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This study is devoted to recent developments in Central European (especially Polish) political thought, and concentrates on the emergence of liberal ideas, a subject largely neglected by Western observers. It provides a clear account of protoliberal and liberal thinking in Central Europe both before and after 1989, a critical appraisal of the democratic opposition to communism, and an analysis of economic liberalism as its rival orientation. The author examines the changes which occur in classical liberal ideas when they are implemented in a region with practically no liberal tradition and no socioeconomic infrastructure, and shows how liberal ideas in Central Europe are becoming constructivist, functioning as the ideological justification for a new kind of Utopian social engineering that aims at constructing capitalism.