Podgorecki presents his own participant observation of the political and organizational pressures that were exerted upon sociologists to produce dogmatically proper results to give a false diagnosis of social reality. He analyzes the roles of Polish sociologists as dissenters, observers, conformists, or eager agents of the rapid and imposed changes designed to bring about an alien communist utopia. Podgorecki synthesizes data pertinent to social changes during the period of real socialism and the new system of formal and informal stratification mainly based on the access to formal power and its shadow counterparts.

Finally, he discusses the social stratum of the intelligentsia, considered to be the vital link between the worker-based phenomenon of Solidarity and the traditional Polish ethos, and their intricate alliance that generated the sparks of the inflammatory revolution that changed the face of Europe. Recommended for scholars and students of sociology, political science, and East European studies.