be that of forthright condemnation."

- Ryszard Legutko