ABSTRACT
The basic and fundamental change that took place in the sphere of political attitudes and values in the second half of the eighties was the passage from conditional acceptance to radical rejection of socialism as an ideology defining the shape of the social system. The conviction that the economic situation was temporary was a commonly shared and most general social experience. Transition from conditional acceptance to radical rejection of socialism as an ideology defining the form of the social system meant, therefore, the acceptance of a totally new rationality determining profits and losses of individual actions in the social space. The acceptance of surrendering to the consequences of market mechanisms introduced by the government is in this situation more a moral choice than compliance with necessities having a socially obvious character. In Polish society accustomed to solidarism, the currently emerging political divisions are generating a feeling of being threatened rather than hope for political pluralism.
