Looking back, it's hard to imagine anyone supporting the Communist rule of Eastern Europe, and yet, at the time, there was a lot of support for Russia amongst Western Europe's intelligentsia. If you ever had a feeling of fondness towards the hammer and sickle, then this book will surely rid you of it.

Milosz, a Polish poet and novelist, lived through the harshest periods of the twentieth century, and here explains to the rest of us what life in a Communist regime is really like for the people who have to suffer it.

He takes four examples to illustrate his case - four poets and politicians who, for varying reasons, allowed themselves to bend and fall into line inside the Party. Theirs are the saddest stories, the bright lights of a generation needlessly, one would say now, dimmed.

Some of Milosz's writing is difficult to work through without a firm grounding in the vernacular of the Communist theory, so be warned. Keep a dictionary to hand, or better yet, an encyclopedia, but if you work through to the end, you will be pleased you did. ( )