The general does not tell all, but, spared official questioning when Parliament tilted away from his harshest critics, he talks openly about how he has changed, even to the point of developing an admiring friendship with Adam Michnik, the dissident hero he had sent to prison for six years. The story of how Mr. Michnik has been castigated by old allies for this friendship is one of dozens of motifs that Ms. Rosenberg develops to describe the tensions of Polish society. For his part Mr. Michnik could hardly have been surprised by the snubs, having earlier described such rancor as an ugly but inevitable stage of revolution. The struggle for freedom is beautiful. Anyone who has taken part in this struggle has felt, almost physically, how everything that is best and most precious within him was awakened.
Revenge has a different psychology.
Its logic is implacable. First there is a purge of yesterday's adversaries, the partisans of the old regime. Then comes the purge of yesterday's fellow oppositionists who now oppose the idea of revenge. Finally there is a purge of those who defend them. A psychology of vengeance and hatred develops.