Solidarność: 40 years ago and now The writer calls the former communist-party-led regimes of eastern Europe “state socialists.” There is no left consensus on the character of those regimes. I wouldn’t call them state socialists though. They were dictatorial, bureaucratic regimes that controlled most of the economy. “ Today, the union [Solidarity] is almost entirely allied with PiS, and thus with all the illiberal, anti-democratic, anti-immigrant, homophobic, protofascist policies and practices that the party has been promoting.” The Triumph and Tragedy of Poland’s Solidarity Movement
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51