THE DEFEAT OF SOLIDARITY: ANGER AND POLITICS IN POSTCOMMUNIST EUROPE

Lecture by David Ost, Professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (New York)

May 31, 2012, Thursday, 19:00

Poland offers a particularly provocative case of transition from a planned to a market economy in Eastern Europe, for it was here where workers most famously seemed to have won, thanks to the role of the Solidarity trade union. And yet, within a few short years, they had clearly lost. An oppressive communist regime gave way to a capitalist society that embraced economic and political inequality, leaving many workers frustrated and angry. Finally workers rejected their liberal leaders, opening the way for right-wing nationalists to take control of Solidarity. Informed by years of fieldwork in Polish factory towns, interviews with workers, labor activists, and politicians, David Ost gives voice to those who have not been heard, and proposes a novel theory about the role of anger in politics to show how they profoundly affect political outcomes