The Origins of Post-dissident Liberalism in Poland: Revolution, Thermidorianism, and Regenerationism

WCIŚLIK, Piotr. The Origins of Post-dissident Liberalism in Poland: Revolution, Thermidorianism, and Regenerationism. In discussing the roots of post-dissident liberalism, the interpreters of the events of 1989 cast the leaders of the transition as moderates in the revolutionary drama, deftly fending off Jacobin populism. But what if we use other analytical categories, like those employed by the French Revolution historiography to reflect on the origins of that political identity? The moderantism of the post-dissident liberals can thus be productively reinterpreted as pre-emptive Thermidorianism. According to B. Baczko